It is my understanding that a law enforcement officer cannot search my car unless I give him or her permission, or they have a reasonable suspicion that my car contains contraband. Yet when I’m on a boat, the Coast Guard can pull me over and conduct a search for any reason or no reason. How did this come about?
Customs Enforcement Statutes make it legal… in much the same way you can be searched at an airport.
I use the airport example when boaters wonder why. Planes, bags and people… it’s search time whenever they want it to be… and all agencies at sea operate the same way. Boats, boxes, people… whatever. It’s search time whenever they want it to be.
I believe when you license/register your boat, in doing so you agree to the above.
.
Also - they need probable cause to search your car, not reasonable suspicion. (Other ways they could search it? Consent, inventory searches, search incident to arrest, etc.)
Department of Homeland Security is getting aboard as well. I used to kayak under a bridge and relax in the shade for a bit. That’s illegal now.
It doesn’t appear to be illegal - just you should expect law enforcement officials to board your kayak should you try it.
If they do, please video it and post it here. Any attempt to board a kayak would surely be hilarious…
What if you actually live on house boat? No 4th amendment rights for you either?
It’s hard for me to imagine that being enforced in the places where I usually kayak.
Same here, but we occasionally paddle the three rivers in downtown Pittsburgh, and folks are all abuzz with the news.
IANAL but to the best of my knowledge and experience you cannot be searched at an airport without cause except for when you pass through security screening. You submit to that voluntarily as a condition of commercial air travel. That is much different than tooling along in your boat and being boarded by the Coast Guard (which, BTW, is part of DHS) without any cause.
Wasn’t there some hoopla recently about being able to be searched anywhere in the secure area?
When you register your vessel (as I said, but was omitted), you submit to the conditions of search.
They don’t “disappear”, they may be subject to a so called “minimal intrusion” of a brief seizure. I keyed in something like; watercraft + fourth amendment search; or such and retrieved this, by happenstance it is an ohio case, I live in Ohio.
{¶ 1} This is an appeal from the Perry County Municipal Court involving the question whether a state park officer can stop a boat to conduct a safety inspection without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/oh-court-of-appeals/1272926.html
Houseboats are normally moored in one location for long periods of time, and only occasionally moved. The OP is talking about a situation with a boat on the high seas, crossing a border into the country. Quite different.
There used to be a community of houseboats, moored on the river near St. Paul, Minnesota. A policeman friend told me one time about doing a search of one of those. They applied to a Judge and got a search warrant, just like any other house. They weren’t sure if that was required, but wanted to make sure anything they found would be valid evidence in court. (Actually, they didn’t find anything in this case.)
If you are actually approaching the United States from the sea, this certainly makes sense. Other than that, what difference does it make if you live on a (stationary) houseboat in Long Island Sound (where the Coast Guard may or may not have an eye on you) or on a houseboat on a river in St. Paul?