WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide if border officers can
randomly search gas tanks of vehicles coming into the country, security measures
the Bush administration argued are important in the war on drugs and terrorism.
An appeals court had said that officers can visually inspect gas tanks but not dismantle them unless they have reason to suspect wrongdoing.
Critics, including the White House, argued that the decision would make it easier to sneak weapons, drugs and even people into America. On the other side, lawyers said it's unconstitutionally intrusive and potentially hazardous for vehicles to be taken apart at border stops.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson told the court that gas tank discoveries account for about a fourth of the drug seizures along Southern California's border.
"The government's interest also extends to the prevention of smuggling of aliens and of bombs, explosives or other implements of terrorism that likewise may be concealed in gas tanks," Olson wrote in a filing.
Justices will schedule arguments next year in the case of Manuel Flores-Montano, whose station wagon was searched at the Otay Mesa Port in California in February 2002. After a mechanic removed the gas tank, officers found about 81 pounds of marijuana bricks.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that the government could not use the marijuana as evidence because the search was unconstitutional.
Flores-Montano's lawyer, John Lemon, said the Bush administration was overstating the threat of terrorist smugglers using gas tanks.
There is no proof, Lemon wrote in filings, that gas-tank rulings by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, or any other court, "in any way circumscribe the nation's ability to defend itself."
Lemon said appeals courts in New Orleans and Denver had reached similar conclusions.
The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Supreme Court has held that people entering the United States can be subjected to routine searches without suspicion.
At issue here is whether such gas-tank searches are routine or whether reasonable suspicion is required before a search.
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