[HN Gopher] LAPD officers told to collect social media data on e...
___________________________________________________________________
LAPD officers told to collect social media data on every civilian
they stop
Author : perihelions
Score : 289 points
Date : 2021-09-08 19:24 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| rapind wrote:
| I'm going to SEO the crap out of this and never get another
| ticket.
| beervirus wrote:
| > the potential for mass surveillance of civilians without
| justification
|
| Does it even count as surveillance when it's stuff people post
| publicly online?
| mancerayder wrote:
| A superb reason why FB, Twitter and Google should leave the realm
| of the laissez-faire private sphere that spawned them and enter a
| new dawn of being regulated as utilities, and having a mix of
| both protections and 1st Amendment obligations.
|
| Between the Silicon Valley-government staffing revolving door,
| and border agencies (and now police) so closely aligned with
| these giant corporate interests that have our data of the past
| forevermore, this is no longer OK.
| Ms-J wrote:
| Just. No.
|
| It's not _reasonable_ , nor rational.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "Come and take them."
|
| No, I am _not_ saying to start shooting at the cops if they ask
| for this. I am saying to refuse, go to jail if they require it,
| then meet them in court, accusing them of wrongful arrest and
| violation of the 4th Amendment.
|
| [Edit: This approach can get you in trouble that can take you
| years to get out of. Don't follow it if you aren't willing to
| face that.]
| tptacek wrote:
| On what basis could the police arrest you, let alone jail you,
| for not telling them what your Twitter account is?
| elliekelly wrote:
| They got this guy on (criminal!) failure to register his
| bicycle: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=28w6xvRj9EM
| prepend wrote:
| Obstruction of justice.
| Cycl0ps wrote:
| Failure to comply with commands given by an officer.
| Suspicious activity. Belligerent conduct. Whether these are
| actual charges or not don't even matter, as officers aren't
| legally required (by supreme court decision) to understand
| the law they enforce. If they want to arrest you they can.
|
| So to restate your question: On what basis do the police
| think they can arrest you?
| tptacek wrote:
| It is not the case that you can be lawfully arrested simply
| for failing to comply with any given command given by an
| officer. See, for instance, the last 10 years of case law
| regarding people recording the police despite their urgent
| demands that they stop.
|
| It's fair to point out that the police _can_ arrest you
| unlawfully, and that 's a real risk you run when saying
| "no" to them. But it's important to know that saying "no"
| to a request for your Twitter account name is legally very
| safe, and that the police would be way out over their skis
| arresting you for doing that.
|
| Being detained for questioning is not a big deal, but being
| arrested is a _very_ big deal, and it does not happen as
| casually as message boards think it does. If the police
| routinely arrest people without lawful cause, there are
| consequences (though they aren 't the consequences any of
| us would hope there'd be).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Are there consequences to them for detaining you for no
| good reason? Because that seems to me to be their best
| strategy if someone refuses to give them their social
| media accounts. Make it kind of costly, but not to the
| point where the officer involved gets in any trouble.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer.
|
| There are more- and less- formal restrictions on how long
| they can detain you, but my mental model is just that
| they can detain you for basically any reason --- it is
| not my claim that there are magic words that can get the
| police to go away, or to stop asking you questions, and
| you might just have to put up with it until they get
| tired of you.
|
| The next step, though, where they trundle you off to a
| police station for interrogation --- that's an arrest.
| It's a big deal. Actual cause is needed.
| Cycl0ps wrote:
| You've made good points on this. My concern would be that
| police officers have an obligation to gather this
| information as it states in the article, and that they
| would lean on their powers to detain and arrest in order
| to coerce that information.
|
| Let's run through a hypothetical. Routine traffic stop.
| Cop pulls out one of these cards and asks for your
| handles. You refuse, claim Miranda rights, or something
| similar. Cop says you, "match the description of a known
| suspect" (in a city as large as LA everyone matches a
| known suspect) and this is part of the ID process. "Of
| course, we can do a check using the computers at the
| station but you'll need to come with us until we confirm
| your ID ..."
|
| Now, following through on that threat is an arrest, but
| under California law police have 48-hours to investigate
| before either charging you with a crime or releasing you.
| I doubt most officers would use the entire time, but
| letting someone stew for the afternoon in a drunk tank
| seems entirely within reason. During that time their car
| has been impounded and they're either missing work or
| missing time with their loved ones. Refusing to self
| identify could carry an effective fine in the hundreds of
| dollars, and that worries me.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't think it's plausible that the police will
| routinely rely on arrests to get social media information
| from random stops, for a bunch of reasons; part of it is
| that it's unlawful for them to do so, but the bigger part
| of it is that it's incredibly inefficient and painful for
| them to do that too.
|
| If the argument is that the police will use this as a
| pretext to arrest people they want to arrest anyways,
| well, it's a dumb pretext. They have dozens of pretexts
| that aren't overtly unlawful; the idea that they're going
| to haul people in for an offense that they won't be able
| to articulate when they process you at the station
| (because it is not in fact a violation of any California
| statute) seems, to me, far-fetched.
