The Constitution Limits the actions of Government. All authority and Rights not specifically granted to the Federal government belong to the people, or to the states to which the people have delegated limited authority. Those individual Rights specifically mentioned in the Constitution are not the only rights of the people. However, those are specific areas in which our founding fathers wanted to make sure there was no possibility of misunderstanding regarding the Rights of the people versus the Authority of the government.
Those Rights include being free from unreasonable search and seizure -- to be secure in one's person and papers. This puts a limit on when and how the government can search us or our property. Search warrants are required in most instances and can only be issued by a magistrate (judge) of competent jurisdiction and only when it involves a felony and specifies those things to be searched and the items expected to be found and seized during the search. Such warrants are only issued in criminal cases and someone, under penalty of perjury, must swear they have reasonable cause to believe that the items may be found at the premises to be searched. Officers may also conduct reasonable searches of a person when making an arrest to ascertain the arrestee is not armed or carrying other contraband.
If anyone tries to tell you that there is no guarantee of privacy in the Constitution, remind them of the Fourth Amendment's provision of the right to be secure in one's person and papers. You cannot be "secure" if you don't have a right to be private, secret or unexposed. Security of any type automatically means private!
With this in mind, one must ask how a state agricultural agent can get a search warrant to look for the gypsy moth in a car or camper traveling into California from Oregon? How can the Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) get a warrant to stop you on an Interstate Highway, 40 miles from the U.S./Mexico border and look your car over to decide if you might be hauling illegal aliens? How can a Game Warden search your vehicle looking for fish? Unless a State of Emergency is declared or they have probable cause -- or you volunteer to be searched, they cannot! The key word is VOLUNTEER!
You have a right to travel about freely in this country, from state to state, without harassment and interference by the government. Bureaucrats want to do their jobs as easily as possible and some do not care how many individual rights have to be twisted and circumvented to accomplish their tasks. For these purposes they have created, with consent of the U.S. Supreme Court, a thing called Administrative Search Warrants. Like the Administrative Courts the bureaucrats established to assist in controlling and intimidating the public, the Administrative Search Warrants require your Voluntary Cooperation or they would be in violation of the Constitution. Again, the rule is that you have to appear to volunteer for any such searches.
In the case of the Game Warden, when you purchased your hunting and fishing license you agreed to comply with the game warden's request to inspect your private property to make sure you are in compliance with the rules of the fish and game department.
To cause you to volunteer without actually violating the law, the INS has followed Court guidelines and established FIXED CHECKPOINTS on the Interstate system. The Court has ruled that the check points cannot be open all the time and there must be alternate routes for the public to take. In this way, the motoring public can be concluded to have "voluntarily driven the route where the INS checkpoint is established." Since you are there, you volunteered to let them "look you over." If the INS officers have any reasonable cause, they can ask you questions and check you out at a SECONDARY inspection, just as if you had just crossed the border into the United States from Tijuana or Juarez, Mexico.
They can legally tell you that they have a search warrant and suggest that it is better if you volunteer to open your trunk. What they do not say is that the "search warrant" is ADMINISTRATIVE and it requires your voluntary cooperation to make it effective.
Do not misunderstand -- the INS, Customs and Agriculture people have every right to inspect and search when someone is entering the United States from another country. It is only AFTER one is here that there is limited authority which is being abused. Customs, INS and similar agencies must have "reasonable cause" to stop anyone driving down an Interstate Freeway, even when they have not been out of the country -- unless they volunteer.
Along the Mexican border the INS is putting on more and more manpower to supposedly try and stem the flood of illegal aliens entering the country to "take away our jobs." If anyone is really concerned that illegal aliens might be taking American jobs, take a close look at where your car was manufactured. Where did your shirt come from? Who made your watch? Your TV set? Camera? We export far more jobs by buying foreign made products than those illegal wet-backs could ever take away.
To try and reduce the numbers who successfully make it up north where they can find work, the INS has established several permanent check points along some of the Interstate Freeways. Thousands of U.S. citizens are subjected to warning signs and "STOP" signs at these locations, as they drive in their own country.
Little orange pylons are placed across the highway, but not by the State Highway Department or the police. The pylons are placed, like the signs, by INS agents. In most cases, the motorist is only required to drive very slow and is waved on before they even bring their vehicle to a complete halt. The INS agent merely looks at your face and is supposed to determine from this if you are an illegal alien or a "coyote" (alien smuggler). This process is supposed to assist the INS in apprehending illegal aliens and most Americans accept this restriction of their freedoms as "a small violation" to suffer so the alien problem can be resolved.
But the problem is not being resolved! People are merely being conditioned to accept more and more government controls over their lives. They are being programmed to accept more "small violations" of the their Rights.
One INS Agent at a Checkpoint along Interstate 10 in New Mexico (part of the U.S.) displayed the typical bureaucrat attitude with the comment, "It may not be the original Bill of Rights, but what is anymore?"
What is truly amazing is the way the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "allowing" these road blocks. The Jurists acknowledged that the stops DO constitute "seizure" according to the Fourth Amendment, but they would "allow" them with certain restrictions! Allow? Who gave the Supreme Court authority to "Allow" a violation of the Constitution? But, the High Court Judges seemed to feel that the violations of citizen rights with checkpoints was a lesser evil than having Border Patrol officers stopping suspicious vehicles at random -- which the Judges had previously declared illegal.
The Governors of each state where these checkpoints are established could order them removed from the state controlled highways and rights of way. The INS is abusing the police powers of the states by putting up traffic pylons and STOP signs on the highways. State government is responsible for establishing traffic control on all of it's roads and highways. The Federal government has no such authority.
