I love you.

All I know is that I love Big Brother.

Each one a fat neckbeard who's just taken a break from ranting about ethics in games journalism.

I never said the dog was an officer. Struble (the man) is a "K-9 officer." That is, an officer who has a dog.

That's pretty much completely correct. If the cops had a magic button that would reveal criminal activity and ONLY criminal activity, with 0.000000% chance of revealing anything else about you, there would be no constitutional problems with pushing the button and arresting the people who light up. There is no constitutional right to commit crimes and not be found out "unless the police work for it in some imagined, chivalrous manner." The reason we have protections against unreasonable search and seizure is not to protect criminals, but to protect the innocent. You're protected from unreasonable search because of all the non-criminal things about you that will be revealed to the police during the search. But if you have a search that CAN ONLY reveals criminal activity...pffft you're fucked.

In actuality, when it turns out cops can and do trigger dogs to alert, well, that's a problem with crooked cops, not the efficacy of dogs' noses.

Not the case at all. Struble (the officer in this case) was a K-9 officer, and the dog was sitting in his car. He waited for backup, out of safety. And I know it's easy to say "well, you can SAY safety, but you can say that about anything!" but I don't know what else the motivation could be here. He already had the dog.

So he had a good stop, had a good hunch (which was correct...the guy was running meth), he just wanted backup before running the dog, and it was only 8-9 minutes. Doesn't seem that awful to me.

No, that's absolutely nothing like the ruling or what went on in this case.

There is essentially no need to state a reason to use a dog in public (walking down the street, traffic stop, airport, whatever. Around the outside of your home is different...constitutes a "search" and requires probable cause). He doesn't even need "reasonable suspicion," which is little better than a guess or a hunch, to use the dog. The reason being that, presumably, the dog is trained only to trigger for drugs, so your privacy isn't violated if you don't have drugs. In actuality the dog can be signaled by the officer to trigger, so it's all very fishy. But the general topic of the usefulness of dogs is irrelevant to this case. You could replace "walk dog around sniffing" with "walk around himself looking" and it would not change any of the legal reasoning of this case.

And in this case, the dog was already on the scene. Struble was a K-9 officer, and his dog was in his car. He had a valid stop: Rodriguez swerved off the road. He got a hunch they might be up to no good. Couple of guys, traveling alone at night, swerving off the road. He asked one of the guys where they were coming from and he said they were looking at a car for sale, which seems a little strange given that it was midnight. Who goes and looks at a car at midnight? So he asked about having his dog sniff the car and Rodriguez says "no." Which is 1) understandable, you should always tells the cops 'no, you can't search' but 2) irrelevant because dog sniffs don't count as "searches" but you can't expect somebody to know that. So Struble has already stated that he wants to run the dog around. But, he's got a bad feeling, is scared, and wants backup. So he waits for that. He was NOT waiting for a dog. He was waiting for backup so he could safely use his dog that was already there. And it was only 8-9 minutes.

It just doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. He had a valid stop. He could run the dog (which was already there) with no justification required. He had a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing because dudes swerving across the road in the middle of the night say they're "looking at a car," which is weird at that hour. He could have had the dog sniff immediately, but waited only for safety (and I know you can say "that's bullshit! They can say that about anything!" But there's no other reason to wait. He already had the dog. What's the ulterior motive here?) And he was right. The guy was running meth. Good instincts, good hunch, good police work. If you don't want it to be illegal to sell meth (I don't. I think all drugs should be legal.) that's fine, change the law. But in the meantime, officer Struble's job is to look out for people running meth, and he did a great job.

All that'll happen now is backup will be called for immediately when a stop happens.

Dog was already there. Struble (the cop) was a K-9 officer, and his dog was sitting in his car. He was nervous about being outnumbered by the occupants of the car and chose to wait for backup before conducting the dog sniff.

But yeah it just means "call for backup sooner."

I was being (mostly) sarcastic.

The correct way (in brief) to handle a traffic stop is:

1) Be polite and respectful.

2) Do not lie. Do not, however, answer questions you don't have to.

3) Do not consent to any searches.

4) If you are asked to leave the car, do so, but close and lock the door behind you.

5) Once the clear business of the traffic stop is concluded, if the cop doesn't just send you on your way, ask if you're being detained. If he says "no" then politely excuse yourself and leave. If he says "yes" then you're all kinds of fucked anyway, and at that point politely state that you refuse to answer any questions and would like an attorney.

However, the "am I being detained" "magic question" advice has been trumpeted so many times on the internet that you can now imagine panicked forum dwellers yelling "AM I BEING DETAINED?!?!" at cops as if it's going to give them some special magic and keep them out of jail. No, as you said, it'll just make you look like an asshole.

Oh, and to my list up there I forgot an item:

0) Be white.

Basically. Read Manna. We're approaching the point where we've got two options:

1) We acknowledge that in the past, there was lots of labor to do, and you did need to work for your meal or else you're burdening somebody else, which breeds resentment, strife, and generally fails as a large scale economic system. But today the necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter, power, water(?)) are not near so scarce, and we're just about to the point where robots can do everything needed to provide them for humans. So we can free humanity, and you no longer need to work or die. This doesn't mean "free everything for everybody all the time!" and there's still plenty of challenges to work out, as somebody still has to build and service the robots, etc, but yeah, if you just want to live in a house built by robots while robots grow your food and craft your necessities while you fish or jerk off all day, that's fine. You're not a burden to society because nobody else is slaving on your behalf.

2) We demand people work for their supper. But since the robots are doing all the work, nobody needs you. So you can't get a job. So you can't eat. And the benefit of the labor of the robots only benefits the owner of the robot. So fuck you.

It can pretty well go either way at this point.

This is why it's important to yell loudly and repeatedly "AM I BEING DETAINED?!?!" whenever speaking to a cop.

Killer robots.

But no really, I don't think you'd even need to leave the United States to do this. I'm not suggesting starting a new country. Just a different type of town.

Getting there. I could see a robot farm, a 3D printer that can build a not-uncomfortable dwelling, power from solar and batteries...entertainment can already be achieved for free. Might not be the lap of luxury, but I think within 10-15 years, one could build a community wherein zero work (or an extremely small number of maintenance hours) could be required, and humans sustainably live. It won't be super comfy. But the options would no longer be limited to work, die, or burden the community.

I'm kind of curious when somebody will start a utopia experiment. A Robert Owen for the 21st century. When the robots get good and cheap enough, in maybe the next 10 years, somebody will start a collaborative project online to build a self-sufficient town in the real world. Find some cheap land someplace. Start working the figures. How much will the 3D printers needed to build all the homes cost? The robots to work the farm? The solar panels and Tesla batteries (or maybe Lockheed's fusion-on-a-flatbed deal...I know, I'm dreaming here). But somebody will start doing the math, figuring it out, finding some land for a bargain, and figure up the buy-in price. And enough people who want to "try something else," (perhaps the kind of progressive, high-income earning (for now) geeks on places like /.) will be able to afford it. It won't be the lap of luxury, but the idea would be to build a community where anyone can survive in not-discomfort doing either zero work, or an extremely few hours of service a week. And then see what happens.

So close to utopia. So close to dystopia.