George "geohot" Hotz Arrested In Texas For Posession of Marijuana

n1ywb writes "Goerge 'geohot' Hotz, famous for being the first to jailbreak an iPhone and for his spat with Sony over PS3 jailbreaking, was busted for possession of a small amount of marijuana at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas on his way to SXSW. The shakedown goes like this: drug dogs are run around vehicles; when they signal, DHS searches the car and finds the contraband; DHS then turns evidence and suspects over to the local sheriff. Willie Nelson, actor Armie Hammer (who played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network), and Snoop Dogg have all gotten in trouble at the same checkpoint under similar circumstances."

Comments

Smart people can be dumb

[mcmonkey]

Why would you go through a border checkpoint with marijuana unless you wanted to get caught?

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the use of the term "shakedown", I think the submitter is trying to imply that Hotz was framed by the border patrol agents, perhaps because of his notoriety. You know, dog "signals", DHS searches the car and "finds" the contraband, etc.

Seems like a stretch to me, though. Maybe I'm just not wearing enough tinfoil.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[Anrego]

Pretty lame for a frame. He's gonna get what.. a small fine?

If gonna go to all that trouble.. may as well throw a brick of cocaine or something in there.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[tylersoze]

Uh you do understand this "border" checkpoint is nowhere near the actual border, right? It's just some random spot on I-10 like a 100 miles from the border. Completely ridiculous.

That said, you'd think people would have heard about this and avoid I-10 like the plague in that part of the state.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[ISoldat53]

Some roads in Texas you have no choice but to drive through a checkpoint. I always avoid Texas. Not for that reason, just for general principles.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[Alien Being]

Me too. Texas is not the United States. Just ask a Texan.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[mcgrew]

Pretty lame for a frame. He's gonna get what.. a small fine?

Well, he would here in Springfield, but Texas? They'll probably hang him. But you're right, it's probably, as the Brits say, "a fair cop". Did you see his picture? He looks like a stoner. Of course the cops are going to violate his 4th amendment rights and search his propery (car) for weed.

I live in Illinois and didn't know what SXSW was, I doubt many who don't live in the area do either. Google says it's an annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival held in Austin. Why the submitter and editor thought anybody not in the southwest US would have a clue what it is is beyond me.

Guys, when you submit, be careful with those acronyms, especially ones like this that are purely local. I mean, I went to almost every show at the MRF back in the '70s. Yes, it was another music festival similar to SXSW that you would likewise be clueless about.

I shouldn't have to google to find out what an anronym stands for, unless it's a common computer-related acronym like OS or RAM.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Unwarranted search with no probable cause is ridiculous no matter how effective it is.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure his existing legal history is more of a turn-off than marijuana possession.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're sending a dog around to sniff a vehicle you've randomly chosen, you're *already* performing the search before the dog alerts. The use of the dog is *part* of the search process.

You need a warrant, or probable cause' to perform a search.

So, either basic logic escapes you, or you're simply unaware that they don't just have random dogs wandering around the checkpoint aimlessly. I'm betting it's the prior.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[countach74]

Our prisons are so full because they are largely privatized, which in turn lends to the large corporations that own the prisons to lobby for ridiculous mandatory sentencing laws and other things that lead to lots of prisoners. Just like everything else in the United States, money is power and the power is used to get more money and thus, more power. It's a vicious cycle. Most US citizens either loath how the system works or are oblivious to it and think their votes still do something.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[Genda]

So now the dawg has some street cred, f'shizzle

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[cas2000]

It's not the dog that lies, it's the police officer "interpreting" the dog.

police dogs have long been used like this as a proxy for illegal racial and subcultural (hippies, goths, ravers and other weirdoes) profiling. or whenever a cop just needs an excuse for a search without actual probable cause.

and even without deliberate lying, there's also a feedback loop - the dogs are sensitive to their handlers' reactions. if a cop doesn't like the look of you because you're a long-haired freak or walking while black or something similarly nefarious, then the dog will pick up on that and react. the dogs end up reacting to the sight of such profiling targets because they know their handler will reward them and tell them what a good dog they are.

Re:Smart people can be dumb

[I(rispee_I(reme]

How, prey tell, does a police dog lie about smelling pot?

The same way a horse lies about knowing math, I suspect.

Fuck this law

[raind]

and Fuck Texas.

Re:Fuck this law

[Brett Buck]

Yes, how dare they arrest someone for possession of illegal Class 1 narcotics. The NERVE!

Meh

[Anrego]

engineers and technical masterminds throughout the country would give their right arm for.

Not me.

I always questioned why the hell they hired him in the first place. I'm no fan of GeoHot .. but I recognize he has some serious skills. Why the hell would he want to crank out web apps for a living. He's an intelligent guy and all, but what the heck would he have done for them where his true skills would be of any real use (his actual code is pretty meh..).

As for the story itself.. my god.. who cares. It's what.. a misdemeanour offense? He probably pleads guilty, pays a fine and goes home. He might not even see a jail cell in between.

How is this constitutional?

[swb]

Even if you grant them mandatory illegal alien checkpoints, how is it possible for them to subject you to a search for something unrelated to border enforcement and prosecute you for it?

I know we're largely flushing the entire constitution down the toilet these days, but this seems really egregious.

I've been through the checks outside of Sierra Vista & Tombstone, AZ, and they were more or less roll to a stop, yes we are citizens, have a nice day. No dogs run around the car, no bullshit, although there were dogs at the checkpoints.

Re:Newsflash: they have drug dogs at Mexico-US bor

[Anonymous Coward]

If you try to take drugs through a border checkpoint, you're going to get caught. Should this surprise anyone?

