Geoffrey S. Corn
ABSTRACT
It is the morning of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing. The phone rings in the Oklahoma City Police Department, and a duty officer answers. The caller says, “There’s a Ryder rental truck parked in front of the Murrah Federal Building with a massive bomb inside set to go off within one hour.” The caller then hangs up. The duty officer alerts all nearby patrol units, and within three minutes an officer confirms the presence of the Ryder truck. What should the police do next? What response would be reasonable? Does the law permit them to cordon the area, take control of the vehicle, and use bomb detection technology to penetrate into the truck in order to confirm or deny the tip? If so, what limits, if any, apply to the use of contraband they may find inside the truck as evidence in a subsequent trial?
preferred citation: Geoffrey S. Corn, Terrorism, Tips, and the Touchstone of Reasonableness: Seeking a Balance Between Threat Response and Privacy Dilution, 118 Penn St. L. Rev. 129 (2013).