|
| It is problematic that they ask this question. I'm not
| lobbying for its inclusion. It's bad because people will,
| as has been pointed out all over the thread (including by
| my top comment) _believe_ they have to answer. But the
| response to that problem should be to educate people not
| to answer the question, not to accept the victimizing
| framework of the article.
|
| The police, by the way, cannot hold you for 48 hours
| while looking for something to charge you with. To arrest
| you, they need probable cause of a specific crime, which
| they'll need to provide when they book you. They can then
| charge you with _other_ stuff they dream up while they
| hold you, but they need something to start with. Again:
| refusing to answer this question isn 't "Obstruction of
| justice" (which isn't a California offense in the first
| place); the California "resisting" statutes generally
| require force or violence on your part, or your
| interference with their questioning of _someone else_.
| datameta wrote:
| Obstruction of justice. Alternatively, suspicion of
| intoxication.
|
| The list isn't short.
| tptacek wrote:
| Refusing to answer an arbitrary question from a police
| officer is not in fact obstruction of justice. You don't
| have to wonder what the elements of "obstruction" are; you
| can look them up.
|
| Here, by the way, it's helpful to know that California
| doesn't even have an "obstruction of justice" statute (it
| has "Resisting arrest laws", which you can read more about
| to see that not giving your Twitter account up is not going
| to get you convicted of that).
| yata69420 wrote:
| You're asking the wrong question. On what basis could you
| stop police from arresting you, let alone jailing you, for
| any reason they see fit?
|
| The answer involves a lawyer, a lot of time, a lot of money,
| and low expectations.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| You can't technically, but if they do so without probable
| cause then they stand to get smacked down in court and pay
| heavy fines to the person they falsely arrest.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| This will still be a very unpleasant time for you, with
| more consequences down the line (you might miss work, for
| example). And if the officer can convince the judge that
| they truly thought arresting you was reasonable, you
| won't get much in the way of compensation, either.
| Lastly, the fines don't get paid by the officer themself,
| so even if it is a full smack down, it won't hurt too
| much.
| literallyaduck wrote:
| There is a saying "You can beat the rap, but not the ride."
| They can make things very unpleasant.
|
| Voting out the people who are allowing this is very important.
| base698 wrote:
| Voting got us here, but more voting is a solution?
| jdavis703 wrote:
| I do believe so. There were many candidates that ran on a
| reform or defund the police platform (careful though, there
| were also some who were accused of doing so, but weren't.)
| Some of them even won elections last year.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't think so; I believe it's foolish to expect to solve
| 21st century political problems with 18th century political
| technology. I think concepts like a wikiocracy and
| contractual citizenship of virtualized territory are where
| things are headed in the longer term.
|
| The notion that you'll get good results by delegating all
| your political power to a representative for a period of
| years is asinine on its face, doubly so when their
| decision-making is subject to all sorts of perverse
| incentives, no matter how decent of a person they are. That
| seemed viable in a bygone era where the pace of change was
| glacial, to the extent that the America of 1776 would have
| been easily comprehensible to a Roman or Greek time
| traveler. In the early days of the American Republic, legal
| issues fo rhte average person did not change so much from
| before, except insofar as royal prerogative no longer
| existed. Many of the early landmark legal cases were about
| matters of state rather than relations between individuals
| and the state (obviously a generalization for the sake of
| brevity).
|
| Over time the US (and other state) legal systems have
| inexorably grown in volume and complexity, for reasons that
| are still debated but ably summarized here:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73623-x
|
| This increase comes at a cognitive cost, both for
| individuals who enter or are caught up in the legal system,
| and for lawmakers and those who elect them. Endless
| patching with no practical opportunity for refactoring or
| rewriting in a situation that should be familiar to most HN
| readers and whose outcomes are quite predictable: either
| you freeze the code and it becomes increasingly brittle as
| the environment continues to change around it, or the code
| turns into an unmanageable mess that is in various aspects
| oppressive, corrupted, or exploitable by different actors,
| and social goods of coherence and predictability are
| inexorably eroded, a situation in which we arguably find
| ourselves at present.
|
| Radicals of all political stripes (including myself) regard
| this as unsustainable but disagree on the values and
| mechanism that ought to replace it. Those who insist that
| everything is working fine and as the founders intended
| tend to be either successful collectors of political rents
| or naive optimists who have never seriously experienced or
| imagined life under other conditions, , like users of a
| software tool who have never felt any need to explore the
| preferences dialog or examine the paradigmatic foundation
| of the tools they've learned to use.
| literallyaduck wrote:
| There is another saying, "it is not vote that counts, but
| who counts the votes."
|
| We need to push for transparency in all aspects of
| elections, if someone says fraud, we need to be able to
| have evidence that no fraud occurred that is indisputable.
| Anyone should be able to examine the proof.
|
| The hard part is to provide anonymity and transparency.
