Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs

Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs
Mark Rasch, 2005-02-08

Why a Supreme Court decision on canine-assisted roadside searches opens the door to a new regime of Internet surveillance.

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Logic a bit flawed 2005-02-08
Anonymous (1 replies)

While you make a good argument in this article, I feel your logic is slightly flawed. The dog never went into the trunk to find the drugs. The dog is only able to breathe air, which was actually outside the trunk. Therefore, I do not think this is equivalent to rummaging through the person's trun...

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Logic a bit flawed 2005-02-09
Mark D. Rasch (5 replies)

In fact, Justice Souter pointed out in dissent the fact that ?the dog does not smell the disclosed contraband; it smells a closed container.? In a similar case 2 years ago, Kyllo v. US, the court rejected the governments argument that by using and infrared scanner on someone's house they were not s...

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Logic a bit flawed 2005-02-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

That's rather interesting. According to the logic of the court that you present, a technology that used IR to look inside a house but did not show you a picture unless the system determined there was a crime being committed would be considered reasonable searching....

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Logic a bit flawed 2005-02-10
Anonymous

Do you really think it is technically feasible for a computer filter to discern from a low-resolution IR image whether or not the occupants of a house are growing marijuana inside it? I think that developing a system that, with no prior knowledge of the structural layout or ventilation in the house,...

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Logic a bit flawed 2005-02-10
Anonymous

And what if in that case, the law enforcement officials had used a dog to sniff around the house rather than using IR? ...

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Kind of off 2005-02-10
MattJordan

Kind of off topic...

...but we already have random sniffings in Britain it would seem.

Other day when I was in the pub on a busy friday night, the police turned up and stopped anyone leaving while they walked a sniffer dog round the pub - followed by 8 police and a video camera.

Nothing fou...

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Logic a bit flawed 2005-02-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

Police sweeps with dogs sniffing outside of parked cars? In fact, this is exactly what happens at the Niagara Falls Canadian border (mostly trying to get back into the US). I doubt you'll find many that complain about this practice.

The difference between dogs and other counter-examples you cite ...

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Logic a bit flawed 2005-02-11
Anonymous

Well in reality, defense grade encryption is available to anyone with half a brain, as long as they know to look for it. They can sniff all the packets they want, and if appropriate measures are taken( RSA 2034-Bit Encryption, or adopt OpenSSL for all your security needs), very little can be done....

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Logic a bit flawed 2005-02-11
Anonymous

Ordinary vision is remote sensing as well. If the "container" cloaks the criminal activity, then to search the "container" requires probable cause. This becomes more difficult when the "container" itself may give rise to suspicion (consider a bulky overcoat on a hot day).

If there is a "window", ...

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Weak analysis 2005-02-08
Anonymous (1 replies)

The obvious error in this analysis is that the relevant privacy protections that apply online are statutory, not constitutional. So they are unaffected by Caballes. ...

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Weak analysis 2005-02-09
Mark D. Rasch (1 replies)

The ECPA and Title III apply to interceptions and are intended to enforce the Fourth Amendment. However, if there is no expectation of privacy, we can expect a repeal of Title III....

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That makes no sense, Mark. 2005-02-09
Anonymous

That makes no sense, Mark. It has always been unclear whether there are 4th Amendment protections in remotely stored and transmitted information under United States v. Miller and Smith v. Md. Congress protected this information by statute by passing in ECPA in 1986 precisely to ensure that there w...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-08
Anonymous (2 replies)

"...a dark dessert highway..."

What's it made of, chocolate mousse?

----

The dog didn't climb into the trunk to search it, it merely sniffed around the outside collecting the scents that were in the air. In the same way that a police officer can observe contraband that is in "plain sight",...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
MDH (1 replies)

In Mark's argument, the technology used to obtain the evidence is not important. The dog is interchangeable with the IR goggles and the parabolic dish etc...

What is important - is a citizen's right to EXPECT privacy. The fellow driving has a right to EXPECT that what is in his trunk will remain ...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Anonymous

Except according to the court's ruling, the expectation of privacy does not cover illegal contraband, which is what the dog detected....

