Sorry, but when it comes to Coast Guard boardings, you don’t have any rights.
I’m surprised how many boaters don’t know this. The US Coast Guard can board your boat any time they want, and look anywhere they want, without probable cause or a warrant. They can do this on the open sea, or while you’re asleep aboard in your marina at midnight. They can look through your bedsheets, in your lockers, in your bilges, in your jewelry box, or in your pockets. They can do it carrying just their sidearms, or they can do it carrying assault rifles. They can be polite about it or they can be rude, but mostly they’re polite.
First, your rights don't disappear while you are being boarded. That opening line is pure sensationalism. The CG's authority is the ability to search, examine, arrest, seize, inspect and inquire. More than 90% of the boardings we do fall under the Recreational Boating Safety category. The goal of RBS is to educate, and to save lives. When conducting an RBS boarding the BO can inspect required safety gear such as life jackets, lights, signaling device, etc. The BO CANNOT look through your bedsheets, lockers or your pockets. If something like a valve on your holding tank is in a locker under a sink they can look in the locker to make sure the valve is closed. This is an INSPECTION, not a search for evidence or the fruits of a crime. The penalty for safety gear violations is civil, not criminal, and is often waived if the boater can provide proof (a recept) that the violation has been fixed.
If I am going to search then I either have to have probable cause that a crime has been committed, a warrant, or I am searching for a known weapon or a missing person. There are a couple of exceptions to this. One is that we have been tasked with a customs inspection. All CG Boarding Officers have customs officer authority. If the vessel is entering US waters the vessel is subject to a border search. Those searches have been declared reasonable by the Supreme Court.
They are a police force and a military force at the same time. That has always rubbed me the wrong way, on top of their warrantless searches.
Except we can't do warrantless searches. We also aren't a police force although we are an LE agency. ANd a Search and Rescue organization. And we do environmental response, maintain aids to navigation, have national defense tasking, etc.
We were heading out a few years ago on a friends boat. Good 10 miles of dead slow/no wake till we get out to sea. We got pulled over 3 times. First was local popo, then staties, then coasties.
Same thing with the first 2, got life jackets, fire extinguisher, bla bla bla.
Told the coasties we have already been checked twice in the last 15 minutes. Guy hopped over and stuck a coast guard inspected or something or other sticker on either side of the boat. Said have a nice day and chances are they won't stop us again unless we were doing stupid.
Happens here all the time. I have a quota for boardings. The sheriff's dept. has a boat on the water 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for most of the summer. We try to conduct joint boardings to cut down on the number of times you get pulled over. When I argue against quotas I am arguing with officers who generally don't have the operational experience that I have. Their world and their OER's are driven by metrics. Complaining to your congressmen will
possibly get their attention.
