by J. D. Heyes­

Natural News

Illustration of the Transportation Security Administration.

As the lame-duck session of the 112th Congress begins, millions of Americans are looking to the elected members of the 113th Congress to fix a host of problems ailing the country. The economy and job creation aside, one of the most pressing issues is reining in out-of-control federal bureaucracies. The Environmental Protection Agency comes to mind, as does the Department of Agriculture’s promotion of GM foods.

But additionally concerning is the rapid expansion of the size, scope and reach of the Transportation Security Administration, which continues to usurp authority and trample constitutional rights of more and more Americans – especially those who aren’t flying.

The TSA and its mother agency, the Department of Homeland Security, was hurriedly established during the harried, hysterical weeks following the 9/11 attacks. Once designed to replace private airport security firms that were blamed for allowing the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists to slip past checkpoints and take over four commercial airliners with razor blades, the TSA has since grown into a regulatory, bureaucratic behemoth that now claims jurisdiction over other modes of travel, including bus and train stations.

­‘The future of transportation security will be gathering intelligence technologically’

In the future, the agency will want to track all of your daily travels, no matter where you go, according to predictions made by some security experts.

“Air travelers are increasingly subjected to revealing full-body scans or enhanced pat-downs – all in the name of keeping the skies safe,” writes Bill Briggs at NBC News. But apparently, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

“As America prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks in the U.S., security experts question whether freedom, speed and personal space will one day return to air travel – while still maintaining high standards of safety,” he wrote in August 2011.

Technology, which is increasingly serving as a double-edged sword these days, could produce what security experts foresee as a bumper crop of detection tools in the future. That could include biometrics, electronic fingerprinting and behavioral analysis, all of which would produce quicker, smoother and less intrusive travel screening in the years ahead.

Others; however, envision a Big Brother-type of government that gets even more intrusive, perhaps even requiring chip-embedded passports or other travel documents we’d be required to carry that would reveal to federal transportation watchdogs everything about our daily travels – commutes to work, to sporting events, shopping centers – even to social gatherings.

All, of course, in the name of “security.”

Ed Daly is one expert who sees both versions of events transpiring.

“The future of transportation security will be gathering intelligence technologically while people are moving at the speed of life, not beginning at a point where passengers are queued up, delayed, stripped down and probed,” he told Briggs.

Using technology to abuse liberty is no ‘solution’

Daly, the director of intelligence-watch operations for iJet, an Annapolis, Md.-based firm that offers risk management solutions for some 500 multinational corporations and government entities, talked about tweaks in software that can instantly read, record and categorize everything about your person – from your face to your license plate – that he says must be expanded to all public buildings and modes of transportation, from airplanes to trains, buses and subways.

“[However,] if technology fails to provide an adequate solution, the option in the face of future attacks would be further restrictions and potential for humiliating human-to-human interaction,” he said – pretty much what is taking place already, via the TSA.

Can you imagine this agency, which hires criminals and perverts, whose administrators seem to take some sort of sordid pleasure in adopting search-and-surveillance policies that seem designed to cause humiliation or subordination, having access to this kind of highly personal, highly invasive information?

The founding fathers could not have foreseen biometric technology or x-ray scanners, but they knew human nature, which is why they adopted clear-cut, unambiguous constitutional protections for American citizens.

Will the 113th Congress become the first in modern history to reaffirm them, beginning with the castration of the TSA?

by Mike Adams
Natural News

Proposition 37 appears to have failed at the ballot box in California, according to the California Secretary of State ballot measures results. The GMO labeling ballot measure, which would have required food companies to label the GM content of foods, was defeated with the use of over $45 million in fraudulent advertising and dirty tricks funded by Monsanto, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, General Mills, DuPont, Bayer and other food and pesticide companies.

Over the last month, this cabal of deceptive companies has funneled money into a campaign of criminal fraud which, among other crimes, fabricated a fake FDA quote and sent out mailers that fraudulently used the FDA seal. A criminal complaint has already been filed with the FBI.

