Police Departments Are Training Dogs To Sniff Out Thumb Drives (cnet.com)

A CNET report provides some insight on an elite K-9 search class that trains dogs to sniff out electronics, including phones, hard drives and microSD cards smaller than your thumb. From the report: Only one out of every 50 dogs tested qualifies to become an electronic storage detection, or ESD, dog, says Kerry Halligan, a K-9 instructor with the Connecticut State Police. That's because it's a lot harder to detect the telltale chemical in electronics than it is to sniff out narcotics, bombs, fire accelerants or people, she says. But Labrador retrievers like Harley, with their long snouts and big muzzles, can pick up even the faintest olfactory clues. These tech-seeking dogs are helping law enforcement find child pornography stashed in hidden hard drives, uncover concealed phones, nab white-collar evidence kept on hard drives and track calls stored on SIM cards. The most famous case occurred in 2015, when a Labrador retriever named Bear found a hidden flash drive containing child pornography in the home of former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle. The district attorney called the discovery vital to Fogle's conviction.

Comments

Probable Cause

[rsilvergun]

Doesn't matter what the dog sniffs. If they stick their noise in your belongings that establishes enough probable cause for a search. Might as well use a dousing rod.

Re:...and track calls stored on SIM cards.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they can track calls, just as accurately as they can accurately sniff out electronic devices.

My old co-worker had a police dog signal on his car, mind you this guy is so clean he squeaks when he walks. He made the mistake of getting lost (while being white) in a minority neighborhood with drug dealers. He figured out where he took the wrong turn, but the cops pulled him over after about 2 blocks when he stated driving again. They asked him what he was doing, he admitted he got lost after a long day of work, and was trying to get to X business, which was at a small airport. Cops asked him if he was in the neighborhood to meet someone and if they could search his car, noting he had been in a drug neighborhood.

I should add, this guy had (at the time) a pretty good security clearance, had his fingerprints rolled at least 3 times a year for various reasons (not just the SC) so he could be checked out, and had random urine tests (usually a couple times a year) just like me.

He said (paraphrasing) "oh shiat that's not good for my job" and noted he was urine tested regularly for work. He also said he'd wait while they got a court order, but that he was not going to consent to a warrant-less search. They looked in the window, saw nothing. They brought the police dog, the dog "hit" on the car, he was taken out, handcuffed, and they tore it apart. There were no drugs in the car, not even an aspirin. The cop made up some bullshiat excuse but they let him go. Mind you this all took a couple hours after the drug dog (supposedly) signaled drugs in the car. There was probably a call sent down the chain, because he was going to a national agency to do some work, the government jet was kept waiting at that airport for that time, and that agency is not known for it's sense of humor in the slightest.

I doubt dogs sniff out much of anything. Today, having known a few cops (as neighbors) over the intervening years, the dogs just exist to give cops an excuse to have a warrant-less search.