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It is definitely a worrying state of affairs when the only person allowed to dispute police engaging in illegal or unethical behavior is another policeman. The police are the mafia, and the only time they'll be disciplined without overwhelming evidence is when they mistakenly try to shake down another made man.

It's not like K-9s are uniquely to blame: the next generation of 4th-amendment violating technologies are already here, just waiting in the wings for judicial approval, or in some cases, to overturn previous rulings. And once they get even the most limited permission, these things (like infrared) will be used by the police as dousing rods to take them wherever they want to go.

Honestly, these laws need to be repealed or found unconstitutional. This is out of control.

The latter might take awhile. See Florida v Harris (2013) [0]

> Harris ... challenge[d] the dog's reliability, backed by data that asserts that on average, up to 80% of a dog's alerts are wrong.

> The Court unanimously held that if a bona fide organization has certified a dog after testing his reliability in a controlled setting, or if the dog has recently and successfully completed a training program that evaluated his proficiency, a court can presume (subject to any conflicting evidence offered) that the dog's alert provides probable cause to search, using a "totality-of-the-circumstances" approach.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Harris

>You say 'no', but, the puppy says 'yes' and there go your rights. It is pretty magic.

On a related note, I submit that this is what NSA surveillance is really all about.

"The suspect showed a pattern of activity consistent with [terrorism | child pornography | fraud | narco-trafficking]"

All the sudden, poof, probable cause. I'll know I'm right the minute I see data from these programs admitted as evidence in court.

> activity consistent with [terrorism | child pornography | fraud | narco-trafficking]"

Which is probably nothing more than a VPN connection...

Because you wouldn't be using a VPN if you had nothing to hide!

And that's right. What US needs here is not only softer laws, it's a whole mindset of flexibility with the law, like we have in more latin or corrupt countries: Tolerance with driving rules, tolerance with income tax workarounds, tolerance with violence on the street. I had a friend in France drop a complaint for fondling of his daughter by a teenager, the cop said the agressor was going to be merely told off in a meeting at the station, nothing more. I'm not saying this is the right middle-ground, but it implies a forgiving law framework.

I do hope you're not being serious, here -- your humor is a bit dry.

Strong rule of law is one of the defining hallmarks of a just and fair legal system. If a law is causing injustice, you repeal or rewrite it. You don't simply ignore or downplay it when it "feels" right.

That's the problem though: laws are basically never repealed in modern society. Three felonies a day...

That's called selective enforcement and has the effect of giving the police even more power. Since they're only selectively enforcing laws that many people are breaking they can choose to enforce them on you arbitrarily.

For example the speed limit on a major highway in Ontario is 100km/h however they average speed is probably closer to 120km/h because the police are selective with the speed enforcement. This means they can pull over basically anyone based on arbitrary criteria - what kind of car they drive or what they look like. It also means that the speed limit will never be changed legislatively because most drivers can just go 120km/h and be fine so there's no pushback.

Or an encrypted messaging system that terrorists often use; like WhatsApp.

"data from these programs admitted as evidence"

You won't see that. Parallel construction will be used to hide the source of the original tip. Some other explanation will be invented to justify why the case is stolen.

Dogs are a key element in letting them rob people on the side of the road.

Ya know, after I had written my parallel comment and gave it some thought later, I concluded that it's all just bullshit. The dog didn't alert by sitting, and the officer didn't cue him. They were going to search the car regardless.

You say 'no', but, the puppy says 'yes' and there go your rights. It is pretty magic.

Here's where I disagree with you (but only in the details). The dog didn't say anything. I mean, I've seen dogs sniff for drugs (and find them). I've watched amateur Noseworks competitors (slightly related to the training sniffing dogs). No dog "alerts" by sitting, at least none I've ever seen. Dogs sit all the time, it would be a stupid cue. That dog could have just stood there and ripped the meanest fart you ever smelled, and the thieves (pardon: cops) would have said that the dog "alerted". "Yup, smells like he found something!"

As you point out, the dog is a prop, a talisman. That car was getting searched, full stop. They just needed a "get out of the 4th amendment free" card in the shape of a German Shepherd. They might as well train gerbils for that. They fit in your pocket, cost less to feed, and with a little propaganda we can all be led to believe they work just as well as dogs (and they probably will if you're just looking for false positives).

(And to be clear, I'm not saying you can't train a dog to sniff for drugs or bombs. Obviously they can be trained for this, and to a high degree of reliability. They can, however, also be trained to bark, dig, or whine on command, whether they smell drugs or not.)

> As you point out, the dog is a prop, a talisman. > Here's where I disagree with you (but only in the details).

Oh I agree, the dog saying 'yes' was meant to be the officer using the dog to note on paper that 'dog said yes'.

