Cops (especially the subject of the article who is a convicted federal criminal yet amazingly still has a job) are corrupt. Asset forfeiture is used to seize your private cash or goods, without even charging you with a crime. (Hello third world corruption). Oh and drug dogs seem to be completely inept due to wanting to please their handlers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...kies-stopped-searched-illinois_n_1364087.html Is this a national trend of increased corruption and abuse of civil rights? Or does it just seem to be more prevalent due to the internet and increased reporting? Discuss.
There's another problem with dog alerts as probable cause, which is that the handler can give a sharp tug on the leash (or whatever other signal the dog has been trained to respond to), the dog "alerts", and there you go, probable cause out of thin air. American police do seem to be very corrupt. I assume the reason nothing is done about it is the same as for so many other things; your broken political system. Or is there another component to it?
I would suggest that Sand is right to perceive it as a trend in recent decades because it's linked to the long-term institutionalization of the drug war. Where in the developing world you see the corrosive effect of that giant black market more overtly, in the US the obvious parts are firewalled around the poor and powerless. But the police are the bridge between that world and society at large, and it shouldn't be a surprise when irrational degrees of power founded on bullshit follow the old adage about corrupting absolutely.