The “No on 37” campaign also used fabricated front groups and impersonated a police organization (among others) to send out yet more fake mailers to voters, claiming that the police oppose GMO labeling. That fraudulent claim, of course, is entirely false.

Huge victory in terms of GMO awareness and grassroots support

The grassroots effort to pass Proposition 37 was supported by the efforts of millions of activists, plus financial donations from Mercola, Nature’s Path, Amy’s, Dr. Bronner and other companies. Natural News donated $10,000 to the effort and provided comprehensive editorial coverage of the grassroots effort. Click here to see a chart of who gave money to the effort.

And click here to see some of the “natural” brands that betrayed consumers with the “No on 37” deception.

Those brands include Kashi, Silk, Cascadian Farm, Larabar and more.

In many ways, the YES on 37 campaign was a huge victory for awareness. The campaign organized over 10,000 volunteers in California alone and succeeded in achieving a massive social media presence.

The YES on 37 campaign also forced Monsanto and the biotech giants to spend $45 million to defeat the measure.That’s a record expenditure by the world’s largest toxic pesticide companies to try to prevent consumers from knowing what they’re buying. Remember: GMOs are the only products that consumers accidentally purchase without knowing what they’re buying.

What’s clear from all this is that GMO labeling has a foothold in the minds of American consumers, and this effort to label GMOs is going to be repeated state after state, year after year, until victory is achieved.

­The biotech industry can no longer keep its dirty little secret: There’s poison in your food, folks, and the big food producers absolutely do not want you to know that you’re eating it.

The GMO labeling battle has only just begun

Monsanto and other companies appear to have won this showdown in California, but they are going to lose the war of deception against consumers. As awareness of GMOs continues to spread, people will demand honest labeling in increasing numbers

The huge burst of awareness on Prop 37 has a lot of people asking the questions: Hey, what are GMOs? And why aren’t they labeled on foods?

That question will ultimately spell defeat for Monsanto, Kellogg, General Mills, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and all the other evil, deceptive corporations who bankrolled the “No in 37” criminal fraud that deceived a majority of California voters.

­

bythe El Reportero’s news services

Roberto Eisenmann

In the Guatemalan capital, the quake lasted just one minute, generating panic among the population. Victims or material damages have not yet been reported.

The first radio reports from the Guatemalan capital said that the tremor registered an intensity of 7.5 degrees Richter, and the Geological Service located the epicenter in front of the coasts of Champerico, department of Retalhuleu, 105.6 miles southwest of this capital.

The authorities transmitted a tsunami alert immediately for the whole Guatemalan sea shore, and the radio reported the quake was felt in Mexico.

In Mexico, a preliminary intensity of 7.3 Richter degrees was felt at the Federal District, capital of Mexico. No damages have been reported up to this moment.

The seismologic service of Mexico located the epicentre at 43.4 miles south of Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexican state of Chiapas.

­Panamanians denounce militarization

Deployment of miltary forces during the national celebrations and repression by coastguards in Colon showed Panama’’s militarization, something unconstitutional, national figures denounced today.

Businessman Roberto Eisenmann (Senafront) said a new army was created in the country that violates the Constitution and is against the national public opinion.

Former leader of the Lawyer’s Crusade Aurelio Barria called indignant how they are trying to turn the National Police (PN) into a military force with the pretext of fighting drug trafficking.

Those maneuvers are a violation of the Constitution, which bans the existence of an army in Panama.

Panamanian Ex-Attorney General Ana Matilde 5Gómez said it was worrying what is happening with the PN, because the Constitution establishes a security institution, not an army.

Ex-attorney of the Supreme Court of Justice Esmeralda de Tritino insisted that the miliatry deployment in the celebration parades and their behavior in the protests in Colon are examples of the PN militarization.

As an answer to such statements, PN Director Julio Molto said that institution is turning professional. Belsio González, director of the Senan, did not make any statement and Frank Abrego, director of Senafront, did not answer the journalists’ calls.

by Washington’s Blog

Preface: Many Americans are waking up to the fact that the Republican and Democratic candidates are incredibly similar. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this.

