The racing commission in Ontario can, but that has to do with drugging.
Interesting.
Not just at the track, but back at the farm?
Yes they can. The shedrows at the local track are gone through regularly, and they have been known to show up unannounced to search barns off the track. I’ve had my car searched on race night when I was going in to paddock.
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They must have a warrant to search, I don’t HAVE to let anyone even the town officials on my property without permission. So who is it that searched your car and is it standard practice? Is it track security?
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I work with LE in a peripheral role for my job, and according to materials from the Homeland Security Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, LE can conduct a search if you give them permission, or if they have probable cause to believe that evidence related to a crime or some kind of contraband is located in the vehicle.
In one of our training classes, it was stressed that an officer can’t force a search without your permission just because s/he wants to harass you for some reason - s/he has to have a legitimate reason that can hold up to scrutiny by their chain of command and the PD’s Internal Affairs group, as well as by the DA’s office, the media, etc.
I personally would give them permission - I have nothing to hide.
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I would as well…however my BF is retired State Dept and marine and when I question some of the FBI behavior in the past few years he say’s he’s not surprised LOL. So I would be careful about who I let on my property that isn’t someone I trust to do the right thing by me. I have a neighbor who calls the authorities every time I cut a tree down, thankfully they know him and just let me know it’s not a problem.
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If you are entering private property, they can search whatever they like.
Ask the refineries - they will search your car and your possessions in a new york minute before allowing you access.
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They use the drug dogs for this. However, in my experience, those dogs learn to alert based on handler behavior as well as based on actual cause. It’s basically their catch-all. Bring the drug dog around, whoa lookie there he alerted, car search begins.
In one case that I witnessed, the dog didn’t do a damn thing to indicate an actual alert, the handler said “oh he alerted” and they began the search. In that same situation, I’d ask what the dog is trained to DO when he alerts. I’m not going to take the handler’s word whether or not the dog alerted. Is he going to point? Sit? Bark? What?
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Often, a “behavior change” can be considered an alert. Say a dog is trained to sit as a formal alert on marijuana, cocaine and human remains. But then the dog is asked to search a vehicle and smells LSD. The dog knows the training game and therefore “thinks maybe this is a new scent he’s being trained on” and has a behavior change; a pause, makes eye contact w handler, comes back to place where scent is strongest. That behavior change is an alert. Practically speaking, it’s difficult / time consuming to obtain samples of every single thing that a dog might need to alert on and formalize the alert on all of those items.
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Right, and this can lead to abusing the use of drug dogs to “validate” a search. It’s not the dog’s fault - but if a cop wants to search someone/something it’s pretty easy to project onto the dog as “alerting” - even unintentionally.
It’s one of the many grey areas around the use of animals in law enforcement.
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Not necessarily - some jurisdictions do not have detection dogs, and even in jurisdictions that do have them, there are times when the detection K9 unit is not nearby and cannot get there within a reasonable amount of time.
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If a dog alerted on my car, I’d try and get the cops to bet me they’d find nothing.
Because they’d find nothing.
I think the drug dogs are abused to validate a search when a cop is doing a little fishing on someone who has maybe run their mouth or otherwise acted like a twat.
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When they need probably cause in the field, and don’t have time to obtain a warrant, drug dogs are used.
Obviously if they don’t have one or can’t get access to one, they don’t use it… ?
Since I am a law-abiding citizen and have nothing to hide, I would not object to a search by human or K9, and I certainly wouldn’t take an adversarial approach toward LE by demanding to know HOW the K9 alerts.
Interestingly, I watched a K9 contest on TV a few months ago and the different dogs alerted in different ways - and some of those alerts were very, very subtle. The show was a bit of a fiasco though because it was a timed contest and the handlers were generally in such a rush to finish the detection stage and get on to the next stage that they didn’t give their dogs adequate time to find the target. The dog might suss out the target but was pulled away by the handler before it could alert. The other problem was that they used the same set for each K9 unit but hid the target in different places for each dog. Dogs that ran the course later were picking up remnants of scent in places were the target had been placed for a previous dog. At least IRL, handlers generally give the dogs adequate time to do a methodical search - or so I was told by an officer with a K9 unit.
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I’m also a law abiding citizen, and I’m not submitting to any searches without a warrant. House, car, anything. This isn’t a test of “do you have anything to hide.”
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Again, not necessarily. “Contraband” doesn’t always mean drugs. For instance, the vehicle may fit the description of one seen speeding away from the vicinity of a crime scene (such as a jewelry store heist or a violent crime), the driver is acting uncooperative or belligerent, etc. The officer has to use his discretion as to whether those facts will pass the “probable cause” test. Again, he has to be able to justify his actions to his sergeant, captain, chief, IAB, DA, etc. - because for sure, someone who thinks they have been “wronged” is going to either sue the PD or go to the media, or their attorney is going to try to get charges dropped or reduced because of the “search.”
All the cop has to do is say he “smells weed” and it’s on.
They use the dogs as a more fail-safe method because it’s harder for someone to say it’s not probably cause, but when there’s a will there’s a way.
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I was raised to respect LE (have an uncle who spent 30+ years in LE, and a neighbor and friend who is retired LE). And since I have nothing to hide, I will cooperate with LE as pleasantly as possible. Their jobs are hard enough dealing with actual criminals and others who try to game the system - not to mention just trying to stay alive - so I am not going to do anything to make their day more stressful.
Apparently, YMMV.
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lol, not submitting to an unlawful search is not “disrespecting LE.”
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Someone is very touchy about the issue of her vehicle being searched. 
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