"Homeland security" exception to the Fourth Amendment - Worth Noting - Brief Article

Humanist, May-June, 2002 by Karen Ann Gajewski

* Not all news is bad, however. On March 7, 2002, a Massachusetts state court rejected the commonwealth's attempt to create a new "homeland security" exception to the Fourth Amendment guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures." Commonwealth v. Carkhuff was brought by the ACLU of Massachusetts on behalf of David Carkhuff, a motorist who was stopped and later arrested by police this past October while driving on a public road near a local reservoir.

While the state conceded that Carkhuff had done nothing wrong, it justified the interrogation due to a general fax warning of a "credible threat" against the United States. Judge David Ross of Westfield District Court held, however, that "recognition of such a broad homeland security exception would constitute a sea change in constitutional law."