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Comment by secstate | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate your willingness to push for your rights here. But the situation is surprisingly similar to refusing to let a cop search your trunk. You can say no, but that K-9 unit is going to take four hours to get there from the station 20 minutes away. They will make your life hell.

I've definitely been in hospital situations with my children where I was honestly afraid (perceived or real threat, I still don't know) that they were going to report me for child abuse if I took my kids home and refused care. People with authority are kinda scary, and while I love for us to all choose rights over security, sometimes I just don't want to have to fight for everything.

And this is where police states evolve from.

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> You can say no, but that K-9 unit is going to take four hours to get there from the station

Holding someone for longer than the traffic stop requires to wait for a drug dog is illegal in the USA. That's not to say it never happens, but it's grounds to exclude any evidence found, and for a lawsuit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodriguez_v._United_States

Over half the population doesn't have the funds to enforce that and effectively ultimately has no such rights in this situation and many like it.

Not to mention that proving that the drug dog didn't actually need to take that long would probably be extremely difficult.

How long the drug dog needs is irrelevant; if they want to use a dog without consent or probable cause to search, they need to get it there while they still have legal grounds to detain the suspect. A traffic violation is grounds to detain someone long enough to issue a citation, but not longer.

The judge won't be amused if the police say it took them 45 minutes to write a speeding ticket.

But for the judge to be amused would require the affected person to have the legal intelligence, moral fortitude and general life "legalness" (because maybe you doubt your US legal status even if your life is mostly above board) to pursue one shitty officer's stop.

I've definitely been detained for what seemed to me an acceptable amount of time for a traffic stop, but who's to say the cop can't come up with myriad reasons it had to take that long? Is 35 minutes too long? Is 38 minutes? Who's keeping time, and who's word is taken as truth?

I've been detained 12 hours or so without arrest, including imprisonment, by feds. Pulling my FBI report confirms no federal arrest record, so it was just a detainment.

Yes, police have a lot of power and can sometimes get away with doing illegal things. The probability increases when the victim is somehow marginalized. Most people won't bring it to court, but if the search is fruitful, it's guaranteed to end up in court.

The increased use of car and body cameras makes this particular abuse harder to get away with. A request to search denied followed by a call for a dog, followed by unusual delays recorded on dashcam leads to a challenge even the most overworked public defender would raise.

Why would this not be incredibly easy to get away with. Identify those in the target demographic by race, area, and value of car.

If its a black man in a poor part of town driving a cheap car your success rate in getting away with it will be 100%.

The success rate will not be 100% when the searches actually finds something illegal. Most of them will take a plea, but on occasion, one won't.

I'm not saying it never happens, but the legal risk is too high for most cops to do it often. They may try to get you to think they will, but it's usually a bluff.

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