As you said, in case of this group, they didn't have to pretend much at all. I imagine others would actually have a functional, probably somewhat non-obvious alerting signal. But this groups was getting good results without trying much.

I think they probably learned their lesson from this -- spend more time training the dog to actually alert and figure out how to make it do it reliably and out of the sight of the camera.

How do you reach the conclusion that they've learned any lesson from this? Have the officers been reprimanded in any way?

If this couple had any amount of cash on them, it would have been confiscated as "drug money". Good luck getting it back, even in the absence of any evidence. That's why these tactics are tolerated, it's a source of income for the department. Who cares if a few innocent out-of-staters are taken advantage of?

The whole situation just makes me sick, and I'm continually surprised that it hasn't been ruled unconstitutional.

> How do you reach the conclusion that they've learned any lesson from this? Have the officers been reprimanded in any way?

That was sarcasm.

The point was the cops probably didn't get reprimanded, laws probably didn't change. But, they probably got chewed out in Monday morning meeting about taking better care, for example: make sure dog alerts off camera or takes a subtler cue. After precious department funding is at stake here, it is not amateur hour.

Maybe imagine it like a mafia leader instructing his henchmen to properly dispose of bodies, otherwise it leave evidence and makes everything difficult ;-)

Police don't get reprimanded in America. They just get paid vacation at worst. Shoot a handcuffed guy in the back of your squad car? "Oh, he must have had a gun we just didn't find when we searched him." Right. Right.

"Enjoy your two-week paid fishing trip."

Re-read the actual lesson GP stated the officers learned - that they should be more subtle when giving giving cues to the dog.

They actually nickname them "warrant dogs"

> no dog alerts by sitting

Um, actually, that's exactly what every military working drug dog I've seen does. Source: spent a year as the legal officer on my first ship. Had a dog come to the course. Had a dog on the ship. And they definitely have a non-negligible false-positive rate. But, certainly, the video, as described, supports a cue.

Yeah. Drug dogs here in Australia are trained to sit as a cue, at least as far as my experience with them goes.

Just like the Police here - sitting on their arses is what passes for working ;-)

> No dog "alerts" by sitting, at least none I've ever seen. Dogs sit all the time, it would be a stupid cue.

These dogs are trained to alert by sitting down and not to sit down when doing their job. Just look at any video footage from sniffer dogs in training or working.

> It is emphasized mutiple times, even in the HN title. We don't want the audience to forget that and think he is just a regular janitor or plumber here! I believe that says a lot about the beliefs that go around -- that cops are somehow more honest, and noble (and so are the troops).

Interesting thought. My reaction to the headline was "good, as a cop people will listen to him and he's in a better position to help change this."

I'm sure plenty of people out there are more likely to believe him and, while I'm not, he could become a useful spark for change. Even if he's lying there are thousands of other people who experience the situation for real.

> good, as a cop people will listen to him and he's in a better position to help change this

Yeah I had the same thought. Even if we don't rationally think cops are inherently more noble and honest than the average person, we know that the average person believes it. The news station knows that too.

When I was a much younger fellow I was involved in an incident that should have netted us a whole bunch of trouble. We were out on the beach at a park breaking about every rule in the book: ad-hoc firepit during a burn ban, setting off fireworks, open alcohol where "No alcohol" was clearly posted, underage drinking, etc. A park ranger happened upon us and was none too pleased with our activities. He had us pack up our stuff and follow him back to our illegally parked cars and I was certain a large fine would be our very best outcome. He started lecturing us as he collected each of our IDs but the moment my friend handed him an active military ID the mood instantly changed. He started talking about how nice the nature was and sent us off with a warning. Blew my mind.

As a young fellow, my best friend's father was high ranking law enforcement officer. Anytime we encountered any trouble (similar to the sort you mentioned), he'd simply hand the officer his father's card or phone number and off we'd go. You don't even want to hear about the sorts of things wives of law enforcement get away with...

Agreed. We're always more interested when people speak up against "their own" than when criticism comes from outsiders.

Football players speaking up about their head injuries? That's a better story than some tenured professor writing from his lab. Employees blowing the whistle on their employer's bad practices, teachers arguing against tenure policies, police calling out police abuse or racism – these are all compelling narratives.

Of course, ideally, we'd look to the quality of the argument and the strength of the evidence, but an insider account gives us the mental shortcut to think "this one knows what they're talking about, and they don't have a clear motivation to disparage their own."

I think the cop aspect is interesting because:

He is a professional commenting on his own profession. If the topic would be sanitation, Joe Plumbers opinion would hold more weight.

He is speaking against his own colleagues, which might have negative consequences down the line, and has no apparent personal gain in doing so. So he is more likely to be honest than disgruntled joe plumber.

I have trained German Shepherd Dogs for Schutzhund competition for years. I have three right now. I can make them do just about anything I want on command. And that does not mean verbal commands. A look, a flick of a finger, gesture, even moving my foot.