Many people are starting to realize that Obama and Romney are virtually indistinguishable on war,jobs, freedoms and favoring fatcats instead of the little guy.

Many of us want a third party candidate to win … but are afraid of “wasting our vote”.

Leading conservatives and liberals say that we should vote for a third party candidate.

Judge Napolitano explained today why voting for a third party is not wasting one’s vote.

Can one morally vote for the lesser of two evils? In a word, no. A basic principle of Judeo-Christian teaching and of the natural law to which the country was married by the Declaration of Independence is that one may not knowingly do evil that good may come of it.

So, is a vote for [a third party] or no vote at all wasted? I reject the idea that a principled vote is wasted. Your vote is yours, and so long as your vote is consistent with your conscience, it is impossible to waste your vote.

On the other hand, even a small step toward the free market and away from … central economic planning would be at least a small improvement for every American’s freedom. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

(Conservatives like Jon Huntsman, Sarah Palin have spoken favorably of third parties as well.)

Liberal news commentator Lawrence O’Donnell urges us to vote for a third party candidate:

The liberal former chief aide to progressive Congressman Alan Grayson – Matt Stoller – agrees. After demonstrating how similar Obama and Romney are on most major issues, Stoller concludes:

I think it’s worth voting for a third party candidate, and I’ll explain why below.

There are only five or six states that matter in this election; in the other 44 or 45, your vote on the presidential level doesn’t matter. It is as decorative as a vote for an “American Idol contestant.” So, unless you are in one of the few swing states that matters, a vote for Obama is simply an unabashed endorsement of his policies.

But if you are in a swing state, then the question is, what should you do?

The people themselves, what they believe and what they don’t, can constrain political leaders. And under Obama, because there is now no one making the anti-torture argument, Americans have become more tolerant of torture, drones, war and authoritarianism in general. The case against Obama is that the people themselves will be better citizens under a Romney administration, distrusting him and placing constraints on his behavior the way they won’t on Obama. As a candidate, Obama promised a whole slew of civil liberties protections, lying the whole time. Obama has successfully organized the left part of the Democratic Party into a force that had rhetorically opposed war and civil liberties violations, but now cheerleads a weakened America …. We must fight this thuggish political culture Bush popularized, and Obama solidified in place.

But can a third-party candidate win? No. So what is the point of voting at all, or voting for a third-party candidate? My answer is that this election is, first and foremost, practice for crisis moments. Elections are just one small part of how social justice change can happen. The best moment for change is actually a crisis, where there is actually policy leverage. … Saying no to evil in 2012 will help us understand who is willing to say no to evil when it really matters. And when you have power during a crisis, there’s no end to the amount of good you can do.

How do we drive large-scale change during moments of crisis? How do we use this election to do so? Well, voting third party or even just honestly portraying Obama’s policy architecture is a good way to identify to ourselves and each other who actually has the integrity to not cave to bullying…. We need to put ourselves into the position to be able to run the government.

After all, if a political revolution came tomorrow, could those who believe in social justice and climate change actually govern?

[If we had had more courage, we could have] reorganized our politics. Instead the oligarchs took control, because we weren’t willing to face them down when we needed to show courage. So now we have the worst of all worlds, an inevitably worse crisis and an even more authoritarian structure of governance.

The reason to advocate for a third-party candidate is to build the civic muscles willing to say no to the establishment in a crisis moment we all know is coming. Right now, the liberal establishment is teaching its people that letting malevolent political elites do what they want is not only the right path, it is the only path. Anything other than that is dubbed an affront to common decency. Just telling the truth is considered beyond rude.

We can do this. And the moments to let us make the changes we need are coming. There is endless good we can do, if enough of us are willing to show the courage that exists within every human being instead of the malevolence and desire for conformity that also exists within every heart.

Systems that can’t go on, don’t. The political elites, as much as they kick the can down the road, know this. The question we need to ask ourselves is, do we?

Why I’m Voting for Gary Johnson

One of the main reasons to vote for a third party candidate is that the broken two-party system will never change unless third parties get more backing.