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs - Where is it private v. public 2005-02-10
Anonymous

Yeah all that is well and good, except it violates the concept and spirit of expectation of privacy. The dog is a tool in this case, specialized for the purpose of sniffing out drug related contraban in containers. A packet sniffer is a tool to examine the data content of the IP container. The IR...

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Does not follow (non sequiter) 2005-02-09
Anonymous

While houses may be protected, the FBI/CIA can watch the outside of your house all they want, as your neighbors can too. While intruding into a computer can be thought of as violating the constitutional amendment being mentioned, traffic to and from is clearly not the same. The internet itself is ...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-09
Michael Britt

I don't think the logic is flawed at all.

If legal precedent has stated that a "search" by the police is well within their bounds by what they can see in "plain sight", then using a specialized technology to exceed the officer's natural senses exceeds the bounds of the search. Period. This is esp...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-09
A.W. Montville (1 replies)

Consider an e-mail message. The e-mail message is the car. When unencrypted, everything in the car is visible to the world when in transit -- everyone can look inside the windows to see what's lying about.

Enter encryption. This is the technology that locks the trunk, and prevents the "air" fr...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Anonymous

Just wait until encryption is illegal-that is the next step.

After all, why would law-abiding citizens want to hide their activities from the government? The fact that your data is encrypted would tend to indicate to the authorities that your are engaged in illegal activity. Encrypting your data...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-09
Anonymous

I'm not sure I agree with the analysis in this article but I hadn't heard about the supreme court decision and am disgusted that they seem to think that this type of search is legal under the contitution. Without probable cause there is simply no reason to be subjected to this kind of behavior by th...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-09
Anonymous (1 replies)

The words are "unreasonable searches", "un" means "without", making the phrase "without reason searches".

The officer had no reason to search, yet he used a search tool (dog) for it's intended purpose (searching) to perform a search.

/*
The right of the people to be secure in their perso...

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-09
Mark Rasch (7 replies)

The test is NOT whether there was a reason to search. There are separate clauses -- is the search objectively reasonable -- some searches can be reasonable without a REASON to search --e .g., alcohol roadblocks -- no reason to believe that a specific individual has been drinking.

If a police ...

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-09
Bob Radvanovsky

I disagree with much of the premise of all of this. Fact is, as technologies advance even further, my question to everyone is how would you even *know* that your privacy and your civil rights have been violated? The answer is -- you don't.

Here are some cases which would be contrary to unreason...

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-09
Anonymous

Blanket searches are illegal as far as I remeber high school law course where they teach you your rights ( Most places have dropped this course). I've never seen road checks for drinking and driving in the US I see them in canada all the time and my father was shocked when he saw one in canada( He l...

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

So, you mean to say that war is peace? Freedom is slavery? Ignorance is.......

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-11
Bob Radvanovsky

Old philosophical phrase:

"If you want peace, prepare for war."

-rad...

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-10
Anonymous

It is extremely unreasonable. Cops must have probable cause. This is a fundamental Constitutional protection- they must have probable cause to initiate a search, and no matter how you spin it using a trained drug-sniffing dog is performing a search. ...

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-10
Unanimous

"Random" searches are illegal, however most states get around the law I know by 'counting' cars at DUI or DWI searches. "Every fourth" or "Every Fifth" car, for example, and can get in a lot of trouble if they 'accidently' skip a car, so they can search the teen-agers one back, say.

As to the ap...

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

Mark,

I don't think most would disagree with the principle set forth in your article, but you know Scott McNealey was right...

Don't you recall that old poster with a copy of the original Bill of Rights, that had a big red stamp on it, "Void where Prohibited by Law"?

...

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So what is Scott McNealy's home phone number? 2005-02-10
Anonymous

So what is Scott McNealy's home phone number?

Where does he live? I would like to have a word with him......

