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Authors ›› O'Connor
Whether respondents ever had a privacy interest in the packages reeking of marihuana is debatable. We have previously observed that certain containers may not support a reasonable expectation of privacy because their contents can be inferred from their outward appearance...
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We do not suggest that police officers may indefinitely retain possession of a vehicle and its contents before they complete a vehicle search. [...] Nor do we foreclose the possibility that the owner of a vehicle or its contents might attempt to prove that delay in the completion of a vehicle search was unreasonable because it adversely affected a privacy or possessory interest.
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This Court, as the dissent correctly observes, is not empowered to suspend constitutional guarantees so that the Government may more effectively wage a "war on drugs." If that war is to be fought, those who fight it must respect the rights of individuals, whether or not those individuals are suspected of having committed a crime. By the same token, this Court is not empowered to forbid law enforcement practices simply because it considers them distasteful.
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We adhere to the rule that, in order to determine whether a particular encounter constitutes a seizure, a court must consider all the circumstances surrounding the encounter to determine whether the police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that the person was not free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. That rule applies to encounters that take place on a city street or in an airport lobby, and it applies equally to encounters on a bus.
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Today, the Court [permits] a school district with a drug problem its superintendent repeatedly described as "not . . . major," to test the urine of an academic team member solely by reason of her participation in a nonathletic, competitive extracurricular activity -- participation associated with neither special dangers from, nor particular predilections for, drug use.
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