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Having the dog there means that either a) it was called in especially because the man was acting suspicious, or b) they were simply randomly searching vehicles that were pulled over. If the dog was called in, then hey, you fucked up and now you go to prison. Pot laws are draconian, but they are the laws, and that's a risk you take when you transport significant amounts of pot. Now, if they were randomly searching, then we've got a problem. Your car is subject to the same privacy laws as your home, AFAIK, and this is clearly an illegal search. It would also be interesting to see whether the man was actually intoxicated at the time of the stop (because, lets face it, if you traffic in pot it's probably because you smoke it, and if you smoke pot and have a whole bunch of it in the car, you're going to smoke that pot....lord knows I would). If he was blazed, even if he was very subtle about it and presented no problems to the officer, he's boned because the officer will say he 'suspected it enough to bring in the Pot Puppy, but not enough to go into the car'.
Edit: I wonder if they'll use the 'reasonable measures' precedent. Someone was arrested for growing herbage because a thermal scan on someone else's house just happened to catch his and saw a lot of activity. The court then ruled that since he had not taken "reasonable measures to protect his privacy", that the scan was akin to looking through an open window, and, therefore, legal. Why not use x-rays and make scanning anyone legal so long as their house isn't made of lead?
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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
---Friedrich Nietzsche
Last edited by alphageek31337; 11-12-2004 at 11:58 AM.
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11-12-2004, 11:56 AM
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