Hmmm...I smell burning oregano

Remember when drug-sniffing dogs were the big threat to privacy? Science marches on, reports the January 12 issue of Time.

Memo to man's best friend: In a few years, you may be relieved of your police drug-sniffing duties, thanks to a pair of Georgia Tech scientists. They have developed a handheld electronic nose that detects the presence of cocaine and other narcotics better than your cold, wet snout ever could.

Previous electronic noses, like a dog's, detected the presence of a substance by chemically reacting to its molecules. However, they couldn't tell the difference between that molecule and one of a similar size, requiring further testing to identify the substance.

In essence, this device involves coating tiny quartz crystals with antibodies similar to the molecules of the substance being sought. Those molecules attach to those antibodies, changing the electrical resistance of the crystal. Coating different crystal sensors with different antibodies not only allows you to tell a substance is present, but which substance it is - since other substances won't bind to the antibodies.

What this proposes to result in is a cheap handheld device that could easily be used for an instant search for illegal substances of anyone who comes within range of an equipped security officer. If the idea of such near-universal, no-probable-cause searches seems outlandish or improper, recall that courts have already found, for example, that using thermal imagining to measure the heat radiated from a house to check for the possibility of heat lamps being used to raise marijuana is legitimate because the accused had no privacy interest in "waste heat."

Initial tests in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation labs have been a success. Still, Hunt says the portable nose won't be ready for use in airports for a few years.

At which time we may be finally forced - possibly much much too late - to determine if the Fourth Amendment prohibition on "unreasonable searches and seizures" applies only to those areas of our persons, possessions, and lives unreachable by the latest and most powerful technologies.