If 5 percent of the American people vote for a third party candidate, that candidate will receive government matching funds, which will give them a better shot at competing.

Moreover, a showing of 5 percent or more would create buzz and start a self-fulfilling dynamic of lending credibility and a sense of possibility for a third party.

But do any third party candidates have a chance of getting 5 percent of the vote?

Yes … Gary Johnson.

­Judge Napolitano endorses Gary Johnson. Jesse Ventura endorsed Johnson.

Even Ron Paul hinted that he would vote for Johnson. And in 2010, Paul said that if he didn’t run in 2012, he would endorse Johnson.

A bunch of other people have endorsed Johnson as well. And at least some newspapers – such as the Chattanooga Free Press – have endorsed Johnson.

In fact, polls show that Johnson might reach 5 percent. A September CNN/ORC International poll showed that 3 percent of likely voters and 4 percent of registered voters say they’d vote for Johnson. A Reason-Rupe poll the same month showed Johnson raking in 6 percent of likely voters.

Those polls were taken before Ron Paul convinced his supporters that he’s out of the race, and before he virtually endorsed Johnson.

Moreover – since the polls were taken – Johnson has gotten on the ballot in 48 states … and won the right for write-in votes for Johnson to be counted in the remaining 2.

Ron Paul supporters can, of course, write in Paul on the ballot. But a write-in vote for Paul will not be counted in most states.

And since he is not affiliated with any party at this point – and since even he will likely himself vote for Johnson – a vote for Paul will not help any third party. No wonder many diehard Paul fans are announcing that they’re going with Johnson.

As such, I’m voting for Gary Johnson.

Postscript: Johnson is not perfect, but he is solid on issues of civil rights, liberty, peace and fiscal responsibility.

by Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com­­

Politicians ceding more power to FEMA

News wires across the spectrum are filled with harrowing signs of unfolding social collapse in the wake of Sandy that could exacerbate in the days to come as power outages are expected to last a week, pitting residents against each other over access to gasoline, food and other necessary supplies in large pockets of t­he most densely populated area of the nation.

That desperation is sure to further intensify in proportion with strained resources, as order has already started to dissolve under reported limits on cash and commerce as electronic payment is suspended and those on food stamps are unable to use EBT payments.

Images of hungry people diving for food in dumpsters make clear that neither individuals nor governments were prepared to keep things running and meet basic needs despite the hype over the “superstorm” leading up to Sandy.

Shocking accounts of eroding civility have cropped up across social media and in reports. As Breitbart demonstrated, numerous threats were made at gun or knife point, while long lines for gasoline saw fights and high tension. Gas stations continue to be guarded by armed police, as supplies are rationed.

Lootings and break-ins are predictably taking place as well, including reports that many thieves are dressing up as Con Edison or FEMA employees to gain access to homes.

Food and water will continue to be an issue for days to come, with many residents already begging for help, with distribution of supplies hampered by a lack of power, and many groceries contaminated by the floods.

Meanwhile, it’s politics as usual on the campaign trail – not in trading blows between the Obama and Romney camps just days ahead of the scheduled election – but in praising FEMA and endorsing more power and billions more in money for the bloated agency.

GOP Governor Chris Christie, presiding over the heavily affected state of New Jersey, has been most notable in embracing federal disaster relief in force – and with full federal funding – even praising President Obama despite the tense election season reaching crescendo, irking many GOP politicos.

Mitt Romney had to quickly backtrack from a populist-toned campaign pitch to put power back in the hands of state and local entities during disaster, instead backing the big government FEMA solution that has proven ridiculously incompetent during past disasters despite extensive and costly planning for emergency plans and a blank check to Homeland Security’s mission.

Mainstream media have echoed this uncritical endorsement, giving FEMA preemptive praise for its efforts in Sandy. ‘FEMA is the solution,’ and other bold claims are made to ensure the public does not break out of the illusion that FEMA is its loving savior.

But FEMA remains an agency capable only of a mismatched response, too slow to handle the most immediate needs to contain potential chaos, but always on pace for a gradual power grab after the fact, actually feeding off a greater disaster.

