-------- Original Message -------- Subject: an interesting take on the recent ruling regarding dogs and traffic stops Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 08:16:26 -0500 From: Chuck Mauthe <cmauthe@private> To: 'Politech' <declan@private> Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/10/sniffer_dog_ruling/ Sniffer dog threatens online privacy By Mark Rasch, SecurityFocus (MarkRasch at solutionary.com) Published Thursday 10th February 2005 12:43 GMT Comment The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution is supposed to be the one that protects people and their "houses, places and effects" against "unreasonable searches". Forty-two years ago, the US Supreme Court held that attaching a listening device to a public pay phone violated this provision because the Constitution protects people, not places, and because the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless searches without probable cause if the target enjoys a reasonable expectation of privacy. Last month the US Supreme Court effectively trashed this principle in a case that could have a profound impact on privacy rights online. The case, decided by the court on 24 January, had nothing to do with the Information Superhighway, but rather an ordinary interstate highway in Illinois. Roy Caballes was pulled over by the Illinois State Police for speeding. While one officer was writing him a ticket, another officer in another patrol car came by with a drug sniffing dog. There was absolutely no reason to believe that Caballes was a drug courier - no profile, no suspicious activity, no large amounts of cash. The driver could have been a soccer mom with a minivan filled with toddlers. Under established Supreme Court precedent, while the cops could have looked in the window to see what was in "plain view", the officers had neither probable cause nor reasonable suspicion to search Caballes' car, trunk, or person. [...] Groups fight internet wiretap push (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/23/groups_fight_internet_wiretap/) Email privacy strikeout suspended (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/07/email_wiretap/) Feds invite comment on VoIP wiretaps (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/26/feds_seek_net_tap_comments/) _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Tue Feb 15 2005 - 07:35:00 PST