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Supreme Court Hearing Case On Drug-Sniffing Dog "Fishing Expeditions"
sgunhouse writes "Wired is running an article on a Supreme Court challenge (well, actually two of them) to the use of drug-sniffing dogs. The first case discussed involved Florida police using a drug-sniffing dog as a basis for searching a suspected drug dealer's home. The court in Florida excluded the evidence obtained from the search, saying a warrant should be required for that sort of use of a dog. Personally, I agree — police have no right to parade a dog around on private property on a 'fishing expedition', same as they need a warrant to use a thermal imaging device to search for grow houses. I have no use for recreational drugs, but they had better have a warrant if they want to bring a dog onto my property."
Or did he pulled a Cartman stunt, I misinterpreted the rules?
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
we have no use for fishing expedtions and it is a massive privacy invasion. police should be reactive and deal with imminent threats, not go fishing for pot smokers. god damn police state.
Can I light a sig ?
Really? You have no use for recreational drugs? Are you human?
Shoot 'em.
Defend your castle if they don't leave when asked.
Really? I see you are right, but that does sound strange to me, living in the Netherlands. Here it's a standard way for the police to track down the growers (even though selling small quantities is half-legal here).
Seriously, and cops come onto your property with a dog, and don't have a warrant, what are you going to do? If you shoot them, they'll shoot you. If you sue them, you'll lose. If you put up with it it, well, that's what you'll have to do.
It's rigged against you. Everything is. In Britain (at least England & Wales) a cop has never been found guilty of illegally killing someone during the course of their job. So, if you want a license to kill, just join an English police force. But in most other places (including the USA and Australia), cops also literally get away with murder.
And you think that a little bit of searching without a warrant is going to bother them? Even if the case against a suspect is thrown out because the evidence was collected illegally, the filth involved will not have any sanctions against them. Think about that. They can bust down your door, shoot your dog, and plant drugs, with no repercussions.
And no use for recreational drugs? So no alcohol? You don't smoke a ciggie every now and again? Or a pipe or a cigar? (Personally I don't use illegal drugs, but that's only 'cause I'm too lazy to seek them out. If they were on sale down at the local bottlo along with the whisky, brandy and fine liqueurs I'd buy some.)
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
As much as I find it hard to motivate myself to defend the police, it isn't up to them to set the law or decide which laws they decide to enforce. Your government, and the general population, deserve the blame for anything wrong with that.
As to whether getting a warrant based on a sniffer dog is right. It really is hard to say; personally I think there should be a standard of a reasonable expectation of privacy but that becomes very hard to define. If a police officer overheard a conversation about bomb making through an open window when passing should it not be investigated? How about a large quantity of peroxide bottles left next to a bin visible at the side of the house. If a dog trained to detect explosives goes batshit crazy outside of a house should it be ignored? Most people accept that things that can be seen or heard from public property aren't private; how about if they are only visible/audible if using advanced equipment and manipulation (to for example filter sound). Is a smell emanating from a property supposed to be ignored? I doubt the police officer who ignored a strong burning smell and left someone to die would be praised.
If the police are already in the house, searching, do they not need a warrant for that or were they invited in? If there is reasonable doubt why should the police not be perfectly within their rights to use a dog with a nose for drugs? after all, these dogs get it right the vast majority of the times. This was not some draconian misuse of power. the police were not abusing some guy because they thought he had a joint. A suspected drug dealer it says. Turns out he is a drug dealer that is now trying his best to get off on a technicality. Police also use sniffer dogs in public places to search for bombs as well as drugs and really, most of them give a great public service for yous and mine.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Aren't drug sniffing dogs just about as reliable and scientific as lie detectors? With nothing other than the 'trained' officer's 'informed' opinion about whether the dog found something?
Seems legit.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Having an animal that's just as likely to get excited about smelling my butthole and crotch become an authoritarian figure in any kind of a crime investigation is simply ridiculous.
The defendants should also be allowed to put the dog on the witness stand.
the canine, now retired, discovered more than 2.5 tons of marijuana, 80 pounds of cocaine and millions in cash during its career.
I thought those drugs were illegal. Yet there were tons of it out there. The police must be doing a terrible job...
If the dogs can smell the drugs, then the drugs must have an effect on them. Them dogs is druggies! and as such should be fired.
rewriting history since 2109
... and plant drugs,...
Well, if they also plant some Jalapeños for the inevitable munchies, I could handle the illegal planting.
