Police Dogs Can Sniff Out Child Porn? Really?

CONROE, Tex.—Police in Montgomery County, Texas, where there are apparently a lot of child porn viewers, have a lot of faith in their K-9 units—so much so that articles in several local news outlets are claiming that the dogs can sniff out child pornography. Of course, that's not actually the case. What the dogs are sniffing out is the glue that's used to hold things like SD cards and USB ("jump") drives together, and the police are claiming that it's on those types of electronic media that child porn aficionadoes are hiding their illegal images and videos. There's just one problem: Since there's still such a thing as the Fourth Amendment in this country, there's no way in hell that any judge (outside of maybe Texas and a couple of other backwaters we could name) would give a police officer a warrant based on the fact that his/her dog smelled that special glue. Now, of course, if police already had other evidence that the "person of interest" had created, downloaded or possessed child porn images, then bringing the dog in to sniff for the SD cards or USB drives after they'd already obtained a warrant would be perfectly fine. So why is AVN covering this story? Well, as many know, there are apparently adult production companies that are currently shooting adult movies and web content in Los Angeles County where the performers are not using the condoms and other barrier protections now required under Measure B, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation-sponsored anti-porn law that was passed in 2012. But those companies (as far as we know) are not shooting that content on film, but rather on SD cards that fit nicely into today's high-end video cameras. Starting to get the picture now? Let's say, for instance, that CalOSHA wanted to raid one of those "underground" shoots to see if the performers were using those "barrier protections" that its outdated Health Code prescribes. And let's suppose that someone on that set heard the inspectors arriving, and everything ground to a halt; actors put on clothes and the SD cards from the camera(s) were put in a safe place—how would the CalOSHA inspectors prove the production company was, in their minds, breaking the law? The answer is left as an exercise for students of XXX.