Yesterday I blogged about Illinois vs. Caballes, the Supreme Court decision that allows cops to bring on the drug dogs during a routine traffic stop, without the need for probable cause that the driver is in possession of drugs. Other blogs, like Drug War Rant and Grits for Breakfast foretell the same danger I do: the use of drug dogs for patrolling parking lots, sidewalks, around people’s homes, etc.
My plan to fight this was to smear hempseed oil on every Lexus, BMW, and Jaguar we see, figuring that maybe if some rich white people were getting harassed by drug dogs, we might all get our 4th Amendment back. So imagine my glee when I discovered this legal product, used to train drug-sniffing dogs:
Forget for the moment that the Caballes decision is based on the fallacy that drug dogs are never wrong. Dogs false alert at a rate much greater than zero (“sorry we intimidated you, embarrassed you on the side of the road, wasted your time, and messed up your car’s interior, and found no drugs whatsoever, ma’am, but the dog thought you had drugs.”) Here’s the scary part: the decision of whether or not to invade your privacy and abrogate your civil rights is being made by a dog. I’m sure that when the Founding Fathers wrote the 4th Amendment, they really meant to include the parts I’ve added in boldface:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated unless they have something to hide, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation or the barking of a dog, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized, and by “describing the place” we mean “wherever you are” and by “decribing the things” we mean “illegal stuff you should be carrying around anyway”.
