[Bigs from the North]

you need to get a grip, there is no violation of any freedom here. Goodness, the man was checked for carrying ILLEGAL drugs. what part of illegal do you not understand. He was not pulled from his car, he was not abused in anyway, his car was not stripped or torn apart. The air from his car was sniffed by a dog and the dog reacted to the ILLEGAL drugs he had. As I state when the Left gets extreme on rulings; the bill of rights and the constitution is not a suicide pact. This is a minor inconvenience to the average drive and a problem for the criminal... and whats wrong with causing criminals problems?

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

There is no way to rule innocent men.
When one need criminals, one simply invents them.

It's called the tyrrany of small laws, and its well along.
A cop can now go into anyone's house and find a reason to arrest them. There are no innocent men anymore.

The sleeping Gulliver is only a string or two from being unable to rise again.

[Jack Black]

they have gunpowder sniffing dogs. When they start using those more Freepers will be inconvenienced.

[R. Scott]

you need to get a grip, there is no violation of any freedom here. Goodness, the man was checked for carrying ILLEGAL drugs. what part of illegal do you not understand.

The only way the case can reach the Supreme Court is if the defendant did have illegal drugs. How many people have been stopped, detained and searched before illegal drugs were found?

[Al Gator]

No Big, you are missing the point completely.

Since when is the policy "if you got nothing to hide, why not let us look" in effect? (I truly HATE this attitude)

Give up a little freedom for security??

Just a minor inconvenience???

This the death of 10,000 cuts.

Those little "inconveniences" add up and at some point, freedom is gone.

Maybe you like getting your crotch sniffed, but I don't.

[t_skoz]

you need to get a grip, there is no violation of any freedom here. Goodness, the man was checked for carrying ILLEGAL cigarettes. what part of illegal do you not understand. He was not pulled from his car, he was not abused in anyway, his car was not stripped or torn apart. The air from his car was sniffed by a dog and the dog reacted to the ILLEGAL cigarettes he had. As I state when the Left gets extreme on rulings; the bill of rights and the constitution is not a suicide pact. This is a minor inconvenience to the average drive and a problem for the criminal... and whats wrong with causing criminals problems?

--------

you need to get a grip, there is no violation of any freedom here. Goodness, the man was checked for carrying ILLEGAL alcohol. what part of illegal do you not understand. He was not pulled from his car, he was not abused in anyway, his car was not stripped or torn apart. The air from his car was sniffed by a dog and the dog reacted to the ILLEGAL alcohol he had. As I state when the Left gets extreme on rulings; the bill of rights and the constitution is not a suicide pact. This is a minor inconvenience to the average drive and a problem for the criminal... and whats wrong with causing criminals problems?

--------

THE BILL OF RIGHTS

---------------------

The Conventions of a number of the States having, at the time of adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;

-snip-

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/funddocs/billeng.htm

You never read the US Constitution or its Bill Of Rights? Give it a try some time!

[Arkinsaw]

you need to get a grip, there is no violation of any freedom here. Goodness, the man was checked for carrying ILLEGAL drugs. what part of illegal do you not understand. He was not pulled from his car, he was not abused in anyway, his car was not stripped or torn apart. The air from his car was sniffed by a dog and the dog reacted to the ILLEGAL drugs he had. As I state when the Left gets extreme on rulings; the bill of rights and the constitution is not a suicide pact. This is a minor inconvenience to the average drive and a problem for the criminal... and whats wrong with causing criminals problems?

Papers please. Why are you concerned if you have nothing to hide comrade?

[TKDietz]

The problem is not that a person is found with drugs. The problem is that for every person that is found carrying drugs there are several more who are harassed and treated like criminals.

Look, I live in an area with a stretch of highway that is basically a "drug trap," like you have speed traps in lots of other places. Law enforcement patrol the interstate in great numbers looking for drugs, cash, and other assets to seize. They bring in a ton of money doing this. What they do is find any reason they can to pull over people from out of state, especially rental cars or people with Arizona, California, or New Mexico tags, and especially those occupied by minorities. They pull tons of people over, run the dogs around their cars and search them. I am convinced that in many cases the dogs don't really even alert. I've seen several of the dashboard recordings of these stops that the police make. In most cases the police pull up behind the cars offset by a couple of feet, and the dogs for seem reason almost always alert when they are on the side of the car that is outside of the camera's view. Then they say they have probable cause and start tearing the car apart looking for whatever they might find.

The stops are often for silly reasons. It's usually something like improper lane change or following. These are never caught on camera because they don't turn the cameras on until they are pulling the person over to the side of the road. In so many of these cases I've handled in the past couple of years, the stop has been for following too close on a section of highway where only one lane is open due to road work. Traffic was bumper to bumper and technically everyone was following too close, yet they only pull the guy with the Arizona tags over. And our courts have said that's fine, even if the cop did it on a hunch that the guy might be carrying drugs. As long as there is any valid reason for the stop, it doesn't matter that he lets everyone else go for the same thing and it doesn't matter that the main reason he picked this one car is because he had a hunch that it might be carrying contraband.

