welcome back once again to the civil rights lawyer Channel this fantastic submission video
was sent in by cynical zombie and it's very well done the footage is great but the question
he poses is even better here's what he found the Chicago Police doing earlier this week
on a public bike and pedestrian pathway police in Chicago set up this checkpoint at the exit
of a pedestrian bridge as well as a tunnel to just subject everyone to the search of
their bags for what they said was alcohol or firearms and doing so without reasonable
suspicion that any crime was committed without probable cause and of course without a search
warrant is that legal take a look at the sweet video and then I'll see if I can answer that
question [Music]
hey John let me start by saying I'm a huge fan of your channel thank you for everything
you do for the last couple years I've had a small YouTube channel where my wife and
I would explore bike trails all over Illinois and Wisconsin every single video I make is
basically brought to you by the First Amendment my right to record in public this is the 23rd
of May a Tuesday afternoon uh just past 2 p.m my wife and I took a day off of work to
ride the Chicago Lakefront Trail we just left Lincoln Park Zoo and we're making our way
back to the lakefront Trail so we could head towards Navy Pier there's only so many ways
you could get from one side of Lake Shore Drive to the other side of Lake Shore Drive
so the closest one for us was this bridge right here this bridge leads to North Avenue
beach and right to the lakefront Trail what I didn't realize is the Chicago police are
waiting for everybody on the other side of the bridge I'll start the video from the Lincoln
Park side of the bridge so you guys could see this sign here we'll get a closer look
at it on the other side first just real quick let me say say thank you to yougov for sponsoring
this video yougov is free to join and it's so easy to use to gain extra cash as a member
you'll earn points for giving your actual opinions on things that matter by completing
short surveys and polls yougov has polls and surveys about politics pop culture products
and Brands I can give my opinion on topics that matter to me and get paid to do it it's
easy so I do surveys while waiting for remote Court hearings when I'm forced to just sit
there in front of a computer and wait why not earn some extra cash while also keeping
myself busy yougov is a great life hack and a great side hustle in fact I bought some
cigars with my extra cash let me show you how easy it is to take a survey or poll it's
just a couple of clicks and then you just answer the questions it's that easy and it's
a great way to pass time again when you're stuck in front of a screen anyways and one
of the things I like about yougov is that it asks you what you're most interested in
so that you're not sitting there taking surveys and polls about topics that you don't like
click my link in the bio and take surveys to earn cash on yougov thanks again to yougov
for sponsoring this video
foreign
[Music]
right
okay please have no right to invest to go through evidence property well that's the
Fourth Amendment right exactly and these two guys are violating everyone's rights everybody
wants to hear that it's horrific property so we have you have you need probable cause
miserable code right there you need probable you can't you can't you can't overturn the
federal government Jesus
[Music] now she's ready it's all she's 100 right back I just told them we're trying to
get back on the trail
we would have gone back on the bridge I would never have let them search my bags first off
in my opinion that lady is a hero it seems to me it violates the Fourth Amendment Am
I Wrong later we go back into Lincoln Park for dinner and on our way back I wanted to
avoid the bridge so we took the tunnel to the South instead what I didn't realize is
the Chicago police were waiting for everybody on the other side
foreign
[Music]
[Music] so after those two police interactions neither of us had our bags searched but we
witnessed multiple people having their bags searched the two locations where we interacted
with the police are not just strictly Beach entrances they both give you access to the
walking trail and to the biking trail so the question I have is is this a violation of
the Fourth Amendment if this is a violation of the Fourth Amendment what can be done about
it let me know what you think thanks John so is this constitutional you have people
that are going through this bridge or crossing this pedestrian walkway and encountering police
officers who have no indication or information that these individuals have committed any
crime at all so there's no Reasonable Suspicion to detain them there's no probable cause to
arrest them yet the signs and the activities of law enforcement show that they're going
to be searched anyways is that legal the fourth amendment requires that any search of a person
or property by the government has to be reasonable and a government search that lacks a particularized
warrant that's issued by a judge upon a showing of probable cause is presumed to be unreasonable
and therefore unconstitutional there is an exception for something called administrative
searches and that's what you'll find when you go into an airport or a courthouse and
you get your bank searched could that apply here so a warrantless administrative search
can be held to be constitutional but the burden is on the government to show that a search
like this is in furtherance of some specific and legitimate non-criminal investigation
goal and that it's not more extensive or invasive than necessary to meet that goal so it can't
give discretion to the police officers doing the searching to just do what he wants and
