Just a heads up

Although a decision isn't expected until spring, it's still worth noting that an important 4^th Amendment case has reached the Supreme Court,

where the justices must decide whether the use of a drug-detecting dog in conjunction with a minor traffic stop amounts to an unreasonable search or seizure.

This involves an Illinois case from 1998 when one Roy Caballes was stopped for speeding. While one cop was writing up a warning, another arrived with a drug-sniffing dog which indicated there were drugs in the trunk. Armed now with "reasonable suspicion," the cops searched the trunk and found marijuana. Caballes was convicted of trafficking and sentenced to 12 years and a $256,000 fine. Ultimately, the state Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that the use of the dog impermissibly expanded a routine traffic stop into a drug investigation.

"While dog sniffs are not physically invasive, they do intrude on reasonable privacy interests," says Ralph Meczyk, a Chicago lawyer, in his brief to the court. "Using a drug dog during an otherwise routine stop can be intimidating, accusatory, and humiliating." ...

Illinois Solicitor General Gary Feinerman disagrees with the state high court's approach. He says canine sniffs are not the equivalent of Fourth Amendment searches since all they involve is walking a dog around the outside of a car.

"Police officers need no individualized suspicion that illegal drugs are present to justify conducting an external canine sniff of a vehicle at a lawful traffic stop," Mr. Feinerman says in his brief to the court.

That is, the cops and the state are arguing that police don't need to have any reason to subject you or your possessions - in this case, your car - to an "external canine sniff" (I'm not sure what an internal canine sniff would be, but it sounds uncomfortable). That is, they can do it just because they feel like it. Remembering that the point of such a "sniff" is to detect the presence of drugs, thus allowing for a search, we can put their position more bluntly: They are arguing that police can, for any reason, on a whim if they like, pick you out and actively seek justification for a full search of your person and possessions.

I've written about this issue twice before, once on drug-sniffing dogs in general back on January 13 and once on this particular case on April 11. (Because I thought it important enough, I included the text of the January 13 post in the April 11 one, which is why there's only one link.) I said then, and I say now, that if this case goes the wrong way, we can pretty much kiss the Fourth Amendment goodbye.

Why? Because drug-sniffing dogs exist precisely because they can do what people can't, smell things people can't. They are intended to detect things beyond the range of human senses. If it's permissible to use dogs for that, why not anything else? Why not equipment even more sensitive than dogs? Why not equipment that extends human abilities in other ways, that can see better, hear better, sense heat better? Why not?

A decision in favor of the state of Illinois would give police carte blanche to use whatever hi-tech gizmos they can get their hands on to, again, actively seek "reasonable suspicion," suspicion which, once found, allows for invasive searches. What it would do, in fact, is to shrink your zone of legal privacy to only that which can't be detected by most advanced technology available - a zone that would continue to shrink as that technology advances.

I'm sure some, including perhaps some readers here, will consider me alarmist. So be it: Where my rights and my privacy are concerned, I'd much rather be alarmist than apathetic.