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Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

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Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#251

Post by beeboop »

harryh wrote: post #86
beeboop wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stories like this further my conviction to simply never answer the door if it's a police officer unless they specify having a warrant. They can't detain you if you don't answer, and chances are the officer will escalate the situation on his own if he wants a reason to detain you. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Civilized society depends on the cooperation of the law abiding populace. It's your civic duty to answer the door. It's a categorical imperative.

You could also say civilized society depends on people providing reasonable aid to those who need it in emergency situations, but doing stuff like grabbing a child to prevent them from stepping in front of a car has lead to many child abduction charges. That isn't to say that I wouldn't help the child in that situation, but more to say there are situations where doing the right thing and not becoming a victim of the criminal justice system are not mutually exclusive. I will risk it to save a child, I will not risk it to open the door for a police officer whose sole intention is most likely to put me under his thumb.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#252

Post by harryh »

beeboop wrote: post #251
harryh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civilized society depends on the cooperation of the law abiding populace. It's your civic duty to answer the door. It's a categorical imperative.

You could also say civilized society depends on people providing reasonable aid to those who need it in emergency situations, but doing stuff like grabbing a child to prevent them from stepping in front of a car has lead to many child abduction charges. That isn't to say that I wouldn't help the child in that situation, but more to say there are situations where doing the right thing and not becoming a victim of the…

> grabbing a child to prevent them from stepping in front of a car has lead to many child abduction charges

This is not true. I challenge you to find even a single instance of this happening.

You appear to have an overly paranoid view of how the world operates that's likely based on very little actual interaction with law enforcement.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#253

Post by wang_li »

Houshalter wrote: post #238
gnopgnip wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it not how statistics work. Assume it is correct 90% of the time. There are 700 million iPhones worldwide. Assume 1% of them use the app, that is 7 million friends found, and 700k incorrect locations.

And only 1% of those users will have their phones stolen, and only 0.01% of those users will be suspected kidnapping victims. So only a handful of people would actually be actually be inconvenienced by such a policy.

The way this would work out in a proper world, is that the search would take place, they'd realize it was fruitless and that the location information provided was incorrect and then the phone manufacturer and the cell phone company would each cut a check for $1,000,000 to the person who was false accused. And this would happen each and every single time a person's civil rights were violated because some product developer did a shitty job. A 1% failure rate is pretty low quality.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#254

Post by manarth »

refurb wrote: post #143
manarth wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing in the article to say that the residents were arrested. An arrest is the threshold for controlling someone's legitimate actions: if the police don't have enough evidence to arrest the person, then they shouldn't be limiting their movements. That is the whole point of arrest (and the related burden of proof required to make an arrest). To restrict someone's actions without legal authority - such as arr…

An arrest is the threshold for controlling someone's legitimate actions No it's not. You can be legally detained. For example, if a cop stops you for speeding, he won't arrest you, but you will be detained until he gets the information he needs and gives you a ticket. That's why you're supposed to ask "Am I free to go?". If you are legally detained, the answer is "no".

That's a good point, thanks. I ended up having a look through the differences between detention and arrest (finding different thresholds, e.g. "reasonable suspicion" vs "probable cause"[1], and that "20 minutes or so is a reasonable timeframe for detaining someone" [2]).

[1] http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/arrest-vs-detention-h... [2] http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/arrests_and_...

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#255

Post by Bjartr »

stevep98 wrote: post #96
Bjartr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they could get a warrant and there would be no question that they could enter the premises for a search. They did not, so they could not.

Missing child... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exigent_circumstance "An exigent circumstance, in the criminal procedure law of the United States, allows law enforcement, under certain circumstances, to enter a structure without a search warrant or, if they have a "knock and announce" warrant, without knocking and waiting for refusal."

In the eyes of the law, does a missing child automatically fulfill the "imminent danger" or "imminent destruction of evidence" parts of exigent circumstance? Or does there need to be some other evidence to support those reasons?

Further, does the law, as written, allow detainment of individuals while those reasons are decided?