I am not saying this is what happened here, but I'd be careful to trust a dog unless the training was absolutely 100% verified not to have trained anything that could allow the handler to command the dog to "hit".

Traditional media take the side that fits their story. NPR takes the side of the unempowered, even when they might be on the wrong side, other outlets have their own agendas and follow through with that. Usually it's to make their audience feel good or bad about themselves. Confirming biases, etc. If the police are out to get traffickers and the outlet thinks traffickers are bad, guess whose side they'll take. If they side with the victims of floods, famine etc., guess whose side they'll lean towards. You play your audience or risk losing it. It's not like there is only one official news website and you have no choice. You're not Xinhua or Pravda.

> Traditional media take the side that fits their story. NPR takes the side of the unempowered, even when they might be on the wrong side, other outlets have their own agendas and follow through with that.

This isn't true and I think you have traditional news media confused with the "info-tainment" world. I can assure you NPR doesn't have a unified agenda that is required to be met or is run by some "cabal" locked away in a secret lair picking sides and passing down marching orders. News media is produced by a wide variety of outlets and sources. Organizations leverage both in-house staff/resources as well as thousands of external sources (AP, Reuters, ITN, et al) for producing content. Not to mention all of the smaller, independent public media stations producing content that NPR picks up. Phrases such as "it's to make their audience feel good or bad about themselves" or "You play your audience or risk losing it" are simply lazy arguments without merit.

AP, Reuters, etc, are news gatherings orgs and are different from the NPRs huffpos, WSJs, etc.

NPR, huffpo, WSJ all have their biases and a narrative they want to present for their core audience, otherwise, why would they diverge on how they present the same topic and why do the topics they cover differ?

NPR is always the underdog. They also make good use of techniques to put things in whatever perspective they want. Softball questions to sympathizers, leading questions, etc. If you study propaganda, they use pretty much all the techniques. Obviously this is why they and Glenn beck and co sound the same.

You don't need a cabal, you need a head of news, producers and journalists who share the same interests. Just make it all line up organizationally.

This is a complete over-simplification of the news media. White-washing everything as propaganda is juvenile. The Huffington Post (a private entity) is a news aggregation service that also produces some op-ed pieces. It editorializes news that other outlets have produced and provides its own opinionated analysis. This is not what NPR does. The WSJ produces both traditional news as well as provides opinion based editorials. Again, you are conflating traditional news media and with opinion based info-tainment.

I didn't say it was all propaganda but that they use techniques of propaganda to progress their point of view. You are oversimplifying in order to paint it as invalid point of view.

It's interesting to note fox news has more diversity of opinion than does NPR. On NPR all minorities are progressives, yet IRL I know minorities with all points of view, but listening to them you'd think they were all progressives. So, yes, they forward their narrative very adroitly.

This morning they had a piece about WalMart increasing base wages more than originally announced, and the presenter, as an aside mentioned, "I'm sure out of the goodness of their hearts". See how insidious it is? There was no reason for that, it didn't follow from what the reporter was saying. And it's this kind of technique they've mastered.

No one on NPR claims that all minorities are progressive. It's well reported, for example, that many Latinos lean conservative on many issues (anti abortion, opposed to opening relations with Cuba, etc).

It's not a misrepresentation to say that, e.g., blacks tend to vote Democratic. That's factual information, and it's not the same as claiming that all minorities are progressive. No one claims this. I don't even know what "narrative" NPR would be forwarding if they claimed this.

This frankly sounds a lot more like a Fox News tactic than NPR. "All minorities vote progressive!" sounds like a rallying cry to get conservatives riled up and active.

Listen to npr more critically, then. It's obvious. I prefer them over the alternatives, but they are far from impartial and free of agenda.

NPR does not make that untrue claim. What happens is they predominantly interview progressives when they interview majorities or minorities. In addition most of the staff and volunteers do not lean conservative or libertarian by any measure. As I said, I wager I'd see more political diversity at fox, and that's staggering, knowing about fox.

It's obvious that they are not a far right wing propaganda org, yes. And undoubtedly they lean to the left. Calling them progressive propaganda is disingenuous, though.

As for interviewing only progressive minority members, I'm not sure that's true. I feel like you're pushing this as a fact with no data to back it up. I mean, if they're interviewing someone from the black lives matter movement, it's probably going to be a progressive black person. But I also recall them interviewing Latinos in Florida opposed to lifting the Cuban embargoes.

It's interesting that you hold this view. I listen to NPR every day and it's pretty often that their conservative panelists "win" the discussion. Unlike Fox, whose liberal panelists are pretty laughable, NPR airs people who know their shit, regardless of political persuasion.

I dont find their conservative guests to be persuasive at all. They're mostly hacks. They are not consistent and don't have a well formed argument.

