Sniffing Out Drunk Drivers

A new weapon against drunk drivers that administers a breath alcohol test without a driver's knowledge has civil libertarians wondering if the effort to prevent DWI is running down civil rights.

The device is called the "sniffer," an alcohol sensor that's cleverly built into a police flashlight. All the driver has to do is breathe, and if even small amounts of alcohol are present, the sensor shows it.

CBS News Correspondent Stephanie Lambidakis reports that the fact that the driver is totally unaware doesn't bother Jarel Kelsey one bit. His Virginia company built the sniffer to be sneaky and sensitive.

"It begins to show the presence of alcohol at very low concentrations down around a .01 percent," he said, and when alcohol is detected bars on the flashlight grip light up.

He also makes a clipboard sensor that's especially good in the daytime, allowing police to write a ticket and check someone's breath at the same time.

Kelsey has sold the devices in half the states and can't keep up with demand.

Officers in Columbus, Ohio recently stopped a man for allegedly driving drunk, and nabbed him with their new secret weapon. He never knew it was there.

"It takes the place of my nose and is able to smell the alcohol when my sinuses are acting up and I can't smell it," said Franklin City Sheriff's Deputy Doug Warner

While police departments love them, civil libertarians see them as a gross invasion of privacy.

"We are worried about the big brother, sort of stealthy aspects of this testing," said Arthur Spitzer of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But federal highway safety officials have endorsed them and Mother's Against Drug Driving (MADD) and Nationwide Insurance Company like them so much they're even donating them to police departments that can't afford the $600 price tag.

And cops say that secrecy isn't the purpose of the sniffer. In fact, the more people who know about them the better, say police, if that means fewer drunk drivers will get behind the wheels of automobiles.

Kelsey's company, PAS Systems International, calls the sniffer a "Non-Invasive Alcohol Screening Instrument" and claims it can deliver accurate tests results if a suspect talks near it for just four seconds.

But it is intended for use not merely by law enforcement but also by employers: PAS Systems states that the sniffer "has successfully been used in construction and other industries to detect and discourage on-the-job alcohol abuse."

However, the company stresses that the sniffer "is not an evidential test and its results should not be presented as such."

According to the Natinal Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly 18 percent of drivers in fatal crashes in 1998 were drunk, the latest year for which figures are available. That was down from 21 percent in 1993.