It should if the people in question are driving from one part of the US to another part of the US. Why the FUCK do we have "border checkpoints" on roads that don't CROSS THE BORDER?

Re:Newsflash: they have drug dogs at Mexico-US bor

[VortexCortex]

If you try to take drugs through a border checkpoint, you're going to get caught. Should this surprise anyone?

It should if the people in question are driving from one part of the US to another part of the US. Why the FUCK do we have "border checkpoints" on roads that don't CROSS THE BORDER?

Because 2/3rds of the populous lives within 100 miles of any border or airport, which is considered the "Constitution Free Zone".

Re:A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint

[Myopic]

Wow that's crazy. (Link?)

So how many years are the cops spending in jail for violation of the public trust, battery, conspiracy to commit battery, vandalism, conspiracy to commit vandalism, and violation of civil rights? Also, if they physically moved the pastor more than ten feet (very likely), then I'd expect them to be prosecuted for kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, too.

Oh, what, zero years? You don't say...

Re:Im still wondering...

[Immostlyharmless]

Soooo basically I give up my 4th amendment rights simply because I live in a town within 100 miles of the border? Total crock of shit.....

Terrible evil!

[bahstid]

So geohot is in the top 10 programmers/hackers in the world...

or the top 100..
or top 1000
or top 10000
...
or top 10 000 000
or whatever.

lets forget the the multitude of "legitiate" uses of marihuana for a bit, and just wonder what exact detrimental effect the narcotic use thereof is supposedly having on its users that the government and its agents should be protecting us from.

I know the the english word "assasin" is supposedly derived from the arabic for hashish, but I seriously want to know where the harm is when its not interfering with high-level functionality.

These aren't new.

[rjejr]

I got stopped and searched at one of these checkpoints in 1988, 24 years ago. We were nowhere near the border, about 30 miles away, somewhere in Arizona. There weren't any dogs, just some guys in uniforms and mirrored Cool Hand Luke sunglasses. We had to get out of the car while they searched it. So, this isn't new, and it isn't near the border. And they don't stop doing it b/c it works. Probably shouldn't call it "border" patrol though, more like "rape your rights' patrol.

Re:Not crossing the border!

[elrous0]

What is this "Constitution" you speak of?

Effective at what?

[deanklear]

This is a guy not under the influence being hassled at a checkpoint for the equivalent of carrying a small bottle of alcohol.

1) How many people lost time/money due to the checkpoint?
2) How many lives were saved due to the confiscation of a small amount of marijuana?
3) How much did tax payers spend for all of this nonsense?

It's effective at promoting stigma for the recreational use of a drug that is literally less dangerous than ibuprofen. It's effective at wasting taxpayer dollars for no benefit to society at large. It's effective at being ineffective, wasteful, and pointless.

Re:Effective at what?

[DarkOx]

First off most state laws around marijuana are less strict then Federal. There is absolutely NO SOUND REASON to have Federal law against marijuana. If the State of Texas wants to enforce some crazy statute the people of Texas should bear the cost of doing so, my federal tax dollars should not be WASTED by DHS keeping a little pop off the streets in Cowboy country.

Re:Effective at what?

[rrohbeck]

4) How much does the prison-industrial system make per arrest? What's the total revenue it pulls from the the war on drugs?
4a) How much of that is kicked back to the cops?

Re:Effective at what?

[Whorhay]

The Cops don't usually get a kickback from the prison system. But they often do get to keep all of the confiscated property that they can get their hands on. Which is one of the reasons you'll see truckers get hassled more frequently, a trucker with a load of legal stuff and a couple ounces of drugs can net them hundreds of thousands of dollars in confiscated property.

Re:A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint

[cpu6502]

You left-out an important detail: The driver had already committed a crime (speeding). The checkpoints along the border state highways are stopping-and-seizing drivers who are not guilty, and therefore it's an illegal warrantless search.

  It's just the same as if a cop went door-to-door and started sniffing around your home's doors. It's harassment and the reason the 4th amendment was created in the first place.

Thank god

[Brian Feldman]

Thank god this dangerous criminal is off the streets! Who knows what shenanighans he might have been up to -- jazz dancing, making moves on white women, going on violent murder sprees!

Re:"When they signal" is the important part

[Taibhsear]

How very convenient. Perhaps they should train them in a uniform way so that we (the public) have a way to refute the evidence against us.

Re:You don't say

[g0bshiTe]

Or if you must use pot, don't do stupid shit like try to get it past a border check point where you know a drug sniffing dog will be. How many d's in duh?

Re:You don't say

[houstonbofh]

Admittedly, most people are quite surprised to find "Border" checkpoints in the fucking middle of Texas! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_Interior_Checkpoints And why? If the "checkpoints" at the actual border don't work, why would these? (I mean to stop illegal immigration, not bust famous people...)

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

For at least one day, he is in fact doing much better than any of them were on the other respective days they stupidly tried to cross with drugs.

They didn't cross the boarder. This "boarder checkpoint" is entirely inside the US. It was justified based on anti-illegal immigrant fervor.

Re:You don't say

[Local ID10T]

Which raises the question:

What do they call planted evidence? Grab the guy, claim a dog alerted, start rifling through his stuff, then the police announce they "found something" and magically produce a small packet one of the cops had in the palm of his hand the whole time...

They call it "Guilty."

Re:A Pastor sued and won against the checkpoint

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And get arrested for impersonating an officer of the court.

There is no such crime.
Sounds like you have mashed-up "impersonating an officer of the law" (i.e. a cop) and "practicing law without a license" (i.e. pretending to be a lawyer in court).