52
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
reasonable because they serve the substantial interests of preventing drunken driving and checking for driver's licenses and vehicle registrations with minimal intrusion on motorists.
Once the constitutional requirements for a particular seizure are satisfied, the subjective expectations of those responsible for it, be it police officers or members of a city council, are irrelevant. Cf. Scott v. United States, 436 U. S. 128, 136 (1978) ("Subjective intent alone . . . does not make otherwise lawful conduct illegal or unconstitutional"). It is the objective effect of the State's actions on the privacy of the individual that animates the Fourth Amendment. See Bond v. United States, 529 U. S. 334, 338, n. 2 (2000) (applying Whren to determine if an officer's conduct amounted to a "search" under the Fourth Amendment because "the issue is not his state of mind, but the objective effect of his actions"). Because the objective intrusion of a valid seizure does not turn upon anyone's subjective thoughts, neither should our constitutional analysis.4
With these checkpoints serving two important state interests, the remaining prongs of the Brown v. Texas balancing test are easily met. The seizure is objectively reasonable as it lasts, on average, two to three minutes and does not involve a search. App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a. The subjective intrusion is likewise limited as the checkpoints are clearly marked and operated by uniformed officers who are directed to stop every vehicle in the same manner. Ibid. The only difference between this case and Sitz is the presence of the dog. We have already held, however, that a "sniff test" by a trained narcotics dog is not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because it does not require physical intrusion of the object being sniffed and it does not ex-4 Of course we have looked to the purpose of the program in analyzing the constitutionality of certain suspicionless searches. As discussed in Part II, infra, that doctrine has never been applied to seizures of automobiles.
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