Do you think I could get them to bring some pizza, too?
Never mind, I'll just call 911 and ask.
Before he died, Sheriff John Durante's department would regularly parade his drug sniffing dogs along a popular multi-use trail in East Norristown, searching people without probable cause or a warrant.
I no longer live there and don't know if the Montgomery County Sheriff's department still has a policy of conducting illegal, warrantless searches of trail users, but hopefully not.
In almost every jurisdiction in the US, the police were bound in their arrest and use of force powers to what the legislature authorized. Anything outside of that was kidnapping and/or illegal use of force up to murder. Citizens could lawfully shoot dead a cop who came onto their property, broke the 4th amendment and then began to wave their firearm at the homeowner who ordered them off their property.
But then the same forces that have been trying to eradicate private firearm ownership in the anglosphere decided that it would be better to have private citizens have **only** the theoretical protection of the courts than any right to use force to defend themselves from criminal acts by the police. Those of us who aren't stupid know that this invariably means that the citizen will be defending themselves from trumped up charges, not getting the cop held responsible.
And this relates to technology because?
As with polygraph, it can be misused by misinterpreting the dog, accidentally or deliberately.
Also, just as with IR cameras, which are passive, too, it should be forbidden to government by a free people sans warrant.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You can try and invent imaginary rights and legal rulings to justify drug use, but at the end of the day, it's dumb.
I would need a lot of convincing to understand why the police would need to get PERMISSION to use IR gear in public to find grow houses (as if the IR signature of your house has some kind of right to privacy): they do it all the time in the UK, and only bikers, gangsters, druggies and idiots would have a problem with it.
In the rest of the world, justice comes before anything else. No matter how evidence is obtained, it is still evidence, and will be used in court.
In the US, if an unskilled policeman makes a small mistake, all evidence will be thrown down the sink, and the criminals who would be convicted on that evidence in every other country of the world, will walk free. I don't understand this protection of people where there is evidence that they are criminals.
Land of the free
Now door can get kicked in if your smoking pot in your own house.man what's this country coming too
Isn't there a law in America that knowledge of evidence obtained which is in Plain Sight is admissable, and can be used to obtain a search warrant?
I've never been to the USA, and to be honest have little interest in going there, so my knowledge of US law is very third hand...
If Plain Sight evidence is "in", then isn't it ok to obtain evidence from a detector dog passing in the street? How about an electronic drug or explosive detector which is in a public place? The foil hatted civil libertarians would hate it, but LEGALLY isn't this an angle for the cops?
That rule is pretty effective because it uses the motivations of the police (to get the bad guys) to keep thrn from violating the rights of citizens. There are a few bad cops, of course, but 99% are careful to not do an illegal search precisely because they want the evidence to be admissable. Cops and DAs don't talk about what's right and wrong, they are careful about what's admissable and what's not.
I might have agreed with you until two years ago. That's when a cop who was having a bad week decided that his dog thought he smelled something in my car. After being drtained for two hours in freezing rain as the cop dug all through my car, nothing was found because I don't do drugs. Speaking to the cop two months later, it was clear that the cop, not the dog, decided that he wanted to search my car. Noone could ever prove that because the dog can't testify about what they smelled, or didn't smell. Courts just have the cop's word on how he interpreted the dog's actions.
You can try and invent imaginary rights and legal rulings to justify drug use, but at the end of the day, it's dumb.
I would need a lot of convincing to understand why the police would need to get PERMISSION to use IR gear in public to find grow houses (as if the IR signature of your house has some kind of right to privacy): they do it all the time in the UK, and only bikers, gangsters, druggies and idiots would have a problem with it.
First off: All Right Are Imaginary. They're fairly arbitrary as well. Fuck your perception of which "rights" others should have. This is about wasting money on pointless witch-hunts to me. I want them to get a permit before they spend my tax money to fly their helicopters at night over my house while they're distracted by thermal imaging. That permit needs to be issued by a judge after considering evidence that warrants the investigation, not green-lighted based on a whim.
Furthermore: Alcohol is a Drug. Now, let's recall Prohibition. The laws against alcohol made it possible for Mobs to make mad cash. When's the last time you bought booze from a gangster? It's not profitable for them to sell it... It doesn't take a brain scientist to figure out that laws against the substances that the general public find acceptable for recreational use create a big problem.
