On April 19, the state of Utah resolved that “pornography is creating a public health crisis.” There’s definitely a hinky stank to that resolution, as Jamie Peck explained after the resolution’s passage: “The resolution is based partly on pseudoscience and takes for granted that the only ‘healthy’ channel for sexuality is a non-kinky, heterosexual, child-producing marriage.” So if you are queer or trans or pansexual the state of Utah just might pass a resolution stating that your private sex life is “creating a public health crisis.” Utah. Land of Republicans, Mormons and… more Republican Mormons.
Either way, some law enforcement officers in the state have taken the hint. Abutting the state’s famous Great Salt Lake, the municipality of Weber County, which contains the city of Ogden, has acquired a dog to help with the struggle against demon porn.
You might think that sniffing for porn is an impossibility, because you might as well be sniffing for old copies of Newsweek or the L.L. Bean catalog, right? But you’d be wrong! It’s 2016, when was the last time you held a copy of Penthouse in your hands? Nowadays, porn = internet = computer technology, nobody’s looking for printed smut anymore.
The dog’s name, URL, is a hint as to the skills that are being brought to the task. From the same trainer that produced the doggie that helped snare vile pedophile and TV fast food spokesman Jared Fogle, URL is “trained to sniff out electronic storage devices such as thumb drives, cell phones, SIM cards, SD cards, external hard drives, tablets and iPads.”
So URL is also sort of an “office work product”-sniffing agent as well.
Weber County introduced the dog to the public on its Facebook feed on Tuesday. Here’s the text that went along with the post:
A NEW DOG IN TOWN
Say hello to “URL!” Utah’s first Electronic Detection K-9, or what some may jokingly refer to as Utah’s first “porn dog.” URL is a 16-month old, Black Lab, recently acquired from Jordan Detection K-9 in Greenfield, Indiana. He is only one of nine certified ED K-9s in the country, and the only one in the western states region. URL comes from the same trainer as Bear, the ED K-9 who played a key role in the arrest of Subway pitchman, Jared Fogle.
Specially trained to sniff out electronic storage devices such as thumb drives, cellphones, SIM cards, SD cards, external hard drives, tablets and iPads, URL offers a unique set of skills to aid investigators in fighting crime. Whether it’s child porn, terrorism intelligence, narcotics or financial crimes information, URL has the ability to find evidence hidden on basically any electronic memory device. He will assist our investigators on these specific types of cases, and he will also be used in our correctional facility to seek out contraband such as cell phones.
Now we realize some of you may be skeptical and wonder how is this possible? URL does not actually search for illegal materials, but rather his highly sensitive nose has been trained to detect the unique chemical compounds found in the certain electronic components.
Rescued from a shelter when he was a puppy, URL went through six months of training in Indiana before becoming certified. His handler, Detective Cam Hartman, also received nine days of expert training and the pair will have to be re-certified on an annual basis.
URL’s purchase was made possible through funding from the Weber Metro Narcotics Strike Force, and his acquisition has been strongly supported by the Weber County Attorney’s Office. The Sheriff’s Office will be responsible for his care and deployment as he serves the Northern Utah area.
As the good people of Weber County admit, URL may be known as a porn-sniffing K-9 officer, but he can also be used to detect “terrorism intelligence, narcotics or financial crimes information” because we all know that Utah is a hotbed of that shit.
via Death & Taxes
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Hare Krishnas psychedelicize Utah