It seems like just about every time I drive down that stretch of highway they have somebody pulled over and are going through all of their stuff. In most cases they don't find anything, but these people are held up in their journeys and treated like criminals. That's wrong, but there are places all over America where it happens all the time. And it's getting worse, and will continue to get worse as long as courts keep ignoring the intent of the 4th Amendment.

[Protagoras]

Goodness, the man was checked for carrying ILLEGAL drugs.

Then you won't mind if they go inside your house to check for illegal things. After all, it's illegal things they are looking for.

[libertyman]

This just "shows to go ya" that if you have drugs in your car, don't give the cops any excuse to pull you over! Don't speed, make sure you drive perfectly, & avoid accidents. Just transport your drugs back to the house (or their intended location) & get 'em outta the car.

[Maigrey]

placemark

[antiRepublicrat]

As I state when the Left gets extreme on rulings; the bill of rights and the constitution is not a suicide pact.

You might like to know the origins of that saying. Justice Robert Jackson originally coined that phrase in an appeal for a disorderly conduct conviction arising from a man's public speech. This was stated in his dissent, contrary to the other judges who upheld Terminiello's freedom of speech.

The second attribution many years later is Justice Goldberg, and the issue was limiting the power of the government to automatically strip draft dodgers of their citizenship. He said this while coming to the conclusion that that while the Constitution granted wide powers to Congress to require military service to protect the country ("not a suicide pact"), it couldn't sidestep basic constitutional protections. Another statement from him from that case also goes against the sommon use of the "suicide pact" quote:

The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit governmental action.

Then there's Franklin's "They that can give up essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[Dan from Michigan]

the bill of rights and the constitution is not a suicide pact

If "safety" means no bill of rights or constitution under it's original intent, then count me out.

I'll take the 'suicide pact' over BS safety every single time. It's my job to protect myself and my family. Not governemnt which isn't trustworthy enough, nor competent enough to do so.

[NJ_gent]

"As I state when the Left gets extreme on rulings; the bill of rights and the constitution is not a suicide pact."

As I state whenever someone bring up this ridiculous phrase: "let's think about this for a moment - a group of farmers, lawyers, and businessmen sign their names to an open declaration of treason against the Crown, which controls the largest empire and the most powerful military the world has ever seen, and whose punishment for treason is generally death, and it's *NOT* a suicide pact?! I just love that one. Had the revolution turned out the way that any logically thinking person would have expected (it certainly hadn't completely succeeded just yet - see: War of 1812), every man whose name appeared on that Constitution would have been executed to serve as an example of what happens to traitors. These men put liberty far above their personal safety in the face of nearly certain death - but hey, it's not a suicide pact or anything."

[rushfreedom]

I agree with you Bigs.

Lets remember a few facts. The driver was stopped for speeding. If the officer saw a bag of drugs hanging out of the door, he has "probable cause". Would anyone disagree with this? In this case his trained dog smells drugs, he now has "probable cause". Both cases are the same. I see no violation in freedom.

Think about a Meth house. If you can smell the production of Meth then you have "probable cause" to search it. You would not argue that a home owners rights are violated in this case would you?

Those that do not agree with this ruling should think again. When I read this thread I thought I was reading the DU!

Does anyone know who was defending the druggie? Was it the ACLU?

[rushfreedom]

Yes the ACLU was helping to defend the druggie - Roy Caballes. I hope everyone that disagrees with this ruling knows they are agreeing with the ACLU. The defenders of Druggies.

["The deployment of drug-sniffing dogs cannot be justified by the legitimate investigative needs of a routine traffic stop," said Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "A trained dog will add nothing to the evidence of a broken tail-light nor assist in determining how fast a motorist was driving. It is, however, an invitation to racial profiling"

The ACLU submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case on behalf of Roy Caballes...]

Ref to:
http://www.aclu.org/court/court.cfm?ID=17003&c=286

[Dasaji]

This is a minor inconvenience to the average drive and a problem for the criminal... and whats wrong with causing criminals problems?

As one who drives 10+ different cars per week back and forth between service shops, dealerships, auctions, etc., and not knowing who the car belonged to (trade ins) I have a real problem with whatever "inconvenience" this could get me into.

We had a call from the NC State Police not to long ago asking us to provide our ownership history of a car we had sold over a year ago. Turns out this car had previously belonged to a small time drug dealer who was doing time on drug charges - he hid some drugs in the headliner of the car, had a friend sell it, we somehow ended up with it as one of the trade ins we buy and then we sold it at the auction (and I drove this car around as my demo for about three weeks - with my kids!). . .as it turns out, there was enough heroin in that car that could have gotten me 10 to 15 or $10-15K in attorney fees defending my innocence if on a traffic stop a dog came and sniffed. NC State Trooper explained this is a common way for perps to save a stash for when they get out of jail - they locate the vehicle via DMV records, break into it, get their stuff and go on their merry way.

[185JHP]

BUMP