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GIJoe,

You are making a few mistakes in your argument that need to be cleared up. The first and most important is what the Foruth Amendment says. The whole Constitution, with all of its amendments, is only a couple pages long. The page you quoted is neither the constitution nor the law. It is instead a textbook explanation of several viewpoints on the Constitution and the related cases. Many times, this is called an annotated version. It is important to realize the difference between the limited wording of the actual law and the annotations explaining court cases.

The second point to be cleared up is exactly what we are discussing. You are correct about the current state of the law and what it allows in the way of Coast Guard searches. You are somewhat correct about the case you are referring to and what it ruled. What people are discussing here, as I understand it, is not what the current state of the law is but what it should be. We are generally discussing the reasonability of the Coast Guard search. As I was saying earlier, this is much more of an academic discussion of how we feel than what we think anyone should or could do.

With that cleared up, let me state that the current law, as you referred to it, is on the face of it unconstitutional, IMO. The case you referred to does not contradict me fully, but allows for a limited stop of vehicles for "documentation" checks. Much of this is deeply rooted in history and is probably always going to be reasonable in the eyes of the court. For example, no one here is disagreeing about a border check. I even agreed that if I had crossed the border, a customs type check would be reasonable. I went further and stipulated that if I had gone near enough to international waters to meet with someone who had crossed the border, a stop of my boat might be very reasonable for a customs inspection.

But the law allows for much more than a border check or a documentation check. It specifically allows any boat to be stopped for any search at any time and in any location. This is a violation of the Fourth Amendment as far as I can determine it by being too broad. For example, if I have a small 17' canoe that I am using in the summer on the Missouri river near Leavenworth Kansas, the law would allow the Coast guard to stop me and search my vessel at random, with no probable cause nor suspicion. This is not just a documentation check. This is not a border check. This is just a random search of my personal property for no reason. BTW, I chose this location because there is a Coast Guard unit stationed there. The same would be true if I were in Canyon Lake outside of San Antonio with a 21' ski boat.

I think that this is an area that is just waiting for the right circumstances to be challenged to the SCOTUS. And, as a former MP and a retired Texas Peace Officer, I know that many court cases are based on the very specific circumstances of the case and can overturn a previous case. It would appear that the previous case was based on a documentation check (or the report was written that way). In the OP's case, if we assume that running the serial number had found the weapon to be stolen, there is a good chance that the search would have been ruled unconstitutional as having exceeded the reasonableness of the documentation check.

The question is not which statute applies, but if the statute meets the requirements of the 4th Amendment. That applies to ALL governmental actions and forbids unreasonable searches.

And that is the real key to this debate. Are the current searches, as performed by the Coast Guard reasonable or not? On the face of it, this law (14 USC 89) would appear to violate the Constitution by allowing a search for evidence of a crime with no need to show any reasonable suspicion or probable cause. If this were ever questioned in a court and appealed all the way up, the SCOTUS might as easily rule either way on the law. Much of it would depend on the contact type and details, especially if it was in waters where the boat could have crossed the international border (or met someone who did).

But, we do get to discuss these things and debate them as any citizen might. And we get to render our opinions on the law. As long as everyone recognizes that this is an academic discussion and not something anyone can base actions or legal arguments on, everything is OK.