|
| The harder part is getting people to agree to making
| transparency and accountability part of the process without
| one side or another providing a back door to the process.
| nick__m wrote:
| They also ask for the social security number, and they required
| it using a false law according to the TFA.
|
| Article like this make me glad to live in Canada, outside of the
| major metropolitan areas.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I don't have any Facebook social media accounts, and my Twitter
| gets auto deleted after 2 weeks. I have no other social media of
| any kind.
|
| Neither my Reddit or HN accounts are related to accounts that can
| easily be tied to my other identities. I'm not saying they can't,
| but my Reddit is used for read-only.
|
| Given things these days, this seems reasonable.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| > my Twitter gets auto deleted after 2 weeks
|
| Is this something native to twitter or did you set something up
| yourself? I'm not a heavy twitter user but I'd like to do this
| as well.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > reads anti-cop stuff
|
| > dangerous individual
| drewcoo wrote:
| Just the civilians? I know of another group that's armed and
| dangerous and not included.
| wavefunction wrote:
| Police officers are civilians. I know it's a pedantic point but
| I think it's important to reiterate this whenever I see non-
| police officers described as civilians. American society at
| least has started to elevate them to a special super-
| citizenship, it seems.
| rtkwe wrote:
| They certainly don't get treated like civilians. Just
| recently a court decided it would believe a cop over video of
| an event which I'd be shocked to see applied to anyone but
| cops.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| "Everything you tweet can and will be used against you"
|
| I do wonder what they would do if I refused to give them said
| info. Is it resisting arrest if I refuse to answer such idiotic
| queries?
| tptacek wrote:
| _Is it resisting arrest if I refuse to answer such idiotic
| queries?_
|
| No, it is not.
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| Yes and no. Laws on when you must identify yourself to officers
| varies wildly from state to state but social media isn't a part
| of that. Lawfully refusing will usually be enough, but there
| are cops who don't care and will arrest you for obstruction
| (watch YT channels like Audit the Audit, it happens all the
| time). It looks like this article is about LAPD cops adding
| this to information they ask for, just like they ask where
| you're going or if they can look around the car. Just assert
| your 5th amendment rights and decline to answer questions.
|
| That being said, if you ever end up in court your social media
| activity is pretty much always discoverable. This is different
| from an officer demanding it during a traffic stop but still
| important. It is all accessible.
| kleiba wrote:
| What if you told them you don't have any social media accounts?
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| You should never volunteer information to police. Ever.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIZz0vF2KPo
| [deleted]
| advisedwang wrote:
| Lying to a police officer could get you in trouble:
|
| * If driving, this violates CA Vehicle code s31: https://legi
| nfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
|
| * If arrested, this might violate CA penal code 148.9: https:
| //leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
|
| * This might also be argued as more general obstruction: http
| s://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....
|
| Better to just keep quiet
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| But I actually don't (unless you count HN).
| carnitine wrote:
| Then this obviously doesn't apply?
| bilbo0s wrote:
| They would count HN if they wanted to get you for
| obstruction or lying to a police officer. I think that's
| the material point.
|
| Just better to not say anything and let them discover
| that your social media is HN on their own. That's the
| only course of action guaranteed to generate no more
| trouble than you may already be in. Even keeping quiet
| may not help if the police want to use that against you.
| Or they could out and out lie. No guarantees really I
| guess. Just try to be in a place with officers possessing
| some degree of professionalism I suppose. Then keeping
| quiet helps.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Lying to a police officer could get you in trouble
|
| That does not seem on point with the original question. You
| can lie to a [non-federal] police officer about almost
| anything with impunity, _except_ your identity. That is
| specifically what CA 148.9 refers to.
|
| > Better to just keep quiet
|
| That is for sure the best answer. Any information, truthful
| or not, can and will be used against you by the police. The
| best option is to give them nothing at all.
|
| But it is situational. Asserting your right to remain
| silent during a routine traffic stop where nothing
| indicates the cop is fishing for something unrelated is
| more likely to make things worse rather than better.
| jaywalk wrote:
| > Asserting your right to remain silent during a routine
| traffic stop where nothing indicates the cop is fishing
| for something unrelated is more likely to make things
| worse rather than better.
|
| Even though you'll always get some absolutists arguing
| against it, this is the proper advice. Admitting to what
| I've done has gotten me out of multiple traffic tickets.
| olliej wrote:
| Never say anything to the police.
| GoodDreams wrote:
| A law professor explaining why you should never say
| anything to the police: https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE
| tux3 wrote:
| This cannot be repeated often enough. Here is the seminal
| talk I'd recommend most people watch:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
| [deleted]
| function_seven wrote:
| Sibling comments have the canonical video, but there's also
| this short one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_0i6EzWLT8
| krasin wrote:
| From what I understand, "taking the fifth" is always an option.
| imglorp wrote:
| "I respectfully decline to answer questions or consent to
| searches, and request to speak to my attorney."
| gruez wrote:
| >and request to speak to my attorney
|
| Do people _actually_ have an defense attorney on retainer?
