40
Opinion of the Court
fered the additional interests of "the apprehension of stolen motor vehicles and of drivers under the influence of alcohol or narcotics" in its effort to justify the discretionary spot check. Id., at 659, n. 18. We attributed the entirety of the latter interest to the State's interest in roadway safety. Ibid. We also noted that the interest in apprehending stolen vehicles may be partly subsumed by the interest in roadway safety. Ibid. We observed, however, that "[t]he remaining governmental interest in controlling automobile thefts is not distinguishable from the general interest in crime control." Ibid. Not only does the common thread of highway safety thus run through Sitz and Prouse, but Prouse itself reveals a difference in the Fourth Amendment significance of highway safety interests and the general interest in crime control.
III
It is well established that a vehicle stop at a highway checkpoint effectuates a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See, e. g., Sitz, supra, at 450. The fact that officers walk a narcotics-detection dog around the exterior of each car at the Indianapolis checkpoints does not transform the seizure into a search. See United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 707 (1983). Just as in Place, an exterior sniff of an automobile does not require entry into the car and is not designed to disclose any information other than the presence or absence of narcotics. See ibid. Like the dog sniff in Place, a sniff by a dog that simply walks around a car is "much less intrusive than a typical search." Ibid. Cf. United States v. Turpin, 920 F. 2d 1377, 1385 (CA8 1990). Rather, what principally distinguishes these checkpoints from those we have previously approved is their primary purpose.
As petitioners concede, the Indianapolis checkpoint program unquestionably has the primary purpose of interdicting illegal narcotics. In their stipulation of facts, the parties repeatedly refer to the checkpoints as "drug checkpoints" and
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