it can't have some other collateral purpose of collecting criminal evidence but without
a warrant people can be lawfully stopped at roadside checkpoints for detecting drunk driving
or driving without a license or even illegal hunting governor employees and students can
be lawfully searched without a warrant including through drug testing closely regulated businesses
for instance Firearms alcohol Etc can be subject to periodic inspection without a warrant airplane
passengers can have their luggage opened and their bodies patted down without a warrant
but the Supreme Court has addressed this and has said that there has to be some public
safety risk that is substantial and real if they're going to conduct these sorts of searches
for instance the Supreme Court has has said this can happen at the entrances to courts
airports and other official buildings the courts will look at the motive one of the
few areas of this sort of litigation where the courts will address the actual motives
of the government and Performing these sorts of searches so if the motive is at all related
to collecting evidence of criminal wrongdoing then it's unconstitutional so if they just
set up a checkpoint in public somewhere for instance at a bike pathway tunnel exits the
government would have the burden of explaining why searching people at that point would be
constitutional they would have to point to some evidence that there's some specific real
and substantial safety threat that these searches are designed to avoid and even if they do
that remember it still has to be reasonable so even where they've been held to allowance
even where the courts have allowed this to happen such as airports and courthouses they're
not just allowed to do whatever they want they can't just strip search everybody coming
in the building they can't necessarily just search the bag of everybody coming in the
building it has to be no more extensive or invasive than necessary utilizing current
technology that's why you have the X-ray machines the metal detectors so if if those are available
to the government then that's what they're supposed to be doing if they're going to do
these warrantless suspicion list searches so in this case they clearly we're not using
current technology assuming that the courts would would go along with that it's still
they still would have to show that it's reasonable because there's some specific problem are
they doing it in a reasonable way well we do have x-ray technology we do have metal
detector technology are they using that or are they just stopping and searching through
the bags of everybody and also is there any evidence of an ulterior motive in collecting
evidence of criminal wrongdoing so they're looking for firearms and Chicago has strict
Firearms laws are they looking to enforce those Firearms laws maybe there's laws against
bringing alcohol onto this particular Beach are they looking to collect evidence that
that people are violating those laws I do think there's a case to be made here a very
good one that these particular searches do violate the fourth amendment in the way that
they're being carried out and also just by the fact that they exist of course government
can always detain somebody if they have reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred and they
can search a pedestrian or somebody on a bike if they have probable cause the question here
is where they don't have probable cause or Reasonable Suspicion and they just search
everybody who's coming in so it's a very interesting issue I don't see a whole lot of case law
on it out there if you find something really you know that's more applicable here please
send it my way this is definitely something that I'm I'm looking at in relation to some
other activities for instance here in West Virginia if you go to the Hatfield McCoy trails
where you can ride for miles and miles on a side by side and this happened to me personally
they set up these checkpoints the game wardens will set up these checkpoints and they will
come over and they'll check your cooler to see if you have any beer in it not because
they have any information or indication that you have beer but they're just doing it because
they're the government and that's what they think that they can do I have serious questions
about the constitutionality of that this also brings up another potential issue and that
could be consent or implied consent some of the people who are being searched here could
be arguably consenting to the search however when a police officer with a gun on their
side is asking if they can search through your bag there's a very good case to be made
that you can't consent under those circumstances because it's coercive at least not without
more and perhaps why that's why they have the signs up but really for this to be a valid
consent to a search they would have to be advised of their rights that they have the
right to say no for instance because a lot of people would would think they don't have
the right to say no there could be an issue of implied consent and I've thought about
that with the with the ATV trail issues perhaps you're consenting somewhere in the paperwork
when you get the permit or through the signs that you see when you enter the premises to
having your cooler search for beer I don't know haven't spent all that much time on it
obviously but this definitely is an interesting issue that I think that will see more of so
thanks again for the Fantastic submission I really did enjoy that great great footage
a lot better than mine great camera quality please keep sending them I really appreciate
it and if you'd like to go through cases like this and discuss interesting constitutional
issues Please Subscribe both here and at the blog at the Civil Rights lawyer.com remember
freedom is scary deal with it foreign [Music]