[bigLusr]

Which translates to: People who do bad things don't deserve and do not have rights.

Not at all. It translates to: any person, guilty or innocent, does not have a right to privacy if the state has probable cause to believe that he has done something illegal. My point was that the dog sniff itself was not an invasion of privacy. The search of the trunk was an invasion of privacy, but the cops were justified because the dog alerted the cops to the marijuana... and the dog only alerted the cops because the marijuana was actually present.

Now... if the cops had pulled over the guy for a traffic violation and searched his trunk without the dog sniff, Caballes' rights would have been violated... because even people who do bad things have rights. But the cops had probable cause.... the dog barked.

Rulings like this give the police the opportunity to put someone through Hell on a hunch.

No. Not at all. The opinion specifically noted that the sniff itself didn't inconvenience Caballes in any way... and that if it had put him through any type of hell (even just the inconvenience of waiting an extra few minutes while the drug dog arrived) then the sniff would have been unconstitutional.

So long as your confession is the only thing beaten out of you, as opposed to your grocery list, any interrogation is a-ok. The criminal does have the right to privacy, even when that privacy may end up concealing his criminal activities.

Again, no. The fourth amendment protects a person's effects except when the state has probable cause to search or seize them. The fifth amendment protects a person from being compelled to incriminate himself without qualification... That is to say, there is sometimes justification for invading privacy but there is never justification for compelling self-incrimination.

[NJ_gent]

"My point was that the dog sniff itself was not an invasion of privacy."

Then neither would running an x-ray machine over the car or running an infrared scan on the car or doing other such tests which don't physically impact the vehicle. Either we keep it to what a human officer can detect in 'plain view' or we open the floodgates to using things like NSA's TEMPEST to really shoot personal privacy to hell.

"But the cops had probable cause.... the dog barked."

Remind me to take my dog's "Puperoni" treats out of my trunk before driving home. Wouldn't want to send the wrong message.

"The opinion specifically noted that the sniff itself didn't inconvenience Caballes in any way"

It doesn't inconvenience you in any way if I put a tap on your phone and read your email either. So long as I don't disrupt your telephone service or your email, everything's a-ok, right? Inconvenience isn't the reason we don't allow blanket searches. We don't require warrants because it's 'inconvenient' to have a dozen cops rifling through your stuff. We require warrants because it's wrong for the state to invade the privacy of citizens without just cause and due process. Using devices or animals which perceive beyond 'plain view' violates the reasoning behind 'plain view's' reason for being. If you can search everything, then search everything. It's either plain view or it's everything.

"The fourth amendment protects a person's effects except when the state has probable cause to search or seize them."

The protection of privacy extends beyond seizure to cover the search itself. A 'plain view' search is really a misnomer. Things have to be readily apparent to be caught in such a "search", whereas a true search involves seeking out something. When a drug dog was brought over and used to search the vehicle using its extraordinary abilities (a sense of smell many times more powerful than that of a human), a search was conducted without probable cause. The only 'cause' mentioned was that the suspect appeared to be acting 'nervous' - whatever that means.

The Soviets had the same protections for all their citizens in their constitution that we have in our's. Ask yourself why it is that the average Soviet lived so differently from the average American when they had the same rights guaranteed in supreme law.