161–170 of 216 posts
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Thanks, but I'll continue to report crimes and assist canvassers looking for anyone who saw a suspect. "But he obviously didn't mean that !" Then why the extreme repetition of "never"?
No, he meant that too. I haven't watched the video for a few years, but I believe he explicitly uses that scenario as one example.
oh dear. this is a very sad statement all on its own, without any of what came before it.
law enforcement should be our friends.
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>LEOs - especially Feds - will do everything they can to intimidate you, make you uncomfortable, lower your confidence, etc. It's literally their job to make people like you make mistakes. It sucks, but that's what you're up against. I don't know why we tolerate that. Imagine if doctors used such techniques to get people to participate in medical trials. We'd reject any claim that the subjects gave consent. Or imagin…
We don't expect criminals to consent to being prosecuted. Those parallels really don't make a lot of sense.
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No, I think that most Americans don't have a lawyer on call. The typical advice I have heard is to do a little research on lawyers in your city, and have a phone number of a reputable lawyer (or a few) in your wallet in case of a potentially severe legal situation. When you call them and establish a relationship where you are paying for their services they become "your lawyer". (this is not advice, I'm not a lawyer,…
> (this is not advice, I'm not a lawyer, etc) Related: will people sue you if you don't include that disclaimer?
Would anyone treat a random internet comment as legal advice? Hopefully not.
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Aaron Swartz
Aaron was clearly guilty of the crime he was charged with. You can debate the morality of that crime being on the books, but it's clear that he did what he was charged with.
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> "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?" The only responses you should use in such situations are: 'No comment' 'Am I free to go?' Plus the statutory minimum ( name, address, DoB according to your local legislation ). Psychologically it is very, very difficult. One way to try to handle it is to pretend you're responding to Emacs Eliza, which will always try to turn your words back onto you.
Have you used either of those responses before? Judging from my limited exposure with the police this sort of "technically I don't have to do this\answer this" response is an invite for a cranky cop to do everything they can to inconvenience you as a punishment. For example in my case if I'd carried on doing what I was doing (talking to my friend at conversational level and smiling, while a passing police officer tol…
Can that make the situation worse? Absolutely. A cop can, at least where I live, throw you in a cell for 48 hours for any reason (other than being a member of a protected class) or none, just on their say-so. If they do it every day their superiors are going to start asking questions, but for a one-off "trust me on this one guys" a cop definitely has that legal authority, and if you piss them off enough it could be the difference between walking away and spending those two nights in jail. (More realistically, it'll make the difference between walking away and going down to the station to be fingerprinted and the like and released after a few hours).
But if you incriminate yourself, or commit a crime by e.g. making a false statement as in the article, then you could be looking at a lot more than two nights.
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You asserted that it was "dangerous" for him to bandy around such statements. Care to back up that assertion? "Unnecessary" and "dangerous" are quite different.
The word "dangerous" is not exclusively used to indicate the likelihood of physical injury. It is also widely used to describe the likelihood of any undesirable consequences. The undesirable consequence in this case is a weakening of the argument being presented.
I'm not American and I have a question. Everybody in this thread repeats to "never talk to law enforcement without your lawyer present". I don't have a lawyer. I don't know a lawyer. I've hardly ever even talked to a lawyer. If I were in the USA and I'd get picked up for questioning, I wouldn't know who to call. Does every American "have a lawyer"? Do you know their phone number by heart? Is having a lawyer like havi…
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The problem is that everyone is viewed as a perp, particularly if you are black. "Innocent until proven guilty" means something.
It means something specific: at trial, the police must prove your guilt by a reasonable doubt, and doubt is resolved in favor of the accused. That's all it means. This is not to say that law enforcement doesn't need to cut back on the aggressive tactics. But rather that the presumption of innocence has nothing to do with why.