This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, February 19th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown. The Supreme Court has approved with some restrictions the broad use of drug sniffing dogs during traffic stops.

The ruling comes before another ruling on whether the use of such dogs constitutes a

Fourth Amendment search.

Jim Harper, Director of Information policy studies at the Cato Institute, lays out the facts.

The War on Drugs has done nothing, if not tear down the protections of the Fourth Amendment.

And the court's ruling in Florida versus Harris. tear down the protections of the Fourth Amendment.

And the court's ruling in Florida versus Harris

doesn't turn that around, unfortunately.

In the case, the defendant, Clayton Harris, was pulled over by Deputy Sheriff William Wheatley in the Liberty

County, Florida area. Wheatley perceived to Harris to be visibly nervous, noticed the fact that there was an open

beer on the console, and asked for permission to search.

Harris denied in permission. So Wheatley went back and got his drug

sniffing dog, Aldo, and walked the dog around the car. Aldo alerted on the

passenger side door handle, giving Wheatley what he believed to be probable cause to search the vehicle.

He did search the vehicle, and he found 200 pseudoephedrine pills, 8,000 matches, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, two containers of antifreeze,

and a coffee filter full of iodine crystals.

Harris was not going on a picnic, he was cooking meth, breaking bad, as they say.

These were not substances that Aldo was trained to find, though,

and nonetheless he was arrested while out on bail sheriff

Wheatley pulled Harris over again and again walked Aldo around the car finding that Aldo reacted

again to the passenger side door. This time searching the car he didn't find

...