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Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

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Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#341
post #332

Here's the thing: you can have all sorts of detached, academic discussions on a forum like HN or on a blogpost about what the best thing to do is, or the most pragmatic thing, or the worst thing when dealing with a police encounter. But if you ever find yourself in a situation where a police officer is pointing a gun at you, none of this discussion matters. I've had that happen to me (when an AirBNB owner failed to m…

A police officer compels you to turn over a password at gunpoint. You do so in an act of self preservation. Will any evidence acquired as a result be admissable in court?

[deleted]

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#342
post #332

Here's the thing: you can have all sorts of detached, academic discussions on a forum like HN or on a blogpost about what the best thing to do is, or the most pragmatic thing, or the worst thing when dealing with a police encounter. But if you ever find yourself in a situation where a police officer is pointing a gun at you, none of this discussion matters. I've had that happen to me (when an AirBNB owner failed to m…

A police officer compels you to turn over a password at gunpoint. You do so in an act of self preservation. Will any evidence acquired as a result be admissable in court?

Well if the officer lies and says you gave it willingly, I imagine yes!

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#343

Formally the police can't demand a lot of stuff. Informally, they'll put you in a room and tell you that they have the legal right to keep you anywhere from 24 to 72 hours in there and they definitely can make you reconsider during that period -- to put it very mildly. Hint: some cops are really good in the skill of inflicting pain to people without lasting medical trace to prove it afterwards. Until there's true acc…

>Hint: some cops are really good in the skill of inflicting pain to people without lasting medical trace to prove it afterwards. Sorry, I don't buy that this happens with any kind of frequency in the 21st century United States, such that a person could reasonably expect this to happen to them. Do you have more than ambiguous innuendo to back up this claim?

Ever protested anything that the conservative majority of your city supports, esp. the police? Try it some time, its fun! You'll find out pretty damn quick that the riot police love to hurt people, once something is declared a riot, it becomes a free-for-all. If you think this is innuendo, let me direct you to the 2 years of BLM protests around the country that have videos of cops behaving just lovely.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I wasn't clear enough with my comment. I was talking about US citizens. We have exactly the police we vote for, every single election. Yes, there are loud people online who wish it wasn't so, but when people get into the privacy of the ballot box they reliably vote for "law & order".

I don’t remember voting on laws related to police immunity or them carrying weapons or anything allowing them to act as if they have a permission to kill. Could you provide some examples of anything on the ballot that influenced police behavior?

That is entirely dependent on your local voting system, not every place in the US has citizen initiatives on the ballot AFAIK. But it's a representative democracy anyway, so you vote for polices by who gets your vote.

Sure, a lot of people just vote party line. But a lot of local elections are non-partisan.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with expecting accountability is that system will fail you at the next step: the courts. You have to survive that process too, where the judge and prosecutor will believe the cop nine times out of ten. As a sitting federal judge once said, “truth and justice have no relevance; it is a court of law.” The law will take the side of the system.

> The law will take the side of the system >> courts - an agent of the state - being overly deferential and siding with the state I am highly cynical about this methodology but it DOES work for the group, even if it is inefficent at it (and progressively getting more inefficient). Over the long run cops learn that they can't do X or Y, except for a few "new" abuses (e.g. civil asset forfeiture) we are probably better…

> cops are clever and talk to each other to strategize against protections, too.

Like playing popular music while being recorded by bystanders so that the videos get taken down for copyright infringement.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#346

Here's the thing: you can have all sorts of detached, academic discussions on a forum like HN or on a blogpost about what the best thing to do is, or the most pragmatic thing, or the worst thing when dealing with a police encounter. But if you ever find yourself in a situation where a police officer is pointing a gun at you, none of this discussion matters. I've had that happen to me (when an AirBNB owner failed to m…

You're right. A corrupt cop is unstoppable, especially one with a corrupt municipality supporting their behavior. However, like netsec, it is a matter of lots of small steps. Asserting "I do not consent to this search" aloud may not stop the search, but it can be used it court, where it may not matter, or it might. The point is, you have to protect yourself. Maybe someone caught recording of you saying that which sho…

This is why, in a just society, the penalties for corruption and abuse of power for LEOs should be extreme. Same goes for elected officials I suppose, but abuse of the state's threat of violence is antithetical to a free society.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I wasn't clear enough with my comment. I was talking about US citizens. We have exactly the police we vote for, every single election. Yes, there are loud people online who wish it wasn't so, but when people get into the privacy of the ballot box they reliably vote for "law & order".