| Even if they do, it seems like a pretty effective resource
| exhaustion attack. The cop gets _paid_ for his time,
| whereas you have to pay $300 /hr to have your lawyer
| around.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Some people do, sure. Most don't. Your state bar will
| almost certainly have a referral service that you'd want
| to take advantage of in that case.
| inetsee wrote:
| I subscribe to a legal service. It costs about $20 a
| month, and provides me access to an attorney. The service
| provides phone numbers that are accessible 24 hours a
| day. The service provides a certain number of hours of
| legal services and the number of hours accumulates over
| time if you don't use it. It's like an insurance plan,
| but it provides access to an attorney.
| tptacek wrote:
| No. The words to use here are "an attorney", not "my
| attorney", and it matters mostly after you're arrested,
| not when you're on the street (on the street, you just
| say "I'd rather not answer that, sorry").
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| The words to use are "Am I being detained, or am I free
| to go?"
|
| If being detained, the words to use are "Of what crime am
| I suspected?"
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > The words to use are "Am I being detained, or am I free
| to go?
|
| Only if you want to appear in a compilation video of
| libertarian/sov-cit meltdowns on YouTube.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| Just because there's notably wacky people doing this
| doesn't invalidate the suggestion. Part of a real problem
| with police is that they often have no idea what the
| limits are. If everyone had the same standard script,
| police would get away with much less, and the good ones
| would learn how far they and their colleagues can take a
| stop. Holding them to account is a civic responsibility.
| Record everything and know your rights, and never talk to
| the police if you're stopped. It will never help you or
| anyone else.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I've wondered about that. In the context of a police
| interview, either after being arrested or when you're
| fairly certain the officer intends to arrest you, the
| statements "I'd like to speak to an attorney" and "I'd
| like to speak to _my_ attorney " convey very different
| things.
|
| The second phrasing says: _I have ready access to
| professional counsel. If you choose to continue with this
| confrontation, you 're the one who's asking for legal
| trouble._ On the other hand, the first one says: _I don
| 't know any attorneys, and certainly haven't engaged one.
| I'm unprepared and scared. I can haz public defender?_
|
| Seems like you're always better off trying to bluff.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| In theory. In practice, refusing to cooperate can initiate a
| lengthy process of them asking you why and using that for
| probable cause to do further searches or even arrest you. You
| may be right in the end, but you'll have a few bad days plus
| be out of quite a bit of money. That's why this is quite
| effective against people who really think they don't have
| anything to hide.
| rhacker wrote:
| If the last 1000 news articles like this wasn't your canary in
| the coal mine, then I don't know what else to do.
|
| GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA...
| nickff wrote:
| People shouldn't have to avoid activities because governments
| are abusing their authority.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| No. They should avoid activities that are majority negative
| value to themselves, their freedom and their liberty.
|
| If you use social media, you are a fool. You are completing
| your own STASI dossier for FREE and WILLINGLY. You are aiding
| and abetting in your own enslavement and oppression! You are
| an idiot.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| I personally dislike social media as well, but this is
| really over the top. Social media _has_ advantages. That 's
| like saying never tell anyone your name or anything about
| you - sure, it could at some point be used against you, but
| humans are still social creatures.
| _dain_ wrote:
| That isn't over the top at all. "Don't tell anyone your
| name or anything about you" is good advice for online. I
| think extremely carefully before I do post online under
| my real name. I think it's crazy that people don't.
|
| IRL interactions are strongly bounded by geography and
| the frailty of human memory. Online isn't. The difference
| is scale and persistence. Our social intuitions aren't
| calibrated to it. It only takes one deranged person to
| ruin you, and that person might be on the other side of
| the planet, and might not even have been born yet.
| sodality2 wrote:
| Sebb767 is referring to "don't tell anyone your name" in
| real life (ie, cop stop).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm pretty sure HN counts as social media.
| nickff wrote:
| If we have social media, and a STASI-equivalent, the latter
| is the problem.
| tekromancr wrote:
| I mean... we do have a stasi equivalent now...
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Problem is that there is so much data collected that if the
| government ever gets better at connecting the dots, then
| just using most digital devices will put you in a similar
| spot.
|
| Example: I have an app for a well known convenience store.
| I decided one day to disassemble it to see what libraries
| are being used. In addition to all the tracking one finds
| in most apps, there was a Bluetooth library that apparently
| allows the store to track where you walked around the store
| because of strategically placed Bluetooth beacons.
|
| You basically have to be a hermit to avoid a lot of this
| and even then its not great.
| joe_guy wrote:
| Is the irony of you posting this on HN intended?
| Spooks wrote:
| but... you can post on HN pretty anonymously if you wanted,
| so that is a bit different
| asdff wrote:
| You can be public on HN and absolutely anonymous on any
| other social media network too. It's on you if you gave
| zuckerberg your real name. I remember in middle school over
| a decade ago when we were still too young to use facebook
| (or for some kids hiding that they had a facebook account
| from their parents who were on facebook) everyone would
| have some alias account instead and it was an open secret
| who it was.
