…and one step back. Good news and bad news from the drug war. First the bad:

The Supreme Court gave police broader search powers Monday during traffic stops, ruling that drug-sniffing dogs can be used to check out motorists even if officers have no reason to suspect they may be carrying narcotics.

The bizarre thing is that the Court seems to think that time, not thoroughness or invasion of privacy, is what constitutes the “unreasonable” part of “unreasonable search and seizure.” Meaning that if cops stopping you had a portable x-ray machine that could see the through your car to find all the contents therein, that, absurdly, would probably not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Unfortunately, even the good news today is only half-assed good news. Press release from Students for Sensible Drug Policy:

A Congressionally-appointed committee today called for the removal of a question about drug convictions from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The question currently appears on the FAFSA because of a 1998 law that suspends financial aid eligibility for students with any drug convictions. Since the question was added to the FAFSA in 2000, it has affected more than 157,000 students.

The committee’s recommendation doesn’t mean a whole lot, however, unless Congress actually acts upon it.

That isn’t likely with the GOP in power.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2005 at 7:43 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.