Having said all that, sending cash through the mail just feels like a really obvious money laundering vector. You might claim that there's no distinction between that and, say, handing over a bunch of cash directly to a person, but in the world of money laundering each extra layer makes the operation safer!
I don't think that from this it follows that we should be opening envelopes all over, but there's a universe where the seller of jewelry is very aware that they are taken illicit cash, and in a a more just universe there's some sort of warrant.
I do not know how to square the privacy question with this, but I do like the idea of money laundering not being trivially doable.
This is a classic America debate - just because criminals do it doesn't mean the State should punish everyone else that does it. America is full of weirdos that want to do weird things and be left alone to do it without State interference. Since 2001 I feel like the "if you have nothing to hide..." argument has been given WAY too much credence. Feels like the American zeitgeist is turning against characters like Hunter S. or George Carlin and I feel like we used to celebrate this sort of gonzo, leave-me-the-fuck-alone ideology instead.
I believe you have the right to privacy! I believe that searches should have warrants associated to them! The fact that a "drug sniffing dog" was how this package was opened feels like enough to just throw this out!
I do think there is a universe where this happened through a warrant, and that the warrant wasn't given out glibly, and where the seizure probably makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Context-free discussions on this are annoying because at one point the _extremely crucial distinction_ of judicial oversight through a warrant just gets completely lost despite it being _the load-bearing component_ to "not without a warrant"!
That language is being used to justify all sorts of unethical behavior by the police, often flagrantly unconstitutional, usually at minimum illegal, and almost always the times it's not obviously illegal, it should be (the laws should be changed).
I don't know if it's from lack of regular interaction from the police but I find a lot of people online are under the mistaken impression that the constitution or law is guarding the rights of people in the USA. Cops get away with violating the constitution and breaking the law multiple times every day - sometimes in ways the supreme court has allowed, such as by lying to you, or tricking you into thinking you have to voluntarily give up your rights. Combine that with a completely overwhelmed court system that leads to something like 90% of people taking plea deals, and the absurd concept of "mandated minimums" and sentencing requirements that judges blindly follow, and you've got a legal system that's nothing like what people represent online.
So I feel "well it's suspicious but of course they should get a warrant" is pro-surveillance state, not anti.
Those were sent USPS priority, and I can surely tell you there was mild panic when they didn’t show up on time. I was concerned someone saw the contents on X-ray and decided they had nothing to lose by letting that envelope, um, slip through the cracks.
They eventually arrived, but it was a worrisome couple days.
Money laundering is trivial regardless.
This cash thing is messy enough, but the drug sniffing dogs at the FedEx distribution center is obviously _something_. Even if the dog was consistently finding drugs in packages (and not being an excuse to open a package), is that OK? Is that not? What if LE is X-Ray'ing packages for "safety" reasons, do they get carte blanche to search the package there?
You might be surprised how I'd land on most of these, I think privacy is pretty important and blanket searches are pretty BS! I kinda think drug sniffing dogs are bad!
Just holistically speaking, you'd probably find that "drug sniffing dogs should not be allowed at airports and FedEx shipping centers" would be extremely unpopular and also not an easy point to argue as a consequence of some fundamental constitutional rights. And then the dogs are there, so now the cops have a skeleton key.
Context matters I guess.
That would mean, essentially, that they could not do anything at all with your packages unless they already have a reason to suspect you of a crime, and that even then, they have to have a reason to believe that a particular package is involved in said crime and even say beforehand what they expect to find in it.
Now, on to the specific scenario at hand. You might argue that that is too stringent, that no crime can ever be proven under that framework, and you may say it shouldn't preclude x rays and drug dogs and what not, I might even agree with you. But that as well as any other reasonable concept of justly handling suspicion precludes randomly opening peoples packages and keeping money by construing the simple presence of money as evidence that a crime maybe was committed and they get to keep it whether there was or wasn't a crime there. Even by the most lax framework of how to handle suspicion and searching property that is outrageous.