The government doesn't want to end the war on drugs. The War on Terror will never end either. They want the power to do whatever the fuck they want -- Which means turning your country into a Dystopia like the old USSR. See also: Homeland Security & TSA. Blindly trusting your government to use restraint with absolute power is fucking moronic.
I have no use for recreational drugs
Why do we feel compelled to pre-emptively deny allegations? Why do absolute shits feel compelled make false allegations? Why do we let us be fooled by false allegations? Even geeks -the ones seeking facts or accepting them anyway- are sometimes fooled by false allegations...
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Dogs are so endlessly fascinated with each other, the drug sniffers would be too enthralled and distracted to find anything ;)
Joking aside, the court should most definitely conclude that such unwarranted searches are unconstitutional. It may be an extremely small victory, but it's a start.
Based on an initial read, this sounds like a question of curtilage, although I didn't see that term in the article.
Curtilage is the legal definition of what part of your property is private, and what is not. If the dog was not on a public street, then this is a curtilage case.
My understanding of recent SCOTUS cases is that they view curtilage in a way that, shall we say, is more favorable to the way the rich typically live than the poor. If you have a fence around your property, with a gate, then the whole property is your curtilage, and the police should keep out. If not, then anything in your front yard, at least, may be fair game as the police can walk right up to your door.
This is entirely separate from my belief that police dogs react to whatever their handlers want them to react to.
Note : IANAL and this is certainly not legal advice.
The argument I heard on NPR over this was if there is a difference between getting pulled over and being subjected to a K-9 search, or owning private property and having them subject you to a K-9 search.
One (and I sure the idiots on the court panels have argued) that your car is on public property (highway, local roads) and can be subject to searches whether you agree to it or not, but your car is private property.Something that has always pissed me off is how road blocks and searches can be considered legal, when the drive has done nothing illegal, IE, weaving all over the road, failing to obey traffic devices is a reason to pull a driver over.
Two your home/physical land/property is private and unless they have a warrant to even be on your property to begin with you should not have to live in fear of whether you are doing anything that should even be considered illegal, and the search warrant is (usually) based a particle item, or items based on the crime/charges they have brought in front of a judge, so anything they find outside that cannot be used.
So no neither one should be legal, but one is and it looks like the other one will soon become legal. SO for those of you that will feel that we live in a free country, according to the constitution you have the right to do with your body as you please, for those that choose to live "within some of the dumb laws" that is your choice and it should be that way, but do not start to bitch and whine when you are accidentally invaded by law enforcement and have done nothing wrong. Altho it really is not in your control to allow, or reject these kinds of laws, or how they get misused. I am sure you will sit there and use that go out and vote bullshit, but name any office official who has called out law enforcement for abusing privacy, outside racism or some regular Jane/Joe..
I think this is a right-minded objection. The dog is trained to react to drugs, but who knows what else he will react to.
Police and the courts have acted as if a drug-sniffing dog barking and trying to get at something is probable cause to believe that you have illegal drugs. But what else does the dog react to?
A thrown ball?
My barbecue?
The smell of an interesting animal
The problem is you can't put the dog on the witness stand and ask him what he smelled in the house. He can't say, Yes, I smelled cocaine. I smelled marijuana. I smelled opiates. It turns out the only opiates were in a prescription bottle that had been legally issued from the local pharmacy with a doctor's prescription. It's too bad Mr Jones had some pain pills left over when his leg healed up. If he had, we wouldn't be here. Woof!
After a rigorous independent scientific study of the effectiveness of K-9 capabilities is completed showing a 98% hit rate under real world circumstances. And after a sting program is put into place where K-9 teams are randomly checked for false alerts with a 5 year prison sentence if they fail the test. Then I MIGHT find this kind of thing acceptable. I don't mind police having tools to do their jobs, but it needs to be proven that those tools work, and if they misuse them there needs to be SEVERE consequences.
.... if they hadn't actually been caught with something. The police are tasked with fighting crime. Whether you agree with it or not posession is a crime as the law currently stands. I know a lot of people think that because they've assessed the law as stupid they don't have to obey it. I'm sure most murderers, prostitutes, child molesters, and thieves feel the same way. You don't like the law? Change it. Not enough people want to change it? Maybe it's there for a reason. I'm conflicted over pot. Having grown up in a household where it was around it's use seems rather normal to me, and I don't really have a personal problem with people who do it in thier own home. I don't really care for it so I don't do it (asside from it being illegal). Having said that though, I look back on my childhood and I can't help but see just how abnormal it was. I couldn't have friends over because they might find out and turn in my dad. My dad didn't much like going places either so we didn't really go out as a family. Most weekends consisted of me getting up and running the neigborhood with my friends (completely without guidance and usually up to no good) while my dad was firmly planted on the couch smoking. As I've gotten older I see how other families (without the use of drugs or alcohol) function and realize that wasn't really all that normal.
