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Big problem is how arbitrary the "alert" of the dog is.

I said it earlier, but it is simple to teach a dog to alert on a command or signal, even the wink of an eye.

Once we are in the position that a dog bark is on a par with conviction, nobody is free or safe from ilegal siezure.

"Pull over please."

"Oh, it's that John Lenin guy. Seabiscuit, Who is it?" "wink"

"Woof!Woof!"

"Ok, tear the guy's car apart, cuff him and rip his things to pieces, he's a felon, Seabiscuit finds him guilty."

I see your point, but I have more of an issue with the search itself. What you have is a situation where you're using something (a dog in this case) which detects things out of the range of what can possibly be considered 'plain view'. The 'plain view' search that allows a cop to see the gun sitting on the dashboard and use its illegality against the suspect exists for the protection of the officer. That carries over for seeing a bag of pot on the dashboard as well. The human officer can see both and can distinguish both from legal items. What follows from that is the 'plain view' search using senses other than sight. If the cop hears someone screaming 'help' from inside the trunk or smells rotting flesh, then those things can also be said to be in 'plain view', and he can also distinguish those things from legal sounds and smells.

The problem with using a dog is that you've exited that box of human 'plain view' searches and entered a world where any probe, scan, or other means of detection can be used to locate anything illegal within the vehicle. If the guy has a gun hidden under the seat, but the officer doesn't know about the gun and has no good reason to search the entire vehicle, then the gun is likely not admissible in court against the person if the cop just decides to tear through the car anyway. However, if we set up a nifty new portable x-ray machine and scan the entire car, we've conducted what is, in essence, a full search of the vehicle without the consent of the owner/operator. Anything found by these extraordinary 'plain view' searches should never, in my opinion, be usable in court. You either keep 'plain view' as the standard, or you may as well just say that police can rip the car apart on a whim. There ain't no third direction.