| trhway wrote:
| and of course it makes it very easy to step into the "lying to an
| officer" trap or even more serious. You're willingly give up
| everything (if you aren't keen on playing the lottery of how
| annoyed that cop is today, or if you're of the race not fully
| afforded those nice Amendments what white people got to enjoy)
| and confirm that there is nothing more. Or may be that isn't all,
| and you're trying to remember the other accounts. You can't. You
| get nervous. Make a quick automatic movement to pull your phone
| from a pocket...
| Ms-J wrote:
| I have actually been in many negative encounters with police. Far
| more serious than traffic violations.
|
| You can still tell them to fuck off and remain silent. Sometimes
| they will threaten things like X or Y charges, or someone told us
| this, but it really does not matter.
|
| You will see them in court.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Great now I can get arrested for obstruction of justice for not
| having a Facebook account.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Sora like how not having a television was a crime in Max
| Headroom.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| At a minimum you'll be added to a watchlist as not being on FB
| makes you an outlier.
| mikeiz404 wrote:
| Hey do you have some links you can share which support this?
|
| I'd be interested in seeing the details.
| zsmi wrote:
| Roughly 3 in 10 Americans don't have a FB account. Minority
| sure. Outlier? No.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/01/facts-
| about...
| mywittyname wrote:
| I have an extremely difficult time believing this. I
| actually don't know another person IRL over the age of 18
| who doesn't have a FB account. I know a couple of people
| who've claimed to have "deleted" or "deactivated" theirs,
| but not another person whose never had one.
| zsmi wrote:
| To be fair it was from a self reported survey and they
| were asked if they ever used FB. If it were me I would
| probably answer no, even though that is not strictly
| true. I did use it once in 2010, but I didn't inhale. :)
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Do you have more info on that? I haven't heard of any
| repercussions
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| No matter how to look at this, this is 1984 light. Let's hope
| google or apple lobby against this, it appears the governments
| rather listen to them than citizens.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| The original source for this article
| https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/lapd...
|
| The original note (Series A) talks about retention, ~~not
| collection~~.
|
| >... directing concerned personnel to retain information gleaned
| from social media that "may disappear before, during, or after a
| crime." The memo advises that retaining this information enables
| investigators to obtain a warrant for a social media account more
| easily.
| whartung wrote:
| It's further down in the document. Series I >
| The I-Series includes two documents relating to Field Interview
| > (FI) cards. LAPD officers fill out FI cards to document
| people they > have stopped or questioned; these cards
| can be completed on anyone > an officer comes into
| contact with. The first document is a July > 2020 memo
| from the Chief of Police, Michel Moore, to all LAPD >
| personnel. In the memo, Chief Moore urges officers to
| diligently > record all information in the FI cards,
| which would be subject to > review by Department
| supervisors "for completeness and validity." > As noted
| above, former Police Chief Charlie Beck had sent officers
| > a memo in May 2015 telling them to collect social media and
| email > account information in FI cards. The second
| document is a copy of > the FI card form, which shows
| that LAPD is gathering subjects' date > of birth and
| social security number, with a disclaimer stating that
| > subjects are obligated to provide their social security
| numbers > upon an officer's request. The FI cards also
| have a field to collect > social media and email
| account information. The Brennan Center > surveyed
| other cities' policies regarding FI cards and found no
| > other police department that collects social media and email
| account > information, though details are sparse.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| This makes me uncomfortable, but I'm having trouble putting my
| finger on the issue. It is volunteered public information, after
| all.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Wonder what they would write about me on their cards: "Sometimes
| posts to this orange hackers-only discussion forum. Says has no
| Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, FB or Reddit accounts..."
|
| /Of course, you shouldn't talk to them without a lawyer, this is
| mostly a joke comment
| function_seven wrote:
| "Thinks of self as some sort of hacker, but is really just
| pretender. Hasn't even changed topcolor"
| jaywalk wrote:
| Hey, I like to have it match the favicon :(
| [deleted]
| reddog wrote:
| Not having a social media presence is probably highly
| suspicious too. Or at least it will be soon.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I keep social media accounts around but I don't really post
| anything. I guess it's only a matter of time before some cop
| looks at that and decides I'm abnormal enough to be
| investigated.
| tpmx wrote:
| I guess there's a need for social media deep fakes, so to
| speak.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| A few months ago I was pulled over by police for speeding (in a
| very rural area). The cop was very polite and handled it well,
| especially since I was yelling at him quite a bit (family was
| going into hospital for serious problems, which was the reason
| for speeding).
|
| He took my info and when he came back to my car after running
| license, told me "Look, I know you don't like cops. It says that
| when I pull up your file."
|
| I don't have any idea where they could have gotten that
| information at all except from my Facebook years ago when I
| openly voiced that I didn't like cops at the time. Those posts
| have since been non-public (for years) and now have been deleted
| this year. I have donated to police in the last couple/few years,
| so... there's that... which may come to an end.
|
| I sent a FOIA request, requesting as much info as I could get
| about this clear implementation of a 'social credit' system. They
| returned the request to me just today saying they didn't have any
| video on file (convenient!), and included useless standard info
| like the statute they used to pull me over for speeding and the
| basic log of the stop. Nothing at all about "I know you don't
| like cops."
|
| This is clearly a violation of the spirit of 'all men are created
| equal' and 'innocent until proven guilty' and I find it shocking
| and dangerous that the police keep opinions of the population on
| file. I'd like to pursue this further but don't know where to go
| from here.
| dharmab wrote:
| Is it possible that the officer was bluffing?
