ACLU hopes to block ferry searches of cars

Associated Press | October 5 2004

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Monday that asks a federal judge to block security searches of vehicles and luggage on ferries crossing Lake Champlain between Vermont and New York.

The ACLU argues that the searches, mandated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard under a federal law that took effect in July, violate the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches.

Although random searches of airline passengers are warranted by a real threat, there is no such threat to passengers on the Lake Champlain ferries, said Allen Gilbert, director of the Vermont chapter of the ACLU.

"This one strikes us as a suspicionless search, an unnecessary and real intrusion," Gilbert said.

Carol Shea, chief of the civil division at the U.S. Attorney's office in Burlington, refused to comment, but said the office would respond in the coming weeks once it reviews the lawsuit.

Lake Champlain Transportation Co. operates nine ferries that carry 150 to 375 people across the lake.

With Coast Guard approval, ferry company employees search the trunks of randomly chosen vehicles and the carry-on baggage of walk-on passengers, the suit said.

Most people do not complain, said company operations manager Heather Stewart. "It's just like the airlines," she said.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of an attorney from Colchester who commutes by ferry four times a week to work in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and allowed his vehicle to be searched only after he was told he would not be allowed to board the vessel if he did not, the complaint said. A one-way trip from Colchester to Plattsburgh by ferry is about 10 to 20 minutes, but on land it would take about two hours longer.

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