I objected to such a procedure at one check point on Interstate 10, about 30 miles from the U.S.-Mexican border. The three INS officers tried to justify such stops with double-talk figures of 100,000 illegal aliens, and then 30,000 illegal aliens being apprehended. Eventually, they admitted that their particular checkpoint only affected the arrests of 10 to 12 illegal aliens a week. It takes 20 full-time Border Patrol/INS agents to man that station. The arrest rate of illegals at the Las Cruces, N.M., checkpoint amounted to less than one per agent per week. They could do better on horseback riding along the border instead of violating the rights of U.S. motorists as they drive down the freeways the paid for with gasoline taxes.
Then the officers acknowledged that some of the illegals were OTM's (Other Than Mexican) the INS had detained at the checkpoint. Most of those 10 or 12 illegal aliens were British, French, Italian, German, or some other visitors or students who had "overstayed their visas." The visiting privileges could have been renewed very easily if the visitors had noticed. Since the Visas were not renewed, the INS "caught some real illegal aliens" in their Checkpoint.
When the Supreme Court ruled that the check points must not be operated continuously and there must be an alternate route to avoid the checkpoint, those Jurists rationalized that we could then be considered to have "voluntarily driven into these Checkpoints" (See Court Ruling U.S. v Martinez-Fuerte). I decided to try driving the alternate route around the busiest of these INS roadblocks (Interstate 5 between San Diego and Los Angeles). The alternate route took almost three hours driving over back roads. After 79 miles of driving, I ended up on Interstate 15, just north of another INS Checkpoint. True, I had managed to retain my right to travel without being harassed by the INS, but I do not consider driving 79 miles out of the way and then another 80 miles back to Interstate 5 as a Valid Alternative to the roadblocks.
In the arguments before the Supreme Court to substantiate the need for such road blocks, the INS said (and the Court believed) that if everyone had to drive slow, as they do on the back highways and roads, the INS Patrols could look the vehicles and occupants over without having to stop them. During the 79-mile jaunt on some very scenic back roads, not one INS Patrol car was found. The big van I was driving could have been loaded with illegal Mexican Aliens and not one INS agent was to be found -- except at the Checkpoints VOLUNTARILY entered by U.S. citizens and a few really uninformed Mexican aliens who do not know the back road is free of INS agents.
It is doubtful that there is one Supreme Court jurist who can honestly say that such a circuitous route, 150 miles out of the way, does not VIOLATE the rights of the people to travel, free of government interference. Illegal Mexican Aliens may be a serious problem, but the Big Brother checkpoints do not solve the problem. The numbers migrating into the U.S. have increased dramatically over the many years those CONTROL STATIONS have been hassling American citizens.
The solution to the problem is to restart the Bracero Program again and issue Green Cards to permit the Mexican Nationals to enter the country legally to work at jobs our own people will not take. The problems we have today started when the Bracero program was halted. When someone is issued a Green Card, they must agree to refuse to work alongside of, or socialize with, anyone they know to be in the country illegally. That will stop most of the illegal aliens from Mexico.
The Green Card holders will not want to lose their status and they will do the INS's work for them. Also, most illegal aliens who come to the U.S. from Mexico have someone who is already in this country who will help them find a place to live and a job. Green Card holders would not help them, and many would rather wait in Mexico for a Green Card than to take a chance of entering illegally and never being able to get legal permission. The INS will argue that they are issuing the coveted Green Cards, but applicants have to wait more than 6 months to get one. During that time they have to live in cardboard boxes in the crowded border towns where jobs are non-existent.
Solutions are simple to many of the problems we face. Only the incompetent person will demand that the people surrender their rights to solve the problem. The 1986 Immigration Act was another example of disregard for the future effects of a law. That Act of Congress rewarded thousands of illegal aliens by granting them amnesty and allowing them to qualify for citizenship. It also made it a felony for any employer to knowingly hire an illegal alien. That now means that employers are subject to arrest and civil sanctions (arbitrated fines) if they have not secured satisfactory identification from each of their employees. The only SATISFACTORY ID will have to be some form of National Identity Card. In the Communist and totalitarian countries they called it a Worker's Permit Card. In Nazi Germany it was a National Identity Card.
Solutions can also be found to curb illegal drug smuggling and abuse. The problem can be solved by legalizing and controlling the use of the drugs at affordable prices. When the huge profits are removed, few will be inclined to "push" the drugs to school kids. People who are addicted will not have to rob and steal to get their daily fix -- they can work and buy it at the drug store or get their injections from a physician.
Another solution is to turn all the old military bases into paradise for addicts. Let them come on the base and have all the drugs they want with just a few stipulations: They make out their WILL; they watch a short movie showing them what can happen if they get all the drugs they want; they acknowledge an alternative service which is offered to help them get clean; they acknowledge that they will have a smorgasbord of drugs and if they over-dose, there will be no care given -- they will be allowed to die; the only way they leave is dead or take the cure and be clean!
The solution is to take the profits out of drugs. Thousands of men and women have fought wars and died to preserve our Rights and liberty. Now we are expected to surrender those Rights because some pusher wants a profit and some jerk wants to take the drugs -- let some drug addicts die to preserve our Rights!
With all the billions of dollars spent since 1954 (the year the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was formed) and all the man power wasted, the problem has not been solved. It is actually worse today. Big Brother controls on the movements and actions of citizens is not the answer. Not only has the drug problem grown, many of the Drug Enforcement Agents (working undercover) have helped it to grow and have reaped huge profits from it. You cannot have all that money floating around without corrupting cops, judges and politicians.
Everyone is anxious to stop criminal activity, but when the illegal drug industry is responsible for more than 50% of all property crimes and murders, it becomes obvious that we need a different approach or continue to surrender our Rights!

for documents on rulings

Checkpoint: Search Warrants