I'm an independent and their con guests are somewhat lacking in style and argument.

Just this week Diane Rehm had Republican Senator Trent Lott and Michael Gerson, a speech writer for GWB and policy adviser for the Heritage Foundation, on her show. Both of them were extremely sharp, knowledgeable and experienced debaters and it showed.

It might be a side effect of her location (DC) and clout, but she often has influential policy makers on her show, from both sides of the fence.

Do you actually ever listen to NPR? You think it sounds like Glenn Beck? Seriously?

You don't have to like or support NPR, but they are absolutely not just pandering and pushing propaganda like Glenn Beck.

No, Glenn beck is an exaggerator. My point was if there were no bias they'd sound the same, but they don't, indicating everyone presents their point if view.

Everyone has bias. But NPR does a pretty good job of presenting both sides. e.g. I listened to them give significant air time a couple of weeks ago to a far right wing conservative supporting Trump's plan to block Muslims from entering the country. I listened to them let this nutso woman talk over the "progressive" trying to point out that this is unconstitutional.

Here is the thing about propaganda. You do give your opponents time, but you let them make fools of themselves, you undermine their positions, you introduce doubt into what they say, etc.

If you're interested in the technique follow the Russia/ Ukraine blogs. The Russian blogs are populated by confederates. One takes a somewhat extreme view, ridiculous view --everyone will see thru it, then a second confederate comes in with the more plausible submarine view... But you can flip that. That's how you do it.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't? They're propagandists for not interviewing conseratives, but if they do interview conservatives, they're somehow still propagandists. If NPR were actively selecting crazy people to represent the conservatives, that might be a reasonable accusation, but I don't believe that to be true.

65% of likely GOP voters say that they support banning Muslims from entering the country. [1] It's not propagandizing to bring a conservative on to present a position that the majority of their base supports. The proposal is absurd and frightening, but the options are to not report on it all, to not bring a conservative on air to support it, or to bring a conservative on air to support it and let them sound crazy. There is no way to say that we should ban Muslims and not sound crazy to a moderate or liberal.

[1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/292796480/Bloomberg-Politics-Purpl...

It's not a damned if you do damned if you don't.

It's bring guests of comparable quality and abilities to present their ideas and don't prime one side or the other as good or bad.

I don't feel like this is going to resolve with us agreeing on anything. You think NPR is pushing an agenda really hard, and I think that's coloring your perception of everything they do. You claim that Fox News has more diversity of opinion than NPR. It's difficult for me to accept that you actually believe this.

If you think all the conservatives NPR airs sound incompetent, maybe you should consider that it's the ideas they're espousing that you don't like, rather than the particular people presenting them. If some of the ideas sound stupid when challenged, maybe those ideas are actually stupid.

Fox also does the same thing with liberals. It's an easy tactic. You put people there who don't communicate well and no matter how worthy the idea, it will fall flat with presentation and lack of eloquence.

Now, I do hold npr to higher standard because they market themselves that way. Listen to their money drives and how they sell themselves as impartial, best unbiased news source. If you don't recall, its coming next week I believe. Listen closely to how they sell themselves as bearers of the truth and impartiality.

I find it so bizarre that you think NPR is the polar opposite of Fox. Fox is a right wing propaganda org. I don't feel like that is even remotely true of NPR.

NPR doesn't hit you over the head. They are more polished and subtle. Refined. Their audience tends to be more refined at one end.

And, to be clear, you're claiming I'm equating them, I'm not. I said they use similar tactics, which they do.

I believe that says a lot about the beliefs that go around -- that cops are somehow more honest, and noble (and so are the troops).

I can't help but think that the root of this phenomenon is the adversarial nature of policing in the U.S. It's assumed that the police are on one side and the people are on the other, and that the two sides are going to be at odds. And like most adversarial relationships, you assume that most critiques of "the other side" are noise.

There's probably some element of "police are honorable", but I think the adversarial setup has more to do with it.

> I believe that says a lot about the beliefs that go around -- that cops are somehow more honest, and noble (and so are the troops)

I think it implies a certain level of assumed corruption instead. It's unusual (as far as the public is concerned) for enforcement agency A to give any trouble to agency B - 'you scratch my back...' kind of thing.

An american friend of mine once told me that when his brother graduated from a police academy they told him: "Now you're in a gang that wins".

There's a lot of speculation in articles and comments despite video evidence available for this sort of thing. Here's a step-by-step video of what they do for anyone interested that also shows them cue the dog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-WMn_zHCVo

"Usually traditional media takes the side of the cops."

They did, Ronnie. The other two are pirates.

I'm not an American, so it could be that my perception is just different, but for what it's worth, I didn't read it that way - to me it's about the irony of the fact that cops themselves fall victim to this sort of abuse, too.

Here is a clear example of how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-WMn_zHCVo