Once again, this bloated government agency can’t and won’t help the masses in a disaster. Yet politicians throughout the corporate-owned two party system are lining up to meet any request for FEMA funds, already approaching $12 billion plus, despite its track record of failure.

While nearly 5 million people are without power for perhaps another week, the Huffington Post, among others, has identified 17 million living in FEMA’s disaster relief zone, soon to be occupied by an inefficient, top down control mechanism.

­This infographic details the extent of areas and populations under FEMA’s thumb:

Notoriously, FEMA botched any meaningful relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina in terms of its primary mandate to quickly rescue and care for the needs of displaced victims, yet went over the top in creating an occupied martial law zone where guns were confiscated even in dry areas, the needy and vulnerable were placed in a hotbed of criminals at the Superdome and people were shot for trying to cross the bridge and exit the disaster zone.

Congressman Ron Paul weighed in as a lonely voice willing to critique FEMA’s history of inefficiency and naked power grabs, while defending the centuries of local aid organized within the community in simply helping each other:

There is a good case for stating that FEMA’s true intent is not to prevent natural disasters from devolving into social chaos, but rather to simply step in and soak up massive funds and dominate local and private relief agencies.

­

by Ethan Evers
Natural News

As few as one diet soda daily may increase the risk for leukemia in men and women, and for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in men, according to new results from the longest-ever running study on aspartame as a carcinogen in humans. Importantly, this is the most comprehensive, long-term study ever completed on this topic, so it holds more weight than other past studies which appeared to show no risk. And disturbingly, it may also open the door for further similar findings on other cancers in future studies.

The most thorough study yet on aspartame – Over two million person-years

For this study, researchers prospectively analyzed data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study for a 22-year period. A total of 77,218 women and 47,810 men were included in the analysis, for a total of 2,278,396 person-years of data. Apart from sheer size, what makes this study superior to other past studies is the thoroughness with which aspartame intake was assessed. Every two years, participants were given a detailed dietary questionnaire, and their diets were reassessed every four years.

Previous studies which found no link to cancer only ever assessed participants’ aspartame intake at one point in time, which could be a major weakness affecting their accuracy.

One diet soda a day increases leukemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphomas

The combined results of this new study showed that just one 12-fl oz. can (355 ml) of diet soda daily leads to:

– 42 percent higher leukemia risk in men and women (pooled analysis)

– 102 percent higher multiple myeloma risk (in men only)

– 31 percent higher non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk (in men only)

These results were based on multi-variable relative risk models, all in comparison to participants who drank no diet soda. It is unknown why only men drinking higher amounts of diet soda showed increased risk for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Note that diet soda is the largest dietary source of aspartame (by far) in the U.S. Every year, Americans consume about 5,250 tons of aspartame in total, of which about 86 percent (4,500 tons) is found in diet sodas.

Confirmation of previous high quality research on animals

This new study shows the importance of the quality of research. Most of the past studies showing no link between aspartame and cancer have been criticized for being too short in duration and too inaccurate in assessing long-term aspartame intake. This new study solves both of those issues. The fact that it also shows a positive link to cancer should come as no surprise, because a previous best-in-class research study done on animals (900 rats over their entire natural lifetimes) showed strikingly similar results back in 2006: aspartame significantly increased the risk for lymphomas and leukemia in both males and females. More worrying is the follow on mega-study, which started aspartame exposure of the rats at the fetal stage. Increased lymphoma and leukemia risks were confirmed, and this time the female rats also showed significantly increased breast (mammary) cancer rates. This raises a critical question: will future, high-quality studies uncover links to the other cancers in which aspartame has been implicated (brain, breast, prostate, etc.)?

There is now more reason than ever to completely avoid aspartame in our daily diet. For those who are tempted to go back to sugary sodas as a “healthy” alternative, this study had a surprise finding: men consuming one or more sugar-sweetened sodas daily saw a 66 percent increase in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (even worse than for diet soda). Perhaps the healthiest soda is no soda at all. Sources for this article include:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23097267,­http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16507461, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17805418.

