Here's where it starts to get hairy.
They asked us (me and my wife) to step out, they did a body search to me,
Did they indicate this was optional? You say "asked." Was it truly a request or a demand? Did you ask if you were free to go or if you were being detained? Did you feel that you could have said no, or do you think you had no choice?
asked us to stay about 10 ft away from the back of the van and not look to them, then they started to search my van.
Again, asked? I understand the reasoning behind their not wanting you to look at them while they searched, but I sure wouldn't have complied with that. Was that a request or an "order?"
Anyway, after one hour of searches, including K9, opening the sealed packages I was hauling, they told us that we are clear and we may go.
It may surprise people, but
if we're going to outlaw people putting substances in their own bodies I have no problem with having a drug dog sniff your vehicle. After all, the molecules he's sniffing are outside your car. However, did they say the dog alerted on anything? They opened the packages without the dog alerting or even a pretense of probable cause? btw, if you read the Constitution, it doesn't say the government may search anyone on "reasonable suspicion" or even "probable cause." It says they may search only after obtaining a warrant they get by swearing to a judge that they have probable cause. And the idea that they can detain you while they do all that is both absent from and repugnant to the constitution.
I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but does anyone doubt that a dog can be trained to alert on a subtle command from the handler? The issue has been raised that dogs, given their nature of wanting to please their master/Alpha, are prone to falsely alert because their experience tells them their master/Alpha is pleased when they alert. "Good boy!" he tells them, and maybe he shows them approval in other ways. So, they
want that approval, and to them it's just another trick they do for daddy. And here we are, basing our civil liberties on the reaction of an animal eager to please the master who wants to exercise government power to suspend our liberties toward the end of locking us up. What a country!
So anyway, did they even
claim probable cause, or did they ask your consent at all? Or did they just say, "We're going to search?"
All my personal things were all over, they searched my cell, my GPS,
Again, here's where we cross from outrageous to #©&©!!#!! outrageous. A statist like Greg334, judging from his past statements, would say that you had a civic duty to cooperate and assist with the search since you're driving a commercial motor vehicle (even though you weren't, as Turtle has shown us). But even if you accept the premise that being a commercial driver alters your civil liberties (it doesn't) and that the Bill of Rights no longer applies to you (it does), at that point where they search your personal effects, especially your phone & GPS, even the most hardcore statist (read that: rectum) would have to concede that at that point, they've gone beyond any pretense of checking the vehicle/freight/paperwork to ensure compliance with applicable statutes and are now doing a search more comparable to entering your home and rifling through your personal effects.
absolutely everything was checked. I wanted so much to sue them, but what for? The judge will never be on my side.
Contact the ACLU! Amidst all the outrageous crap they do, once in a while, they're on the right side. What the cops did here was plainly illegal.