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

"If a police dog walked walked down the street and sniffed random cars, there would be no "reason" to sniff, but that doesnt per se make the sniff "unreasonable.""

If thats the case then lets pull over random people driving and give them piss tests. Better yet lets give everyone pulled over a pi...

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On Unreasonable Searches 2005-02-10
Mark D. Rasch

Here is an example.. dog sniff for explosives in lockers in train station. No "reason" to sniff, but probably a reasonable search given the possible harm and the semi-public location. Different result if dog sniffs my HOUSE for explosives without probable cause. Or, use of geiger counter to "searc...

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Scary... 2005-02-10
Anonymous

I forget who is credited with saying it, but this just brings to mind "why do you need privacy if you've got nothing to hide?" Scary......

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Analysis Flaw Revised 2005-02-10
Anonymous (2 replies)

You mention the dog sniff case and the heat sensing case as examples of both sides of fence. I would say that the idea of a packet filter pulling out mailcious traffic is more like the heat sensor than the dog sniff. As many who read SecurityFocus would know, the accuracy of any packet sniffing sy...

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Analysis Flaw Revised 2005-02-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

This is what I thought. From my experiences with random searches at school, at least 1 in 10 searches is a false positive. Considering DNA requires 1 in 100 million differentiation to stand up in court, I'm incredibly suprised that 1 in 10 meets the definition of reasonable....

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Analysis Flaw Revised 2005-02-10
Anonymous

I believe random searches at school fall under a different argument. They are (arguably, though I disagree with it) permissible because the student does not have an expectation of privacy there....

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Analysis Flaw Revised 2005-02-10
Mark Rasch (1 replies)

I would agree with you as the heat sensor case was ORIGINALLY decided. Kyllo v. United States. However, in the Caballes case, the majority essentially rewrote Kyllo, and said that the ONLY reason the heat sensor was illegal was because it revealed things OTHER than criminal activity - e.g., when M...

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Analysis not flawed but maybe incomplete? 2005-02-10
BC

And another factor is: What happens to the information that the "dog" doesn't react to? The live dog can't communicate that it also smells gasoline, motor oil and so forth around the car, but it does store that information in it's brain. It doesn't know what motor oil is, but it knows what "x" smell...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
RealisticCanadian

I find it interesting that some readers ahead of me actually posted saying that this article was not on target...

The point is, 50 years ago, there would have at least been protests against this sort of invasion of privacy.

How many of us are truly 100% 'innocent'? Not I. While I've never robb...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Louis Helmke

Forgive me if I am out of order here but I think there is a disconnect. The disconnect is where is the detection is occuring and how it is processed for reasonable cause.

The reason a dog can pick up the contraband is because the odor of it goes outside the container (the trunk). Thus; it has l...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Caged Rat

The main point that seems to be missed here is that in order for the dog to be able to do any type of search, it must *first* be removed from the transport vehicle. Without justifiable reasons, the dog should have never been removed from the troopers vehicle and; therefore, there would not have been...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Anonymous

There is a good discussion on this at plastic.com:

http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=05/02/02/21534736...

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Accuracy of the dog/packet sniffers? 2005-02-10
Anonymous

How accurate are these dogs and packet sniffers? Shouldn't this be considered when used to allow warantless searches? What fraction inocents' rights is it okay to violate when applying this search technique?...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Anonymous (2 replies)

'The fact that the dog is "just sniffing the air" is not the issue - the dog is sniffing the air to find out what I have inside a closed container in a trunk'

Mark - This statement is incorrect. The dog is not being used to "find out what I have inside a closed container in a trunk" as you state...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

Does not a dog sniff every molecule of the air before it alerts? May I search the vibrations of the air where I am standing to hear your conversation in a closed room thousands of feet away? May I use sophisticated technology to do so?...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-11
Anonymous

Yes, a dog does "sniff every molecule of the air," but only within it's genetic capabilities. While many breeds of dogs have an olfactory system about 50 times that of humans, it is not a scientific instrument that measures all raw data. It can't pick up everything, including some minute trace el...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-12
Anonymous

{quote}The dog ONLY (absent erroneous behavior by the handler) alerts to the presence of narcotics, not child pornography, not untaxed cigarettes, not explosives, or ANY OTHER LEGAL OR ILLEGAL SUBSTANCE.{quote}

It seems to me that for one, removing a K-9 dog out of a police car during a traffic ...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
a Seat Sniffer

I for one would LOVE to be stopped on a Dessert Highway. What would be the fine? 2 cookies, one apple pie and a loss of pudding privileges for a month.......

