Bearcat06

Not sure about K9 alerts, but I know in the past, screeners have done secondary searches and found illegal drugs and called us (MCI LEO) and we made the arrest and had the screener write a statement on what transpired...... and pushed it forward to the County PA and they were charged/convicted. That happened at least 5-6 times I can recall.

Bearcat06

TSA dogs go thru the same program at Lackland AFB that our military K9s go thru......

The issue is that the TSA Director (like all of the others) is a dumbass and shouldn't be saying stupid stuff like the did.

But, when you hire US Coastie Officers that have been riding a desk the last 20 some years, you get what you get.

chollie

That's not quite what I was getting at.

Isn't there some kind of law that says if an officer pulls me over and searches my car without probable cause/reasonable suspicion and without my permission, anything found can be challenged and possibly tossed in court? Doesn't that include deliberating delaying a driver who declines a search until a dog can arrive?

I suspect the argument the government would make in this case is that if I present myself at the checkpoint, that is tacit permission for LE to search me without any suspicion or reasonable cause other than the fact that I bought a plane ticket.

Bearcat06

I've never seen any court cases/suits against LEOs at Airports for arresting folks based on what screeners have found during searchers/secondary searches....

If I am wrong, I would love to see the case history on it.

Bearcat06

Illegal search and seizure (Like Gant v. Arizona) and everything gets tossed by the court.

Rodriguez v. United States and Illinois v. Caballes both state that a person can't be held more than 5-6 mins as you await a K9.

Both of those, I suspect, will be challenged along with others sine the Court seems to be leaning more to the Right and will even go more Right of RBG retires or passes.

Suspecting that's what the argument would be and suspecting it would be held up in court.....

tsadude1

You could tape one leg with a pound of coke and another with weed and those dogs would care less they want that chemical smell for their tennis ball. Just wrap your stash in aluminum foil, that always works LOL.

Section 107

This a very overbroad statement. While some aspects of the training for military working dogs is very similar to that of Explosives Detection dogs, most of the training for explosives detection is NOT like that for military dogs trained for bite work.

Section 107

No, not at all. Putting yourself in the queue at a checkpoint is consent for TSA to conduct an administrative search for prohibited items; a boarding pass is not a required element. Presenting one's self at an airport checkpoint is not consent for a criminal search by other federal LE or the local airport law enforcement. This is why TSOs do not have powers of arrest and why they notify actual LE when a prohibited item or suspected prohibited/contraband item is identified.

yandosan

I call BS. If the "administrative" search leads to prompt investigation by law enforcement officers, then it is effectively a "criminal" search.
Lots of our Constitutional Rights are being encroached upon by ostensibly harmless "administrative" procedures...like Civil Forfeiture...don't be fooled by the euphemisms.

Section 107

Just curious: have you ever had to go through a metal detector to enter a court house? Did you consider that an euphemism for criminal search?

Bearcat06

Military LEO K9s that work/trained for EOD are not trained to bite/protect the handler........

Same with TSA/FPS/ICE/FAM/USMS/FBI/ATFE/or anyone else that uses dogs for LEO EOD missions.

Some of the K9s Engineers used downrange looking for mines/EOD might be trained like that due to them being used in a war-time mission....but LE K9s are not.

tsadude1

I could be wrong here but if there wasn't any suspicion, why would they want to interact with you? Do you think they are bored and want to do a few hours of paperwork? I just don't understand why someone with any common sense would want to bring their stash into a situation knowing that they will be screened, searched or whatever you want to call it. If a TSA K9 alerts on your drugs you should really be thankful because there is probably something bad mixed in it and they may have just saved you from a trip to the morgue.

Boggie Dog

What do you suspect could be mixed in a stash that would alert a TSA K9 and have the ability to send a person to the morgue? Keeping in mind that a "stash" can usually be measured in grams.

I think the issue is if by some chance a TSA screener notices a persons stash then they are obligated to notify police. At that point the LEO doesn't need to establish "Probable Cause" or Reasonable Suspicion" to charge the person. So the TSA search somehow eliminated protections of the 4th amendment and effectively moved from an Administrative Search to a Law Enforcement search. To me that is problematic.

Section 107

ahem, well, yes, that is a very good and well-taken point - I was not thinking EOD dogs in my response - you are quite correct - those would be trained substantially the same.

WillCAD

There are a number of reasons why a cop might want to "interact" with someone despite a lack of either probable cause or articulable suspicion. Off the top of my head, I see harassment, coercion, bigotry, and blind fishing expeditions being pretty common without the protection of the 4th Amendment.

The idea that a TSA canine might alert on someone's drug stash because The Terr'ists decided that it would be clever to secret explosives into some unsuspecting stoner's weed or coke is ludicrous on its face. Aside from the volume issue that Boogie Dog mentioned, there is also the stupidity of hiding explosives inside another prohibited substance that might get a person arrested before they get on the plane, not to mention the difficulty of Mr. Bad Actor somehow secretly stealing someone's drug stash, planting explosives in it, and then somehow returning to them for smuggling through the checkpoint...

As I said: Ludicrous on its face.

On the other hand, the idea that TSA secretly mixes drug-sniffing dogs into the ranks of the bomb-sniffing dogs, paranoid as it might sound, is not nearly as far-fetched (no pun intended). TSA has lied blatantly to the public before. It's not inconceivable that they might do so again, especially since TSA's upper management seems to be utterly convinced that they are part of a law enforcement agency whose mandate is to sniff out (again, no pun intended) criminals of all types, and that they have no restrictions on the location, type, duration, intensity, or invasiveness of their searches for any and all illicit items - or for any items that look vewwy, vewy scawy to any individual TSO.