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| No, he immediately followed up with "... but I'm going to cut
| you a break on this one." And did. No ticket.
|
| He told me as he left "We're not all bad."
|
| It was surreal.
| tpmx wrote:
| I don't see how that makes a bluff implausible, especially
| since you were yelling initially.
| adamrezich wrote:
| really just sounds like a cop telling a small lie based on
| your reaction in an attempt to spread good PR on behalf of
| the police all the while establishing a position of
| authority, unintentionally making you think there's darker
| forces at play then there really were, when in reality he
| was just defusing the situation with a lie. obviously one
| can't know for certain but that seems like the most
| plausible explanation. I can see this being an informal
| personal technique a cop might use in situations like this,
| all the while being completely oblivious to the terrifying
| implications of what he's saying.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I doubt there's any way to ever prove what happened here,
| but this is what I was thinking too. It was a lie to cool
| things down. Someone who's angry to the point that
| they're yelling is dangerous, not just to the cops but to
| other drivers on the road.
| spicybright wrote:
| Your experience is horrifying. Not long till you can
| arrested for thought crimes if this trend keeps continuing.
| everdrive wrote:
| >"Look, I know you don't like cops. It says that when I pull up
| your file."
|
| How do you know he wasn't just lying to see if you would
| unintentionally confirm his lie?
| techrat wrote:
| > How do you know he wasn't just lying to see if you would
| unintentionally confirm his lie?
|
| Or how much of it was bait? "I never said such a thing." >
| "Now are you calling me a liar?"
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Or it was just his idea of a joke. He doesn't need to pull up
| a file to know that this guy didn't like him. People are
| especially dense to punchlines when they're stressed out and
| don't expect someone to be pulling their leg.
| [deleted]
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this anecdote, I remember it from when
| you've posted about it in the past and it's stuck with me.
|
| > _I have donated to police in the last couple /few years,
| so... there's that... which may come to an end._
|
| In my opinion, there's a good reason for it to come to an end
| that has nothing to do with this.
|
| In the states I'm familiar with, PBAs and police unions were
| the top (and sometimes only) spenders when it came to lobbying
| against marijuana legalization. They use those donations to
| lobby and ensure that they can continue to arrest, fine and
| imprison scores of people for victimless crimes, while also
| ensuring their job security in doing so.
| oneplane wrote:
| The whole idea that there can be some monetary flow in to the
| police based on what types of things they do seems baffling
| to me. Donating to a governmental apparatus? That's just
| asking for influence and abuse.
|
| Don't like what the cops do? Threaten to pull some multi-
| million 'donation' and suddenly everything becomes possible.
| At that point it's not law enforcement but money enforcement.
| Same as being a cop: need more money? Bust some people for
| whatever happens to be convenient and 'make money' on off of
| that.
|
| The only money should be coming from the government, and
| everything they collect should be going back into the
| government. If you turn it into a corporate system where
| money is a motivator you're doomed from the start.
| maxerickson wrote:
| There's political organizations that advocate for police.
|
| It would be an infringement of speech rights to prevent
| people from donating to them, at least as they are
| currently defined in the US.
| avs733 wrote:
| And it should be one that we tolerate. There are lots of
| infringements on speech, especially professional speech.
|
| The idea that somehow a group empowered by the state to
| commit violence in defense of the states policies have a
| more sacrosanct right to speech than doctors or teachers
| is absurd. These aren't individuals speaking as
| individuals...this is effectively government speech and
| we ought not wrong our hands about restricting it. The
| government has no right to speech.
| maxerickson wrote:
| There _are_ equivalent groups for doctors and teachers, I
| don 't follow your meaning.
|
| Like what is it that FOP1 does that you think they should
| be prevented from doing? Should they not be allowed to
| exist?
