Weyerhauser demanded all employees submit to a dog sweep
That was one of, but not the only one of, the employers I was referring to. It happened in Oklahoma and was the root cause of the Oklahoma legislature passing the right to carry in your car in the parking lot at work law (I know, that should all be hyphenated but it's just too many hyphens
). That law was quickly challenged by other large employers who also illegally use local law enforcement to search employees' cars without a warrant or probable cause.
Weyerhaeuser (the correct spelling) illegally used the local county sherrif's office to assist with the search. Other large employers in the state also illegally use local law enforcement agencies to perform searches of empolyees' vehicles. Let me add, though, that Judge Anderson of the U.S. 10th District Court of Appeals disagrees with me. The rest of the court hasn't weighed in yet.
Weyerhaeuser brought the dogs into a parking lot used by both employees and the local community. The local county sherrif's office participated in the search by illegally providing the name of the owner of any vehicle upon which the dogs alerted - whether or not the vehicle was owned by an employee or contractor of Weyerhaeuser. Vehicle They illegally searched many vehicles! Once a connection could be made between a vehicle and an employee or contractor, that's when they coerced the employee or contractor to submit to a search of their private vehicle, exposing more of their private life or property than simply any drug, alcohol, or weapon.
I wonder what would have happened if a spouse owned a vehicle? And the sherrif's office now has a list of vehicles that weren't hand searched but had the dogs hit on them.
These actions continue throughout Oklahoma and, very likely, the rest of the United States.
Here, by the way, is Oklahoma's form to request information about the registered owner of a vehicle. While a security company can request the information, it still has to be for one of the reasons listed. None of the reasons include an employers desire to search the vehicle of an employee or citizen of the community at large.
http://www.tax.ok.gov/mvforms/769.pdf