These dogs are trained to fined drugs, but they're also trained with commands that can make them give a false positive anytime the cop feels like screwing around with you. If the signal for "There are some drugs in here" is a bark and a slap of the paw, the dog can easily be trained to exhibit that behavior with a simple verbal command of the handler.
Allowing this BS to stand is effectively the same as allowing arbitrary search.
only bikers, gangsters, druggies and idiots would have a problem with it.
I live in the UK, am none of the above and I do have a problem with it. Only a nazi bootlicker would think it's OK.
(see what I did there?)
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I would need a lot of convincing to understand why the government has any sort of legitimate state interest in controlling one of the most harmless pharmacologically active substances ever discovered. Either we're all free or we're not. If they can take away my right to persue happiness, they can take yours away too. Which side are you on, freedom or authority?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Your whine is rather like complaining about someone calling Saddam "A ruthless dictator" by saying "you'r obviously biased, since you used *ruthless* there, so clearly I cannot listen to what you say".
'course you could assume with equal validity that the police are going to beat a confession out of people. And then go for a citizens arrest.
The only way to live is have enough property and a high enough fence that you can't see the house from the property line without a ladder. Solves this and many other problems.
three seconds of thought.
These dogs, most German Shepherds, are effectively weapons being brandished around one's property. Doesn't Florida have applicable Stand Your Ground or Homestead laws for this sort of thing?
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
While granted, the results of such imaging isn't visible to the naked eye... detecting non-visible radiation coming from something does not involve subjecting it to anything more than a completely passive examination that can be done *ENTIRELY* externally, and does not amount to any sort of direct observation of the contents or actual activities on private property.
One should still need a warrant to physically search the place, however.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In the immortal words of Mike Lange... "Get that dog off my lawn..."
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
A dogs reaction is not evidence, its opinion. Evidence should be required to violate someones privacy. Using a dog as a tool to locate the drugs once a warrant has been issued, i totally support it.
I do agree if the dogs are tresspassing on the lawn but if those dogs alert from the street or sidewalk there is every reason to search the home. There is already a drone that is capable of detecting drug use from fumes well above a home. I also think that thermal images should be allowed as the home is actually broadcasting the heat rather than being invaded by some sort of cam. In logic an infra red transmition is no different than an electronic transmission.
The one and only reason we have cops is to catch people who break the law. That means they should catch people who break laws that are unpopular as well as laws that almost everyone agrees upon. The more restrictive we are upon police the more public money must be spent to catch law breakers. We need more busts for the bucks.
Maybe the problem is that they think the dogs are trained to smell drugs, when they just smell pigs. It's no surprise that the the dogs always happen to detect drugs when the cops are with them.
Correlated? Causal? Who knows.
I'm a satanic clam.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
We don't believe that anyone has to "invent" these rights -- we are BORN possessing them. That's why we chose to be citizens and you guys chose to instead be "subjects" whose rights and liberties are those granted to you by your monarch.
This is a very significant difference. Enjoy your Orwellian surveillance state.
...some of the handheld units that have been readily available to LEOs since the late 1990's are good enough to see thru wood, brick veneer, drywall, etc, hard exterior walls with typical fiberglass insulation in them and see the outlines of individual persons and give a pretty good clue as to what they're doing, such as how many of them are sitting around a dining table passing a glowing hot crack pipe around, or having sex on a bed and what position they're using, etc. Those same IR cameras are also good enough to see right thru most windows with curtains drawn, or frosted bathroom windows, to see full breasts, genitals, and almost make out facial features well enough to identify an individual. That's what the units I saw 12 years ago could do. I imagine the units available today are even better.
The extremely high R-values of insulation in recently constructed homes do thwart the IR cameras quite a bit, and so does real brick exterior walls, but since most drug users and poor people live in older, poorly insulated structures, the IR cameras work pretty well on those.
I caught part of a Mythbusters where they were trying to trick a sniffer dog and they failed to (the only part I saw involved the target stashed in a diaper bag with dirty diapers).
