Hacker News Reader

Comment by derstander | Hacker News Reader

I hadn't heard of this before, but here are some sources. Note this quote from [2], U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

"Canines are taught to detect concealed U.S. currency and firearms. Both the Officer/Agent and canine are taught the proper search sequences when searching vehicles, aircraft, freight, luggage, mail, passengers and premises."

I have no idea what the ratio of scientific backing vs. security theater is, though.

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/golden-valleys-new-k-...

[1] https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/news/meet-currency-detecto...

[2] https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/canine-...

View on HN

> I have no idea what the ratio of scientific backing vs. security theater is, though.

Yes, dogs give you a convenient excuse to produce 'probable cause' in order to authorise a search whenever you feel like it, because the signs the dogs give are interpreted by their handlers.

So it's not necessarily so much security theatre, as perhaps 'whitewashing' of evidence obtained in other ways. see eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

Cannot find the story now but there was situation where they sentenced woman for drug possession ONLY because dog indicated so, but they found no drugs on her or in her car.

Do you happen to remember if she was sentenced because she was convicted by a jury? I have very little faith in the U.S. justice system so I guess that wouldn’t surprise me, but it feels likelier that they used the K9 “evidence” to coerce her into accepting a plea bargain (which, to be clear, is also bad).

Apologies she was not convicted but was jailed - I misremembered and it was rather hard to find but as I see it should be this story:

https://reason.com/2021/05/13/the-police-dog-who-cried-drugs...

The mention of “U.S. currency” raises my suspicions. How does a canine distinguish between U.S. and Mexican or Canadian currency?

Polymer versus paper?

Polymer versus cotton + dyes. US currency has a unique smell to my human nose, even.

Their handler whispers “dinero” or “money, eh” instead of “deutsche mark”.

IDK about Canadian, but even I can tell the difference between USD and EUR/CZK banknotes by smell.

That said, no one on the Internet knows that I am a dog.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com