­

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Daniel Ortega

Moscow, Oct 30 (Prensa Latina) President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, reaffirmed today the conviction that Russian firms will take part actively in the construction of an interoceanic canal linking the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans through his country.

“We are certain that firms from Russia will be involved in the great work of the canal through Nicaragua,” he said in a TV broadcast interview released here.­

Ortega told Russia Today TV channel that firms from the People’s Republic of china and other nations, grouped in a firm created in Hong Kong that is already operating, are involved in the project.

He said that with the return to power of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, Nicaragua established from 2007 a longstanding relation with the Russian Federation, which has undoubtedly mean a great relief for Nicaragua because this is a cooperation that values the Nicaraguan people in all fields.

Top Colombian narco falls in Argentina

News from LatinNews Daily Report — ‘Mi Sangre’ (Henry de Jesús López Londoño) was captured on Oct. 30 by members of the Argentine intelligence service, Secretaría de Inteligencia (SI, formerly Side), while he was dining with his wife and several guards at an upscale restaurant in Pilar, a wealthy Buenos Aires suburb.

­Colombian government and Farc stay true to their style in Oslo

“In Colombia, what people want most is peace, and so we have to ask the Farc [Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia] to respect the civilian population,” Vice-President Angelino Garzón said during a press conference this week. Peace has a chance and now it also has a place and date when Colombia could get a step closer to achieving it: on 15 November in Havana, the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the leadership of the Farc will begin the formal dialogue process that was officially launched last week in Oslo.

Multinationals interested in searching for oil in Honduras

TEGUCIGALPA (Prensa Latina) The German multinational Statoil, Spanish Repsol and British BG Group are interested in searching for petroleum in Honduras, as confirmed by Roberto Herrera, presidential advisor and expert in international rights.

According to what has been published by local digital media laprensa.hn, elheraldo.hn and latribuna.hn, the three multinational companies have bought information obtained by the Norwegian firm Petroleum Geophysics that has made oil explorations in Honduran waters.

The names of the companies were revealed soon after the government announced to have started dialogues to decide if they could start in the extraction of petroleum in their Caribbean territorial waters.

The vice-president and minister of the Presidency, María Antonieta Guillén de Bográn, explained that the concession for the search of petroleum in the Caribbean will be made inside the current legal frame and with benefits for the country.

by Donna Anderson
Infowars.com

They’re already allowed to search your car, your crotch and your luggage. Now, man’s best friend is about to be allowed to sniff around outside your home, too. And if they smell something they don’t like, you’re going to jail. Your Constitutional right to secure your home against unreasonable search and seizure is about to be erased.

Gregory Garre, an attorney representing the state of Florida, argues that it’s perfectly legal to use drug-detection dogs to sniff around your outside house and if the dog alerts they can use that to justify entering your home to conduct a search. He compares it to Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween night:

“The police ‘did the same thing that millions of Americans will do on Halloween night, which is walk up to the front steps, knock on the door, and while they were there, they took in the air and the dog alerted to the smell of illegal narcotics.’”

The difference is, Americans don’t have to open their doors to Trick-or-Treaters if they don’t want to, but we all know what happens if you deny entry to a cop.

At issue is a 2006 case involving Joelis Jardines. After receiving an anonymous crime-stoppers tip that Jardines was conducting illegal drug activity in his home, police officers showed up on his doorstep with Franky, their drug-sniffing dog. When Franky alerted for drugs – outside the home, on the front porch – police officers got a warrant, searched Jardines’ home, found marijuana, and arrested him.

Jardines’ lawyer, Public Defender Howard Blumberg, argued that the dog sniff constituted illegal search and seizure and the Florida Supreme Court agreed.

“The entire history of the Fourth Amendment really is based on the fact that the home is different,” says Jardines’ lawyer, Howard Blumberg. “It goes all the way back to the early 1600s and the saying that a man’s home is his castle.”

The case now stands before the US Supreme Court where justices will be asked to decide if allowing a dog to perform a drug-sniff at the front door is a Fourth Amendment search requiring probable cause. Blumberg warns that if the use of drug-sniffing dogs outside the home is not deemed to be a search the “real-life consequences could be profound.”

