Andrew Sullivan reports on a case where a drug sniffing dog made the wrong call. Police were led to believe - incorrectly - that a person they pulled over had hidden drugs up his backside, and took invasive procedures to try to find them. Which they did not, since there were none.
He was billed for the services.
The person searched seems to have limited ability to because policy have qualified immunity from lawsuits.
Is there a "drug war exception" to the Fourth Amendment?
These incidents raise troubling questions about how the criminal justice system and medical establishment could allow for such extreme and invasive measures based on such little suspicion for nonviolent drug offenses. Oddly, according to constitutional scholars and medical ethicists I've consulted, the indignities imposed upon Eckert and Young were both illegal and unethical. And yet it also may be that (a) none of the law enforcement officials or medical personnel responsible for the violations are likely to be held accountable in any way, and (b) they could probably do it all again tomorrow, and still wouldn't likely be held accountable.
The Legal Issues
Any discussion of the legal issues involved in these cases needs to begin with the general evisceration of the Bill of Rights wrought by the drug war. There's a reason why some constitutional law scholars refer a "drug war exception" to the Fourth Amendment. Over the last 45 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has generally taken the approach that drugs are such an existential threat to American society that some basic and inherent rights need to be suspended in order to facilitate their eradication.
