[kelnos]

Point completely missed: the officers should have known that the field test they used had a high false-positive rate, and should have taken a sample back to be tested by more reliable means. Either they're lying about being ignorant of the fact that the test is unreliable, which should be grounds for throwing those claims away when testing if the warrant showed probable cause, or they actually were ignorant of the test's unreliability, in which case they (or the person in their department who approved the test for use) are recklessly incompetent.

[such_a_casual]

I completely agree. The federal judge did in fact rule that "drinking tea and shopping at a gardening store amounts to probable cause" when he made this ruling. First of all, there is no reason for these police to be relying on field tests when conducting a SWAT raid which was planned and calculated weeks in advance. Secondly, as you pointed out, the judge ruled that these police are in no way responsible for ensuring that there's any reason to believe these tests work at all. A user in the other thread pointed out that problems with these tests have been known about for years. What evidence did these police have these tests actually detect drugs, as opposed to air? What is to prevent the police from using dowsing sticks to determine who should be raided?