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?
Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused
341–350 of 615 posts
Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused
#342Here'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?
Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused
#343Formally 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?
Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused
#344Earlier 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?
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
#345Earlier 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…
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
#346Here'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…
Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused
#347Earlier 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?
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
#348Earlier 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…
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
#349Earlier 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.
Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused
#350Earlier 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."