No one is complaining against "law & order". The whole thread is about police misuse of power. You really don't see the difference?

I'm not sure what you think this line of discussion was about, but having a cop point a gun at you because he thinks you are possibly in the process of committing a felony is not a misuse of police power.

If he beats you up after you are compliant, then we are talking about abuse. Forces you to confess, abuse. Any unnecessary roughness while you are in custody (e.g. The Ride), also abuse. But if he legitimately suspects you are committing a crime and asserts his control to stop it, then he is merely doing exactly what we (society) have paid him to do. It only becomes a problem if he abuses that power after control has already been gained.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police job attracts most people who do not have a college degree, are white, and lean into conservative/justice-heavy politics. Many of those people are bullies. That doesn't mean anything about people that do not have a college degree, or white people, or conservative/justice-heavy politics, it just means something about the police job and the people who agree to take it. We're looking at probability of (white A…

Agree with a lot of your points, but I think you're asking for an unrealistic amount of self-sacrifice. Not to equate film to rl, but we're all familiar with Serpico, right? You think these power-hungry bullies are just going to let you infiltrate their gang and make changes for the greater good? Maybe you're talking about leadership/management positions? But, even then, you're talking about one of the stronger union…

It's interesting that you focused on leadership/management as an option--no, I actually really am talking about going to the academy, learning about escalation of force, patrol work, and basic procedural law, and then manning the city streets.

I'm not expecting left-leaners to go in and "take down the corrupt cops from the inside", just to go in and do police work. Most cops that get away with murder don't appear to be nakedly corrupt or part of an overt/explicit conspiracy to commit murder and theft; they're just incompetent, malicious, and protected by the brotherhood.

I have the same criticism of left-learners in other fields, like business and engineering. I come from a very left-leaning community and family; they will talk up one wall and down the other about things like bank loan disparity, police response disparity, treatment by retail employees disparity, etc. but very few of them actually consider becoming a loan officer or a police officer or a grocery store owner and then choosing how to treat people that would normally be treated poorly. People in my familial and social circle want to work $70-100k white collar administrative jobs and tell everyone else how to run society, when it would be far more effective if everyone with their same viewpoints simply become part of society and ran it themselves.

More self-sacrificial behavior and working in "real" jobs would also solve a lot of problems with what I saw as a flaw in liberal/left thinking. It's hard to be friendly and forgiving to thieves and violent robbers when it's your retirement plan that's getting jacked up twice per year and losing a third of profit to theft and another third to taxation.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there’s the absurd case where a defendant was found to have not invoked his 5th amendment rights by saying “I want a lawyer dawg”. The court, with laughably straight faces, decided that he might have been asking for a dog lawyer. Courts can be shockingly corrupt.

Tell me an appeals court was unimpressed, dawg.

I have bad news, dawg. Louisiana Supreme Court declined to hear the case, effectively upholding it.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, if I travel with a company laptop and I am asked to unlock it I'll outright refuse and cite that I can and will be sued by my employer if I unlock it, and will direct the airport security to my employer's legal team. I don't want to open myself up for litigation so I'll definitely put up a fight in this case.

Interesting that your employer would be so zealous about it, my employer's written policy is "Always cooperate with security/customs. If they want your computer unlocked, unlock it. Your safety is more important than our secrets, just call corporate security when you're released."

Yeah, they kind of said that too, with the addition of "resist for a bit, don't immediately comply, only back off if there's no choice". But yeah, I get what you're saying. Don't think I'll ever sign such a contract again though.
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