Are they good enough to beat vacuum sealing? Is there a scent that they find repulsive enough they will avoid it?
What about ultrasonics? I head a story from an ex-Navy guy who flew on an E2-D Hawkeye (a kind of AWACS plane).
He said whenever they would land at an airbase, they would run drug dogs around the plane. But there was one side of the plane that had a turbine that ran when the plane was parked to keep the air conditioning and computers functioning. He said the dogs always avoided getting close to the turbine because the whine produced noise they didn't like.
This article says that
A U.S. district judge sided with the Justice Department to rule that it was reasonable for DEA agents to enter a property without permission or a warrant to install multiple “covert digital surveillance cameras.”
Again, this is a curtilage case, in that the Judge ruled that this is OK outside of your curtilage.
That's even scarier then. Why should the police be allowed to cruise around a neighbourhood and peer into people's homes without a warrant? Whatever happened to privacy?
Pot should be legalized & industrialized + FINALLY, taxed & sold - AND, swept for seeds (this is what makes it possible for ANYONE to grow it easily enough is why) - if it can be done for cotton (and, it can & it's a HELLISHLY HARD thing to de-seed), it can be done for pot also.
* It'd go a LONG WAYS to cutting down that "national debt" that is largely a result of the wars going on...
(What I find PARTICULARLY STUPID is that from what I understand @ least, I could be wrong though, you can ORDER POT SEEDS ONLINE... wtf? That's like saying "It's ok for you to grow it, but not harvest it for sale" - when that VERY FACT makes it possible to even have the stuff around, circumventing my suggestion to legalize & tax it!)
APK
P.S.=> The people @ the top can be REAL FOOLS sometimes, & this is one of those times... of course, they can't ALLOW that millions of their "brethren" in law-enforcement would lose their jobs "policing" weed out there either though - to me, that's saying, in essence "We need to give our 'strong-arms' money to keep them doing our bidding", NOT that of the U.S. Tax Payer who actually PAYS their payrolls!
... apk
For 3-4 years I just happened to drive a car that was well known as popular in the drug dealer trade. (Bought it from my aunt when my prior vehicle was totaled by an uninsured driver and my insurance company at the time screwed me.) (Late 70s 'box' Chevy).
I got stopped at least once every 2-3 months for no apparent reason, subjected to the whole 'any drugs' rigamarole, and on 3 occasions they carried out the threat of 'I'm going to bring a dog out here if you don't let me search the vehicle'.
Once they claimed a 'hit' and I spent roughly 3 hours in handcuffs in the back seat of a cop car while they basically tore the car apart. We're talking pulling the backseat out, deflating the spare and pulling it off the rim, tearing up the carpet in the trunk, pulling padding/insulation out from behind panels in the front, taking off the air cleaner/filter, inspecting minutae rapping on panels etc.
Guess who gets to put everything back together, pay $20 to get the spare remounted/rebalanced, get a friend that does interiors to re-glue some of the material so it will stay in place in exchange for computer work? I also missed all my classes that day and a test given by one of those 'there is no excuse for missing a test unless I'm notified 48 hrs in advance' professors.
I had to PAY for a police report of the incident in order to not have a 0 as part of 15% of my grade.
Yes I probably could have sued them for putting me through all that but I was a college student driving a car I bought for $300. I didn't HAVE any money to sue them with.
While I like the idea of drug/bomb sniffing dogs, the practice leaves something to be desired. At least in airport security/customs/etc it's pretty much a double blind situation. Lots of baggage laid out and they just see if the dogs get any hits.
I don't care if they cops do a search of my home without a warrant as long as they don't destroy anything or pay for the damages. In the end I want to be free of drug dealers and crooks in my community. If the price to pay is a couple of false positives then so be it. If there's abuse we can deal with it when it occurs.
The way I see it, if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear. Otherwise, let the system catch you.
You have no probable cause. What you have is a police state.
Anyone who can get their hands on 200 Sudafed is obviously a criminal.
Best I can do is 10 at a time.
Do you mean that we can't use all these neat and cool gadgets because of that thing called the Fourth Amendment? Bummer.
