51–60 of 60 posts
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...and yet dog alerts (encapsulating handler biases) alone are still used to establish probable cause in the US to strip people of their rights to privacy, and has resulted in jail for thousands of people who do not deserve it.
It's better than absolutely no preventative measures at all
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That's very debatable. I, personally, would much rather that people in possession of drugs go free rather than the police using the dogs as an excuse to search people they don't like the look of.
Yes, but I suspect you would also support lighter sentencing or even decriminalization of drugs. I don't think you'd think the same if it was concerned potential terrorists or child sexual abusers. Basically, this kind of comment usually encodes some belief on what the law should be rather than a belief about how it should be enforced. And that's just not the issue at hand here.
One of the most common criticisms of airport security in the US is that the harm it is preventing is nowhere near commensurate with the burden it imposes on the populace. That may or may not be true, but it's not a belief about what the law should be, it's a belief that at some point, the price paid for additional safety is too high.
Likewise with children, as a father of 4, I also understand the desire to go to any lengths to keep our children safe, but keeping them in a bubble for their entire lives, while certainly protecting them from many tangible harms, will ultimately stunt their growth. Once again, the price paid for safety can be too high.
I happen to think that drug sniffing dogs are on the wrong side of the line. They probably do alert the police to drugs that would not have been found otherwise, but in my opinion, they allow the police to have far too much latitude when it comes to searches.
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That's very debatable. I, personally, would much rather that people in possession of drugs go free rather than the police using the dogs as an excuse to search people they don't like the look of.
Yes, but I suspect you would also support lighter sentencing or even decriminalization of drugs. I don't think you'd think the same if it was concerned potential terrorists or child sexual abusers. Basically, this kind of comment usually encodes some belief on what the law should be rather than a belief about how it should be enforced. And that's just not the issue at hand here.
Maybe he wouldn't, but I would be. In the land where witch hunts are illegal, I'm one of the three civic minded Libertarians.
Civil rights revocation should never be treated lightly. Period. Pragmatism must take the backseat to ideals in this regard, lest we end up undoing the very thing we're trying to protect in the first place.
As much as that tends to put me at odds with my own pragmatic side, I can't argue with the direction things tend to take when we cave to the urge to sacrifice liberty for safety.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's very debatable. I, personally, would much rather that people in possession of drugs go free rather than the police using the dogs as an excuse to search people they don't like the look of.
Yes, but I suspect you would also support lighter sentencing or even decriminalization of drugs. I don't think you'd think the same if it was concerned potential terrorists or child sexual abusers. Basically, this kind of comment usually encodes some belief on what the law should be rather than a belief about how it should be enforced. And that's just not the issue at hand here.
In this context it is ridiculous that a dog test is considered a probable cause for a police search: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10942196
Is it really? Probable cause doesn't need to be a high bar, in my opinion. Contrary to what people here seem to think, I don't think a police search is that invasive and I'd rather we perhaps search some people on shaky grounds than we let people with drugs/bombs/whatever walk free.
Being physically searched by men with guns is not something innocent people should be subjected to with no, or just the thinnest of illusion of justification.
Is this not fairly well understood? e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans > Clever Hans (in German: der Kluge Hans) was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have performed arithmetic and other intellectual tasks. > After a formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reactions of his trainer. He…
It should be easy to train the dogs in an environment where the trainer does not know the intended result and must investigate each claim from the dog. All the dog training vids I've seen have the trainer themselves knowing exactly what lies in the course.
The first is you'd probably have to get someone else to hide the scent for you. Not so easy when training solo.
The second is that when you want to reinforce a behaviour you generally give a trigger or marker as soon as possible after the event. If you wait too long, the dog may associate the marker with another behaviour they've done in the meantime and overwrite the correct learning. So a 'yes' or clicker as soon as the dog alerts is the best way to go. But if you yourself don't know where it is, you risk reinforcing a failure. This is easy with a helper so you can glance at them and they indicate if you are correct or not.
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Is it really? Probable cause doesn't need to be a high bar, in my opinion. Contrary to what people here seem to think, I don't think a police search is that invasive and I'd rather we perhaps search some people on shaky grounds than we let people with drugs/bombs/whatever walk free.
So you're cool with a cop that is biased against black people using their dog as a pretense to search them? Oh, and, yes, a police search is invasive and demeaning. I suggest you try it before you discount it.
Are you fine with black communities being ruined by crack cocaine because police can't search people? Of course not, that'd be a ridiculous thing to think.
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So you're cool with a cop that is biased against black people using their dog as a pretense to search them? Oh, and, yes, a police search is invasive and demeaning. I suggest you try it before you discount it.
No I do not support people doing bad things. That does not mean that I am against everything that could possibly be used for evil. This is an absolutely inane accusation. Are you fine with black communities being ruined by crack cocaine because police can't search people? Of course not, that'd be a ridiculous thing to think.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's very debatable. I, personally, would much rather that people in possession of drugs go free rather than the police using the dogs as an excuse to search people they don't like the look of.
Yes, but I suspect you would also support lighter sentencing or even decriminalization of drugs. I don't think you'd think the same if it was concerned potential terrorists or child sexual abusers. Basically, this kind of comment usually encodes some belief on what the law should be rather than a belief about how it should be enforced. And that's just not the issue at hand here.