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_Order_of_Police
|
| Please note that I _don 't_ give money to these
| organizations, I'm pointing out what a big chunk of
| donating money to the police consists of.
| oneplane wrote:
| So what is your solution to prevent law enforcement
| becoming influenced to do things other than realistic law
| enforcement for the betterment of society in a designated
| violence monopoly?
| maxerickson wrote:
| You are apparently mistaking my description of the world
| as it is for an endorsement of the world as it is.
|
| I guess I don't think that police should be (somehow)
| specially prevented from _any_ police related political
| activity, but that doesn 't mean I don't acknowledge the
| age old question: _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Ugh now I feel dirty...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| In one state where legalization was approved by public
| mandate, the legislation that passed made it so anyone
| under the age of 21 could only receive a warning for
| possession, and no charges or arrests.
|
| This is important because any drug arrests, charges or
| convictions make individuals ineligible for federal student
| loans or assistance for college, meaning the kids who do
| get arrested might have their plans to better their lives
| ruined by a cop who doesn't like the smell of marijuana.
|
| Police unions spent months and millions of dollars lobbying
| the state government so that they could still arrest and
| charge kids for pot possession.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| > Police unions spent months and millions of dollars
| lobbying the state government so that they could still
| arrest and charge kids for pot possession.
|
| But why though? Hatred? Inertia? Culture? Do they get
| paid per scalp? Do they love their drug dogs _that_ much?
|
| The lack of arguments against pot-smoking
| notwithstanding, what is it that backs this? Because so
| much of this seems completely arbitrary.
| vageli wrote:
| It seems akin to a petty gatekeeper in a large
| organization--encroachment on a domain under their
| control is viewed as an existential threat.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| In that state, a significant amount of arrests,
| convictions and revenue from fines came from marijuana
| charges. Each conviction came with hundreds to thousands
| in fines.
|
| Not only that, each conviction created busywork for
| probation officers, as low level offenders were given the
| option to have their record cleaned of their conviction
| if they went on probation programs where they are drug
| tested regularly. The probation program came with more
| fines/fees, as well. It also opened opportunities to keep
| people in the system, because violation of probation has
| its own penalties. Kids' parents have the incentive to
| push kids through this program and to pay for it, too.
|
| There are those reasons, and then there's the simple fact
| that cops know they will have less to do if they can't
| arrest people for pot, which might be bad for job
| security. Losing "I smell marijuana" as a method for
| establishing probable cause was a big deal, as well.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Arresting you improves their metrics and helps justify
| the labor hours that ultimately pay their bills. Also
| it's used as a pretext to steal billions of dollars via
| civil asset forfeiture much of it in less than $1000
| increments.
|
| See literal highway robbers stealing $500 from citizens
| via lawsuits like state vs 535 dollars and 75 cents where
| criminal intent is inferred but no proof is given.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Note that the cop may well have been bluffing. They do that.
|
| You've mentioned this previously:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28028743
| [deleted]
| pwned1 wrote:
| Very interesting. They may be using a third-party service that
| pulls data in, thus they can say "we don't have that info." So
| the next step in your FOIA is to get records on how their
| systems work and contracts with third parties to provide data
| for driver records.
| slapfrog wrote:
| The last time I read your account of this incident, you left
| this part out: _" I was yelling at him quite a bit"_
|
| I can certainly sympathize with that reaction, most traffic
| stops are chickenshit and to be interrupted with that nonsense
| when in the middle of a medical emergency must be infuriating.
| But I think your FOIA requests looking for this file will never
| turn up anything, because the cop was almost certainly fucking
| with you. He figured you didn't like cops because you were
| yelling at him, not because of anything some computer file
| said.
| coplover wrote:
| This is exactly what happened. Only dang will get to read
| this message and share the laughter, and that makes us almost
| friends.
| coplover wrote:
| Wow, one finally got through, I guess I'm "coplover" now.
| Cheers dang.
| travoc wrote:
| Well, if it didn't say that on his file before the stop, it
| does now...
| yebyen wrote:
| "It says in your file that..." ... Uhh, hey, look at that, I
| think you are right, ...sure had me going there, LOL.
|
| I really do hope they aren't "keeping a file on" me but I
| think I would definitely believe it was true, if they said it
| was so. I guess I'm easily conned. Generally trust authority.
|
| That's a mistake!
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > except from my Facebook years ago when I openly voiced that I
| didn't like cops at the time
|
| Hmm, I wonder if this is why Reddit keeps asking for my email
| address. I'd rather remain anonymous for exactly this reason. I
| don't hate all cops, some friends and family are cops, but
| there's no profession where every employee is good and fair all
| of the time.
| reificator wrote:
| Heads up, and not because of any stance I hold on this issue:
|
| I don't know if OP posted this story multiple times, or if this
| is a template that people are using, but I've definitely seen
| this story with incredibly similar wording and pacing on HN
| before.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| HN has a very good search feature, and "you don't like
| police" turns up an earlier mention from the artificialLimbs:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.
| ..