"By "the people @ the top" I assume you mean we the voters, since we are the ones who keep re-electing the prohibition parties by 99-to-1 landslides. Yes, you're right: we're fools." - by Sloppy (14984) on Wednesday October 31, @12:26PM (#41831389) Homepage Journal
We don't elect ANYONE - The "electoral college" actually does (and that is COMPLETE HORSESHIT, & makes it far, Far, FAR EASIER for cheating the system, even easier than RIGGED voting machines, which has been shown to have happened FAR more than "just once" (or did G. Bush Jr. REALLY win the actual "popular vote" (hell no)).
The insanity of such a design is unreal (it's SUPPOSED to "even-up-the-weight" that MORE POPULATED STATES, e.g. - California &/or N.Y. State have vs. less populated ones, but... I *think* that we ALL KNOW here that is complete bullshit! Want MORE "vote"?? Get more population! Do what the Carolinas did - offer incentives in tax + employment to attract more people, since otherwise, the representation of the vote is NOT actual & correct for "majority-rule"... & that IS that!)...
* However - the structure of the voting system? HEY - That's NOT THE ISSUE here though... what to do with pot is!
APK
P.S.=> The nature of man, as far as what YOU've brought up: Yes - THAT'S the problem! If only we could "screen" for men that aren't easily swayed or bought-off, OR stop the "type" that seeks political power in the 1st place (the ones that REALLY ought not have it since they "fail" that test, time & again)...
... apk
Plain Smell means Plain, Unassisted, HUMAN smell. If the cop can't smell it, it's not plain smell. If the cop can't see it without x-ray vision, it's not plain view.
Plain means plain. Not "with the assistance of more sensitive detectors."
Heaven forbid they should ever be proactive. I agree if they receive a tip someone is going to kill you, they should only show up after you're dead. In this case they would be helping Darwin out.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
And wusses. And potheads rarely get violent.
Easy targets.
Bonus.. you get to taser them and shoot their dog.
Suprise suprise... when we made law enforcement all about the profits... the cops do the easy, lazy stuff that makes good cash.
Drug dogs are a formality, if they bring a drug dog to a location the dog handler only has to /say/ that the dog got a "hit" - so it's all on the honor system anyway. It doesn't matter if the drug dealer sealed everything in cellophane and washed it down with bleach and sprayed cayenne pepper all over the yard: the cops are going to search. Even well-meaning handlers are subject to bias as the whole thing is based off of interpreting a dog's behavior.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
It also has a chilling effect on the 2nd amendment self-defense, because if an armed gang busts down your door, you now have to first meekly enquire as to whether they might be cops or not.
Uh, aren't heat sources like grow lights useful for things other than pot cultivation? Whereas pot smoke is pretty exclusively associated with pot smoking. So that would be your major difference right there, I think.
However, it seems You understood my point on the electoral college at least. However, the topic isn't that!
The topic's basically to give people WHAT PEOPLE WANT (and yes, they want their pot).
I say "fine - ok, give it to them, industrialize it creating jobs & then sell it with TAXES just how liquor is done."
(Something CONSTRUCTIVE has to come of it, because you're NOT going to get rid of it... & putting people into jails, feeding & caring for them, for what? GROWING & SMOKING SOME PLANTS, that are NOWHERE NEAR as ruinous as is say, Heroin Poppies or Coca Plants?? WTF!)
APK
P.S.=> Thus, might as well just give people what they want, their damn pot, but @ least make good use of it, via taxes! It seems an "equitable solution"... for BOTH "sides" (even though there shouldn't BE 'sides' to this, but rather the will of the majority of people in the nation of the USA)...
... apk
To be honest, I believe the Supreme Court will let it pass.
1) The dog only detects the presence of drugs on the property. It would be like saying a police officer smelt pot smoke from outside the house and the dog is considered a police officer (just taunt one and find out if you want a ticket).
2) The dog does not record or provide any recorded image the way a thermal imager can. Meaning its only a pass fail kind of test for a crime and not intrusive to the occupant.
3) Personally, I'd rather be sniffed by a dog than go through TSA scanning, At least I know the dog wouldn't be trying to grope or irradiate me.
Flexyourrights.org has some excellent videos (I think you can find them all on youtube) about how to exercise your protection against illegal searches in the US. I made my kids watch them. Unfortunately, this thing with the dogs is a really nasty loophole. I know someone whose teenage son was pulled over by the cops for some minor traffic violation. (When they pulled him over, he didn't know what he'd done wrong.) They tell him they want to search his car, and he says no. (Most likely he didn't do it the way the flexyourrights videos suggest, which is very politely and respectfully: "I'm sorry, officer, I know you're just trying to do your job, but I don't consent to a search.") So these small-town cops get all bent out of shape, bring in the drug-sniffing dog, and encourage the dog like crazy to get all worked up. "Come on, boy, do you smell anything? Do you? Come on...good dog!" They then use that as probable cause to basically rip the car apart searching for drugs. They found a soda straw from McDonald's, which they claimed was drug paraphernalia. Now the kid has a court date.
