New Gadget Sniffs Out Drunken Drivers August 15, 2000
News Summary
A battery-powered device on the end of a flashlight is helping police identify drunken drivers, but some say the device violates Fourth Amendment rights, the Associated Press reported Aug. 13.The P.A.S. III Sniffer is used by police throughout the United States at sobriety checkpoints. As officers hold the illuminated end of a flashlight six inches from the driver's face, and the device sucks in the driver's breath and analyzes it for traces of alcohol.
"We like what we're doing," said Jarel R. Kelsey, president of PAS Systems International, the manufacturers of the Sniffer. "There's a well-established need for this technology. You just have to look at the statistics on alcohol-related traffic deaths."
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, alcohol-related crashes made up 38.4 percent of all traffic deaths in the United States in 1998.
While civil-liberties groups agree that efforts to get drunken drivers off the road is a worthy cause, they say it shouldn't be done at the expense of privacy. The groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Sniffer is an invasion of privacy and a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
"They're reaching into your vehicle with an electronic device," said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a civil-liberties group based in Charlottesville, Va. "That's the sort of thing you expect in Eastern Bloc countries or Communist China, not the United States."
The constitutionality of the Sniffer has never been tested in court, but Kelsey said the legality of it falls under the "plain sight doctrine." The doctrine allows police officers to make observations with their senses. Kelsey contends that the doctrine applies whether officers collect air samples with their unaided nose or with the Sniffer.
"The big advantage is they're able to detect alcohol in the air where an officer may not for one or more reasons," said Jerry Stemler, coordinator of anti-drunken driving programs for the Fairfax County police department. He stressed that nobody is arrested based solely on a positive reading by the Sniffer.
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