FREE DRUG DOGS

Editor, The Auburn Plainsman:

A new supreme court case states that cops can take dogs fishing. Dogs can
go fishing for drugs in Illinois v. Caballes.

As an attorney, I am often consulted by people victimized in searches by
dogs trained to smell drugs. A drug dog's skills are often overestimated
because people anthropomorphize dogs. A humanlike quality that dogs have is
that they are natural libertarians with no interest in the war on drugs.

Drug dogs are like humans in that they must be taught to approach peaceful
people and search them, so that they can be arrested, handcuffed and
imprisoned for decades under modern prohibition. That is not an easy trick
to teach a dog. It's easier to teach humans.

All drug dogs are "playing a game," as are some humans who support modern
prohibition. The dogs are taught using actual dog toys. The toys are a
reward, and the reward is hidden with drugs to trick the dog into playing a
game of searching for the toy by associating it with drug odors. Many
errors can happen. There is always the danger that the dog will alert on
anything that resembles or smells like its toy (towels, tennis balls, car
carpet, etc.).

Caballes holds that cops can take dogs fishing. Caballes involved a
legitimate traffic stop. Dog-fishing in parking lots or on sidewalks should
still be opposed. Random drug checkpoints have already been found
unconstitutional by the Court. Any case that lacks a videotape of the dog
on the scene should result in rejection of testimony that the dog alerted,
or did so without cuing. Drug dogs are used so that humans can lie. Motions
to suppress should be made in all dog cases on the grounds that the dog is
unreliable and that the training and records show that the dog cannot
provide a basis for searching.

In Caballes, Justices Souter and Ginsburg dissented, pointing to studies
showing that drug dogs frequently return false positives (12.5-60 percent
of the time, according to one study).

Dogs approximate humans in that they go along with the system to avoid
disapproval from peers (teachers, school students, friends, etc., in the
case of humans). Drug dogs do not want disapproval from their police
handlers. Dogs play the game and will try to guess and read cues because
they are searching for approval, not for drugs.

Dogs match humans in that if you influence them enough they will do
anything - like passing the 18th Amendment. In modern prohibition, some
dogs are slow learners as are some humans.

Let's liberate drug dogs. Return them to protecting people from violence
and theft, which is also the only proper purpose of law enforcement. Dogs
should be man's best friend, not man's persecutor. Drug dogs are natural
libertarians.

Rex Curry, Tampa, Fla.