Until someone can describe the legal link between the fact it's a missing child and the conclusion these are exigent circumstances from a legal perspective, I can only interpret the pointing out that it's a missing child as a plea to emotion at best and a thought terminating cliche at worst.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#256

Post by Bjartr »

dntrkv wrote: post #105
Bjartr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what are the other options Go to a judge, communicate the situation, and maybe get a warrant if the judge deems it appropriate. That's how the system is designed to work. >The chance of checking and making sure while in the process inconveniencing someone far outweighs the chance of not checking. >If you are the parent of this missing kid and the police tell you your child might be there but they can't look into it,…

>There are good reasons we don't let emotional parents head the investigations of their missing children. And where did I suggest that? There is a huge difference between having a parent head an investigation and asking a police officer to check out a potential house where someone's kid may be held. And the couple was well within their right to not open the door to the police. I'm not suggesting the police should hav…

>having a parent head an investigation

You're right, I exaggerated for the sake of rhetoric. I should not have, and I apologize for doing so.

>And where did I suggest that?

By bringing this up

>>If you are the parent of this missing kid and the police tell you your child might be there but they can't look into it, you would be ok with that?

You're suggesting that the emotional state of parents of missing children validates detaining someone without probable cause (as the comment you originally replied to described).

>I know, reasonable suspicion is really vague and abused but what is the alternative?

This is not what you were originally saying. You wrote that on the basis of it being a missing child, and on the basis of the parents being not okay with inaction, detaining without probable cause was justified.

If that wasn't the message you wanted people to get from your comment, you should have written it differently.

>Anytime a cop sees suspicious activity they need to head over to the court and get a warrant. They would never get anything done.

It turns out there's a great deal of law and precedent that goes into great detail about what a cop can and can't do and when and why. Law and precedent that were decided in light of both the harm of abuse of power and the harm of impotent enforcement.

Saying cops should have more power without first addressing why the existing reasons for limiting that power should suddenly no longer apply loses you a lot of credibility. And if you don't know what those reasons are, rightfully so.

That said, do continue to share your opinion, I'm definitely not saying you should curb your speech, just saying that if you want it to be more effective, there's steps you can take.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#257

Post by nod »

tomlongson wrote: post #6
JonnieCache wrote: post #2

Now this is interesting. Presumably the coordinates of their house are significant in some way. The result of some kind of truncation perhaps? I can't see how a floating-point error could converge on a specific value like this, but I'm no expert in such things. If they could only post their address the answer would surely be found very quickly, but that would defeat the object somewhat. I suppose it's fortuitous that…

0,0 is Null Island! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island

Here's their site: http://nullisland.com/

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#258

Post by [deleted] »

beeboop wrote: post #250
nommm-nommm wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've answered the door to police, they were there to return property of mine that I had no idea was missing. It took some work on their end to find me too.

I am sure they have your phone number too. They are welcome to call me, though I wouldn't necessarily answer any questions.

[deleted]

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#259

Post by nommm-nommm »

beeboop wrote: post #250
nommm-nommm wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've answered the door to police, they were there to return property of mine that I had no idea was missing. It took some work on their end to find me too.

I am sure they have your phone number too. They are welcome to call me, though I wouldn't necessarily answer any questions.

What? They did not have my phone number, thats why they came to my house. They tracked me down when they recovered my property but they didn't find a current phone number (only my old one) but did find my address.

It was something I did not even know was missing. I didn't go to them, I didn't file a police report, they came to me. They went out of their way to track down the owner of the property they recovered.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#260

Post by jrochkind1 »

abhorrence wrote: post #212
jrochkind1 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The police shouldn't be able to detain someone for over an hour without probably cause and without arresting them. Once I got stopped and they decided they were going to get a drug dog, and then a warrant, for my car. "Am I being detained?", I asked. "No, you're free to go." "Wait, I can just get in my car and drive away?" "Oh no, we're holding your car as evidence." I was in the middle of nowhere. I don't know und…

IANAL, but my understanding is that you can't be detained (or rather a traffic stop cannot be extend) to wait for a drug dog [0]. Already you should have been able to leave. Additionally, the "no, you're free to go" bit sounds like an officer trying to find a loophole, since the standard for whether or not you're being detained is if a reasonable person would assume they were free to go. Despite the officer telling y…

Oh, he made it clear that I was able to go wherever I wanted, in the middle of nowhere, I just couldn't get in my car, let alone drive it anywhere.
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