“Police would be free ‘to walk up and down suburban neighborhoods, go up to each door, and see if the dog alerts to contraband.’ And they could do the same thing in apartment houses, checking out each apartment door ‘based on nothing, or on an anonymous tip, or because that’s what they want to do that day.’”

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

In 2001 Justice Antonin Scalia ruled that police could not use heat-detection devices outside a home to detect marijuana grow lights, calling it an invasion of privacy because the technology could also detect innocent details of the homeowner’s life, such as “the hour at which the lady of the house takes her bath.”

Of course, the state argues that the police have much better things to do with their time than walk their drug-sniffing dogs around homes and apartment buildings if they don’t have probable cause. They also argue that their dogs only alert to drugs, so what’s the problem?

The problem is, when it comes to drug sniffing dogs you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you don’t allow the search you’re automatically assumed guilty. If you do, those dogs are going to find something and you’re either going to jail or the cops are going to confiscate whatever they find.

Under current laws, law enforcement agencies are allowed to seize assets they suspect are tied to illegal activity. Once the property has been seized it’s up to the owner to prove he obtained those assets legally. In about 80 percent of forfeiture cases the property owner is never charged with a crime, and he never gets the property back.

Consider the 2010 case of Jerome Chennault who lost $22,870 in a traffic stop. While traveling between South Carolina and his home in Henderson, Nev., Chennault was pulled over in Edwardsvill, Ill. for following another car too closely. The officer thought he had an “inappropriate laugh” and asked Chennault if he could search his car. Of course, Chennault said yes, what else could he say?

The officer found $22,870 in a side pocket of Chennault’s travel bag. A narcotics dog was called to the scene and the dog gave a positive alert when it sniffed the cash.

When Chennault was questioned further, he told officials that he had withdrawn $28,000 from an account in Las Vegas “and had left home with it three or four months prior intending to buy a house in South Carolina while staying with a nephew,” according to the complaint.

Chennault then had to spend more than $2,000 in court and attorney fees to get his money back. Madison County Public Defender John Rekowski said, “To forfeit when there is a crime is one thing. To say that you have to come in and post, in this case, more than $2,000 with the court to get back the $22,000 that they took from you because they felt like taking it, is ridiculous.”

In a 2005 case, Illinois v. Caballes, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that having a K9 cop sniff the outside of a vehicle during a routine traffic stop does not violate the Fourth Amendment. However, Justice David Souter dissented, pointing out the mounting evidence that drug-sniffing dogs aren’t always reliable, noting that an Illinois study found the dogs failed 12.5 to 60 percent of the time.

Dogs are bred and trained to please their human owners and they can easily be manipulated to alert whenever their handler wants them to. Even the most conscientious handler can inadvertently use body language that he’s suspicious of something and the dog will alert simply because that’s the way he’s been trained.

In 2011, the Chicago Tribune published a review of drug searches which found that, over a 3-year period, only 44 percent of dog alerts led to the discovery of actual illegal drugs. The report also stated that for Hispanic drivers the success rate was only 27 percent, making it even more obvious that drug-sniffing dogs are responding to the biases of their handlers.

The Huffington Post showed video of a traffic stop to K-9 expert, ­Gene Papet, the Executive Director of K9 Resources.

“Just before the dog alerts, you can hear a change in the tone of the handler’s voice. That’s troubling. I don’t know anything about this particular handler, but that’s often an indication of a handler that’s cuing a response.” In other words, it’s indicative of a handler instructing the dog to alert, not waiting to see whether the dog will alert.”

“You also hear the handler say at one point that the dog alerted from the front of the car because the wind is blowing from the back of the car to the front, so the scent would have carried with the wind,” Papet says. “But the dog was brought around the car twice. If that’s the case, the dog should have alerted the first time he was brought to the front of the car. The dog only alerted the second time, which corresponded to what would be consistent with a vocal cue from the handler.

The Florida case is expected to be presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in December.