ABSTRACT
Early in January 2014, Floridian John Filippidis and his family were traveling home after visiting family in New Jersey. After passing through the Fort McHenry Tunnel on Interstate 95 in Baltimore, a Maryland Port Authority patrol car pulled over the Filippidis’s SUV without any articulable reasonable suspicion (the minimum legal standard required for any police car stop). They were questioned about owning a gun, detained, and searched, their car contents were emptied-searched on the cold roadway-and after approximately 90 minutes to 2 hours of detention, they were released. What would prompt the Maryland Transportation Authority Police (MTAP) to randomly select their vehicle? The answer is alarming and chilling to any American concerned about his or her constitutional right to travel state to state without being detained, searched, and frisked by law enforcement officers.
