Thurgood Marshall

“ It seems rather incongruous at this point in the world's history that we find totalitarian states becoming more like our free society while we in this nation are taking on their former trappings of suppressed liberties and freedoms. ”

“ Unlike passengers confronted by law-enforcement officials on a bus stopped temporarily at an intermediate point in its journey, workers approached by law-enforcement officials at their workplace need not abandon personal belongings and venture into unfamiliar environs in order to avoid unwanted questioning. ”

“ It is exactly because this "choice" is no "choice" at all that police engage this technique.
In my view, the Fourth Amendment clearly condemns the suspicionless, dragnet-style sweep of intrastate or interstate buses. Withdrawing this particular weapon from the government's drug-war arsenal would hardly leave the police without any means of combatting the use of buses as instrumentalities of the drug trade. The police would remain free, for example, to approach passengers whom they have a reasonable, articulable basis to suspect of criminal wrongdoing. ”

“ There is no reason to expect that such requirements would render the Nation's buses law-enforcement-free zones.
The majority attempts to gloss over the violence that today's decision does to the Fourth Amendment with empty admonitions. "If th [e] [war on drugs] is to be fought," the majority intones, "those who fight it must respect the rights of individuals, whether or not those individuals are suspected of having committed a crime." Ante, at 439. The majority's actions, however, speak louder than its words. ”

“ Typically under this technique, a group of state or federal officers will board a bus while it is stopped at an intermediate point on its route. Often displaying badges, weapons or other indicia of authority, the officers identify themselves and announce their purpose to intercept drug traffickers. They proceed to approach individual passengers, requesting them to show identification, produce their tickets, and explain the purpose of their travels. Never do the officers advise the passengers that they are free not to speak with the officers. ”

“ I agree that the appropriate question is whether a passenger who is approached during such a sweep "would feel free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter." Ante, possibly suggest an affirmative answer to this question.
The majority reverses what it characterizes as the Florida Supreme Court's "per se rule" against suspicionless encounters between the police and bus passengers, see ante, at 433, 435-440, suggesting only in dictum its "doubt" that a seizure occurred on the facts of this case, see ante, at 2388. ”