In the case of a traffic stop, the officer stops me 'because I am speeding' and searches me until he finds something.
In another case, s/he stops me because of a 'tip.'
The cover story of the officer differs.
If they won't stop this they should at least keep stats on how many of these things pan out.
Essentially, once you have poisoned the actual trial process (and this shows just how poisoned it is), no statistics about "how effective this is" are going to mean anything. After all, I'm sure some DEA agents know they're convicting innocent people I'm sure others have blanket belief in the guilt of many innocent people. It's kind of a truism - once you abandon objective, unbiased inquiry, it's gone.
However, if your traffic stop is for a moving offense that warrants arrest (DUI, for instance, or reckless driving), all bets are off, because the police can do intrusive searches incident to an arrest.
Also, if you're stopped for a moving violation and either authorize a search, or have evidence of probable cause in plain view (for instance, a bag of weed in the passenger seat), all bets are again off.
And to get this power, all the dog has to do is to pass a training program. That's like giving anybody who has a "diploma" from a "prestigious Internet university" powers to arrest and imprison. Only in this case you can't even argue with them because how can you argue with a dog? A dog barked, thus search is authorized.
Now let's think - can there be any ways to make the dog bark? If somebody does that in order to make foolproof instant probable-cause-on-demand, what would be his risks that the dog will grow a conscience and tell everybody he's been lying for years?
http://www.fletc.gov/training/programs/legal-division/downlo...
It's one thing for an SOD tip to put a cop at the right place at the right time to observe a transaction or pull over a car driven by a guy with warrants out.
It's another thing entirely for an SOD tip to be the totality of probable cause, and for the police to lie to prosecutors or prosecutors lie to a judge about it.
The latter case sounds much less likely to me, given the effort these slide decks show of LEOs trying to stay within the confines of the law (I don't happen to agree with where those confines are, but the evidence we have shows the DOJ paying at least lip service to it).
And I think that the possibility of another Snowden for this requires that there be some functioning mechanism by which requests to do this are centrally cleared, or even recorded, which I don't think is a sure thing. I see it just as likely that different agencies and departments within them are operating under a lot of different standing blanket orders in the form of legal interpretations, and that once a parallel construction is created, the records of any alternate explanation are destroyed (or were never created.)
For once, somebody could get and publish all those training manuals - unredacted, with all the juicy details. With it being this entrenched, something must be written down - you can't rule system this vast on lore alone.
This should be illegal. It should be illegal even if something perfectly analogous has existed in that past. The extensiveness of a technique and the power that it allows matters.
I'm not going to go back and find this conversation because I shouldn't have to. It's not my job to follow you around and make sure you are being intellectually honest. It's pretty frustrating that someone as well-respected as you are here, and someone who is such a prolific poster, refuses to update his model of the world when new information is introduced into it. You are mind-bogglingly tenacious in trying to quell the outrage over civil liberties abuses and apparently go as far as selectively forgetting relevant information.
Could you cite a link to the case you're thinking of, where evidence from SIGINT surveillance was used directly as probable cause for a search?
Also, could you yourself update your mental model of what's happening on HN? You obviously think I'm a tenacious foe of civil liberties causes. The opposite is true. I've done as much in the real world to support civil liberties causes as most anyone else on HN has. I contribute to candidates who I believe support a strong fourth amendment. I've canvassed for candidates like them. I donate to civil liberties causes.
What I have a problem with are batshit conspiracy theories, which is something HN is rife with. People should stop pretending that conspiracy theories are helpful when they're of the right valence. They aren't.
If you've actually followed me around HN, you know that I'm not at all unwilling to acknowledge when I'm wrong, as a cursory look at HNSearch will show. So, instead of yelling at me, why not show where I'm wrong?
HAH!
Sorry, continue.
Lawful stop? No. Remedy? No.
The core issue is that the judiciary's (and your) presumption of reliable and trustworthy law enforcement behavior is not valid. This is a LEO 'company culture' problem which has always existed (formerly a racial problem, but now everyone's problem now that we're not doing that any more).
I'm not sure what the answer is, other than people need to learn what has happened in the ghetto for the last 200 years, then accept that they're next.
I think it would be more plausible that he was profiled for race/location/type of vehicle/etc., rather than his name, but maybe there are more specifics?
I suppose it's possible the ALPS could be configured to just ID every single car, and the officer had in his mind (or using another system) the name of a specific suspect who he matched (erroneously) to the ALPS results of the victim here.
Warrants are issued by a court. Courts are imperfect and may not have correct date of birth or other identifying information beyond a name.
It seems likely there are cases of the SOD information being used to target people for abusive traffic stops (the agent in the Reuters article says And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it).
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/LAPD-Los-Angeles-Pol...
LEOs and DAs have no problem paying for false testimony, whether it's to cover SOD or not. They can use taxpayer money and there's no real repercussions for getting caught.
Innocent people are routinely murdered by police in my area, with no justification or repercussion. The lucky ones who survive get million dollar settlements in taxpayer money. The cops never face serious punishment. We had a group of LEOs literally beat a defenseless man to death, captured in full audio and video, and they got off scot free. Look up Kelly Thomas.
Are "drug dogs" keyed to a specific substance? Is the cause given by a drug dog alert enough to conduct a general search and everything found admitted as evidence?