WTF?

[discreet_chaos]

Last night, I picked-up my local biweekly and this morning when I was reading through the "Legal Notices", I saw that the local school district is advertising for bids from Drug Dog Services. If you read through their 2001-2002 Accreditation Application (p. 12), you'll see that it's funded by the "Safe and Drug Free Schools" program. And, staying

Comments

[litos]

Is the drug dog full time? Or is the contract for occasional usage?

That makes a tremendous difference.

Having a dog on campus is, undoubtedly, a brilliant way to keep drugs off of campus. Just because they didn't catch many violators does not mean that there is not a drug problem on campus. A dog would be a serious deterent to keeping drugs out of school. It would also go a lot further to actually FINDING drugs than any other method I know of.

So, it may well be worth the expense.

As for the "civil liberty" aspect of it? Well, drugs should be legal. There is no doubt about that. (allow me to direct you to www.rivary.com the first entry is on a similar issue. the first response is a fairly through discord into my thoughts on legalization).

If you're angry about the law, fight to change it. Why argue against reasonable efforts to enforce that law? If you think the speedlimit on your local street should be higher than 30 mph, do something to change that. Why get upset about a cop with a radar gun enforcing the law?

-K

[discreet_chaos]

Mr Gonzales reduced his bid from $400 to $350, so I guess it's an on-call kind of thing. Hopefully, a local teacher will correct me, if I'm wrong. Though judging from voices_speak's comment, he may have given them a per-visit price. I haven't actually looked at the bid packet and really don't have any more specific information than I've given.

My experience has been that drug dogs only seek on command. Sometime ago, I was hitchhiking through the night and a cop decided that he'd rather I didn't stand near a convenient store in the middle of town, so he moved me to a point just outside the city limits. I had a good measure of weed in my knapsack and he was riding around with their agency's drug dog. If I had opened my bag, the smell of dank hydroponic would've been unmistakable and though the dog had to move over to the middle of the seat, where he rode between myself and the cop, he gave no indication that either of us could see.

As for the civil liberties question, the courts say that school kids have none and though I disagree with their position, it's the law of the land. I know the local High School is equipped with a lot of cameras, but I don't know if they have a metal detector. The freedoms of our children are eroding every day and an in-house or on-call drug dog would just be another step in that direction.

[litos]

See.... the cameras I am against. Why should students who are doing nothing wrong have to be videotaped in one of their public institutions? It would be acceptable to have them on at night to prevent break-ins.

Metal detecters are shitty as they criminalize every child who has to walk through one. Practically speaking, if there is a proven reason for them, I am not going to get up in arms about it. But, I don't like them.

Random locker searches.... how fucked up it that? At any time your belongings can be spread out all over the hallway floor.

A dog that walks through the halls, sniffing lockers for dope, is only going to lead to lockers with dope in them being opened. This would prevent the "need" for random searches and would be much more effective in keeping drugs out of schools.

[litos]

I ride the Metro here is D.C. I would be exceptionally pleased if there were dogs at every station, sniffing the crowd for explosives.

Am I giving in to mass hysteria about terrorists? Am I willing to abandon my civil liberties.

Far from it.

However, there are people who would love to get on my train with a bomb. Dogs that sniff for explosives are great. They prevent any "need" to actually search an individual. Those not carrying explosives are in no way inconvienced. You can have all kinds of illegal shit in your bag and no one needs to know, so long as you don't have shit in there that could blow up my train.

NY has instituted random bag searches at its subway stations. If you are selected and refuse to let the cops look through your stuff, you are not allowed to board the train. I am against this and do not know why they don't use dogs.

And, I do not believe that our children do not share the rights we do. I would not object to a drug sniffing dog at the trainstation.
I wouldn't WANT one, but I don't see how I could protest. I disagree with the law, but it is the law. A drug dog is not invasive. The only people I can see who would be inconvienced or violated are those caring.

Being against drug sniffing dogs would be akin to saying that cops are not allowed to arrest those they SEE carrying. Also, if a cop SMELLS drugs on you, that is considered reasonable cause for a search (and, to be honest, it is). Why are dogs any different?

This is a hell of a lot better than the random road checks they set up in Illinois. There the cops are allowed to stop ALL traffic on a road to check for drunken drivers.

That is a violation and a random search.

[litos]

Our civil liberties are not violated by reasonable measures used to enforce the law.

They are violated by legislaters who impose unjust laws.

The law should be ours and we should not be scared of it.

That said, it occurs to me that I may be a bit ignorant about the practicalities involved with dogs.

How sensitive are they?

I'm picturing a gymnasium full of people. The dog walks in and immediately goes up to the person with the bag in his pocket. Which, I would find it hard to believe anyone would call invasive.

You seem to be portaying a situation where everyone entering the gym has to be pawed and sniffed individually. If it's the equivalent of a pat down, that's not okay.

[eparchos]

It also depends on the drugs in question and how well sealed they are.

[discreet_chaos]

I've yet to read back through the posts that happened, while I was away from the machine and I'll have to put them off for a little longer, but a quick search found this text from NY and this video from CA. Both pretty much state that the dogs are led down the line of lockers and they react to one that contains drugs. (Though, there is a little question, as to the CA clip) I still don't know what happens in this town, but if you're in the market, I also ran across this dealer's site.

[eparchos]

For some reason, we have decided that a dog may [sniff people] for a policeman, even though it would be invasive if the policeman himself did so.
That's because cops are assholes and dogs are CUTE! I'd much rather have a dog sniffing me than a cop.