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Sorry, I don't mean to sound like a complete jerk, but if someone kills the dog when the dog is on the owner's property, the case better cuts to the root of the matter. The dog is property of the police department, and it is also a potentially deadly weapon, and the question instantly becomes one of whether or not dangerous and uninvited police "property" is allowed on private property without a warrant. I believe the safety issue is the one that will tilt the issue toward "unreasonable" search, because if the search poses a physical threat to the owner, that sure as hell is unreasonable in my book.
It is a highly important question, because the next critter that is going to start showing up on private property will be fan-bladed drones that will inevitably pose an equal or greater threat to those being surveyed. And I will want to smash them.
If you attack the police dog, you get charged the same as if you attack a police man. So, if the dog is a police officer, then the dog sniffing around your property should require a warrant, just as if a police man were conducting a search.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
I've been coming to Slashdot for over 10 years, and this posting was what made me create an account so I could comment. I'm a criminal justice major in my final semester at SVSU in Michigan. I had the pleasure of taking a course called Criminal Procedure taught by Michigan Appellate Court Judge Stephen Borrello a little over a year ago. We discussed Florida v. Jardines at great length in his class, since he had sat on the bench for a near identical case in Michigan called People v. Jeffrey Jones (2008). The appellate court ruled 2-1 in favor of the state in 'Jones' and Judge Borrello was the lone dissenting opinion. Judge Borrello gave us his decision and tasked us with determining his thought process for dissenting in an essay. I argued in agreement with his logic that a sniff test outside of a door is a "search" and therefore necessitates a warrant. Judge Borrello (and I) believed that since the dog was 'breaking the plane' of the door threshold that it was in essence a search. He believed, unlike his fellow judges, that Kyllo was applicable because police were still using an extra-sensory method to "access" the house (the dog). The other two judges argued that since a dog can only confirm or deny the existence of a narcotic they are not doing a "search," and since there is no implicit right to privacy pertaining to contraband the police were justified in their actions. He told us in that class that he believed Florida v. Jardines could very well go to the Supreme Court and its pretty cool to see that he was right. I'll be following this decision closely as I find it has far reaching ramifications. I'm well aware the following is a slippery slope argument, but I'm going to make it anyway as it's the same one I made in his class: If police have the power to walk a dog up to your door, what's to stop them from walking a dog up to every door on every block? The home is one's sanctuary free from government intrusion, that's how the 4th amendment was intended, and I think that's how it should be.
Greetings fellow slashdot readers. I've been a long-time reader but this is my first post. First of all, I live in Japan and teach English. Until a few days ago, I had an 8-year old electronic dictionary that I used almost daily in my various teaching jobs. Sadly, it disappeared without a trace and now I am in need of a new one. After looking at some of the snazzy new electronic dictionaries, it suddenly occurred to me that rather than buying a new, single-purpose device to look up words, I might be better off picking up a slightly used medium-sized tablet and installing dictionary software in it. I could then use it for other purposes as well as looking up words. Does anyone have any experience/suggestions/opinions on this subject? Have you found any good Japanese-English software packages out there?
It doesn't have to be open source. I am willing to shell out some bucks for a decent software package. But it has to be good (e.g. kanji lookup, idioms, lots of example sentences etc.).
The defense attorney is incompetent if this case doesn't contain a drug dog search of every justice's property.
You KNOW of course, that will NEVER HAPPEN - affecting the "big 2" (really 1 owned by the SAME corporate monies of course, "hedging their bets" & always contributing to both parties HEAVILY of course)... the "infamous they" (rich & powerful) won't allow it. It'd f-up their FINE little applecart, bigtime no doubt as you suspected.
* There's the way it oughtta be, & there THE WAY IT IS... makes me ill sometimes!
APK
P.S.=> Doesn't that just PISS YOU OFF? Does me - I wouldn't MIND so much if they wouldn't play their games of wars to keep their profits going up, sending jobs offshore, & other b.s., but they do it & SCREW the U.S. Public... apk
Become proscribed as a 'masking drug' ? :)