Being that you willingly admit to consuming illegal drugs, I would deem that if an authority came up to you and asked to search you, that his request would be reasonable.
Nah, that's horsedung. Whether something is reasonable in the eyes of the law is irrelevant to any developed sense of right and wrong. It's unreasonable to enforce an unreasonable law, and I'll be stubborn as hell in holding to that position. To take an extreme example, "I was just following orders" wasn't an effective excuse at the Nuremburg trials for good reason. There are certain fundamental laws, not all of them being written or even necessarily spoken, that transcend all others. "Do no harm to someone who does no harm" is certainly one of them, and that the police disobey this law regularly makes them unreasonable in my eyes. If an authority wants to search me they better have a warrant.
The Patriot Act doesn't affect you in that example, because unless you happened to have had a nuclear device in that bag, I doubt that he thought you were a terrorist.
I could have a nuclear device in my bag and not be suspected of terrorism... as a white male I'd say I'm pretty safe, actually. I could
not have a nuclear device in my bag and be quite unsafe if I fit the racial profile of a terrorist and was acting 'suspiciously'.
There's a Canadian named Maher Arar who they thought was a terrorist... for basically no reason at all, he had spent some time in Afghanistan under the Taliban and that raised suspicion... anyways, he was intercepted in the US as he was flying home (or away from home, I forget) and they took him, questioned him, and then deported him to Syria where he was tortured for what I think was two years. He confessed to being guilty of all the accusations and then we eventually figured out he was probably innocent and managed to bring him back. Now he can tell his story, and he's incriminated the RCMP, the Canadian government (which could've done a lot more to help him) and the American government and its various intelligence agencies.
'Suspicious' looking people have the most to fear. But everyone has something to fear, as any move towards a police state makes society less safe and more authoritarian. It's not worth the price. The way to stop terrorism is by stopping imperialism, because that's what creates terrorists in the first place. Imperialism and authoritarianism are mutually reinforcing:
Imperialism -> terrorism -> increased authority -> makes imperialism easier -> repeat
I'm not a conspiracy theorist that thinks that Bush arranged 9/11, I wouldn't put it past Cheney's moral character but I don't think either of them could pull it off. And it's absurd to suggest that they would need to. The dynamic that I just outlined was well understood by every power system that ever soiled the earth, including the current US government.
I'm not going to pretend that I have my own opinion on this particular matter. Do a search on Noam Chomsky and September 11th to see what I think is the essential truth.
The Patriot Act gives out free search warrants to FBI agents who give sufficent evidence to our judicial branch of government that suggests the possibility of domestic terrorism. Terrorism is an unlawful use of violence against civilians or the government. There are strict codes on the Patriot Act that, if broken by an agent, there will be serious consequences for.
What is sufficient evidence? Who determines that? If an agent breaks the Patriot Act strict codes (like by providing false evidence), how likely is it that he will meet with these serious consequences? What are these serious consequences, anyways? Does it even matter that an agent here and there meets with some serious consequences when there is a system in place that can be easily abused?