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Edgar Whipple (2 replies)

The right to privacy is the right to avoid unwelcome inspection or invasion of one's person, one's lawful activities, and one's lawfully held property and effects. A search can only be contrary to privacy when it exposes or invades, or threatens to expose or invade, one of these things.

The liste...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

So if the conversation were about unlawful activities, it would be OK to listen in?...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-11
Edgar Whipple

No, because listening in unreasonably risks intruding upon legitimate conversation.

By its nature, unlawful activity cannot claim protection of the law for itself. The point behind political rights (as opposed to natural rights) that appear to protect something unlawful is that they are in fact p...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
BC

Except that you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Or in the case of probable cause, you are supposed to be presumed innocent until there is some evidence available that would lead to a reasonable suspicion that illegal activity is occurring.

And the court decided that no probable cause ...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Walt Donovan (1 replies)

How is this case different than the test-for-alcohol random roadblocks? I haven't had the luck to be stopped by one. I assume that the traffic is funneled in, and you cannot decline to be tested. If I see an alcohol roadblock in the distance, can I make a U turn to avoid it legally?

In line with ...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Caged Rat

In regards to this arguement; as with a breathalyzer roadside test, an authorized roadblock and the associated stop and search is something that everyone who signs for and obtains a driver's license gives consent to. As with anything, read exactly to which you are signing.

This man had in his po...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-10
Anonymous

Well, I'd have to think that the false positive rate of most filters would kill them. Mind you, I would expect LE groups to at least *try* to use this to stop illegal activity, but I suspect that they might have to show, on a case by case basis that the false positive rates are at least on par with...

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There is no "right to privacy" 2005-02-10
Andrew C. (1 replies)

The US Constitution gives you no "right to privacy." Several parts of the constitution--especially the first and fourth amendments--have been interpreted in ways that provide privacy, but there is no right to privacy itself.

Several state constitutions, it should be noted, do have such an amendme...

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There is no "right to privacy" 2005-02-10
Anonymous

I can sum a dissent to this most Moronic of falsehoods perpetrated by most judicial conservatives in one word, but that word is not suitable for this forum. So, I'll allow the U.S. Constitution do it for me.

The Constitution of the United States.

Amendments

Article IV

"The right of the p...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs 2005-02-12
Anonymous

The dog was NOT searching the trunk of the car. The dog was detecting evaporated chemicals from the marijuana that had seeped out of the trunk.

In other words, the dog was merely noting that there was an odor in the air OUTSIDE of the trunk. Further, the dog was detecting that the odor (actua...

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Privacy 2005-02-12
Anonymous

It is true that the U.S. Constitution does not actually use the word 'privacy'. Nevertheless, this possible oversight should not be used to claim that there is no right to privacy.

There are many ways to say any idea or concept in the English language.

Another person posting noted that severa...

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Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs - Two different things 2005-02-12
Anonymous

The dog sniffing incident has nothing to do with packet sniffing. In the case of the drug sniffing dog the incident spawned by a traffic violation. There was already a violation. In the case of packet sniffing it would be unconstitutional to tap into someone?s electronic transmission unless there...

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Of Dog Sniffs and Packet Sniffs,Beam me up captain ,no life here. 2005-02-14
mcmorpheus

Interesting story.
Who will be the ballsy ones to stand up for their fourth ammendment.

As already stated by Suns Mcnealy.

As always it depends on where the substance is
and what its packed in....{ }

As usual 80% of the people are deceived by 20% of the government,Animal farm here we come...

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