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28028743
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| I posted it a couple months ago/ish, once. I had not filed
| FOIA at that time.
|
| It was literally me.
|
| If you see it more than there and here, it was not me.
|
| *edit: than, not that
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _He took my info and when he came back to my car after running
| license, told me "Look, I know you don't like cops. It says
| that when I pull up your file."_
|
| Another simple explanation is that ... he made the file part
| up. Not that the scanning your FB page thing is impossible but
| one has to consider multiple factors here.
| Natsu wrote:
| > I was yelling at him quite a bit ... > "Look, I know you
| don't like cops. It says that when I pull up your file." ... >
| I don't have any idea where they could have gotten that
| information at all except from my Facebook
|
| I wasn't there, but this gives me the feeling that stalking
| your Facebook might not be the only way for them to infer this,
| especially if you've ever been stopped before this.
|
| That aside, I hope your family member was okay.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Let me get this straight: You were speeding, and you knew it,
| and you got pulled over for it, and then you proceeded to
| berate the cop who's job it is to pull people over for
| speeding.
|
| You sound like one hell of an asshole.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| I didn't berate him at all. I was yelling because he stopped
| a long way behind me, and I wanted to finish the conversation
| ASAP because of my bleeding family member. So I started as
| soon as he got out of the car.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Not really helping your case in my opinion. How was he
| supposed to know someone was bleeding in your car? And you
| _were_ speeding, what did you expect to happen? It wasn 't
| his fault you broke the law.
| ccn0p wrote:
| Was that your first encounter with an officer in your lifetime?
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| No.
| 2imposingly wrote:
| Oh ! Wait! Somehow related Comic:
|
| > (Hotlink:)//i.ibb.co/jzvTYwC/1942-en-A-GOOD-QUESTION-FINAL-
| Mail.png
|
| > Short URl (Https): https://ibb.co/T1BkG0Q
|
| _um_...? P-:
| Justin_K wrote:
| There's probably a note from the last time you berated a cop.
| You are reaching...
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Plausible if I had ever berated a cop before. In fact, I
| didn't berate this one on this stop.
| ok123456 wrote:
| "Civilian" is a funny way of spelling citizen.
| elliekelly wrote:
| It's almost as if they're saying the policy doesn't apply to
| interviews with fellow law enforcement officers...
|
| The way we (Americans) have allowed the line between "police"
| and "military" to blur is certainly concerning and it seems
| like this is just another example.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Police encounter many non-citizens, who still have many
| fundamental rights. Any given person might be a citizen, a
| green card holder, a temporary visa holder, an undocumented
| person, or a tourist who is not subject to visa requirements. I
| don't recall the percentage offhand but something like 10% of
| US residents are not citizens.
| slim wrote:
| If they do this for long enough, they will be able to identify
| real people versus pseudonymous accounts on social media.
| Effectively denying anonymity and free speech online.
| eplanit wrote:
| The article says that the LAPD is also using "Media Sonar"
| (https://mediasonar.com/) to provide basically Minority Report
| style "pre-crime" data. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that
| LA is most influenced by one of its own movies.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| More data, MAUR DAAATAAAAA!
| brighton36 wrote:
| The ROI on having a social media account, appears to be negative.
| I deleted most all of mine, for this reason.
| pengaru wrote:
| With Apple encouraging its users to simply hand over their iPhone
| as Photo ID [0], how long before the police simply dock your
| voluntarily surrendered phone into some automated search gadget
| and don't bother asking.
|
| It's already the case that if you _let_ the police search your
| vehicle, they will, and what 's found will be used against you.
| It seems obvious the same will be applied to smartphones. Protect
| your rights people.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58422469
| twirlock wrote:
| It's time for the people become habitually antagonistic towards
| law enforcement until they start respecting our rights again.
| [deleted]
| slownews45 wrote:
| How in the WORLD does this type of article even make sense? Do
| you realize how many traffic and other stops there are?
|
| JUST based off the headline I can guess that this headline is
| total BS.
|
| When social media makes a lot of sense. If you are doing any kind
| of investigation - social media would be a goldmine. Someone
| filing a complaint but social media tells a story - you should be
| getting that. Prosecutor, defense attorneys will be for sure.
|
| So what WOULD make sense is not to do a social media thing for
| every stop (of which there are tons and tons), but focus on
| investigations and interviews. They should already be collecting
| contact info like email / phone and address etc, so you would add
| it there.
|
| Anyways, someone else can read and summarize for us, because this
| headline looks like absolute trash and even if you are a
| conspiracy nut, the idea that every stop is getting social media
| written down is fantastical.
|
| Journalism is basically crap at this point. Can we stop rewarding
| this outraging clickbait stories?
| asdff wrote:
| It makes sense to do it at the stop when you have people with
| crimes all over their social media. I'll give you an example:
|
| Cop pulls over someone with a fast car and burnt rubber all
| over their rear bumper. They didn't see a crime but its obvious
| that this doesn't happen going the speed limit and driving like
| you are sane. They ask for the drivers instagram account, then
| they see their page where this driver and car were doing donuts
| in an intersection last night, and rightfully the driver gets
| arrested.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| So they say it was a different driver or a different car. Or
| they give a fake Instagram handle. Or they say the post is
| faked.
|
| If you see evidence of a crime online, you should go and find
| the perpetrator based on that, not hope that you randomly
| stop him and find evidence because they are stupid enough to
| give the right handle.
|
| Also, do you think it's okay for the police to totally
| ransack your car, because you might carry drugs or a corpse
| and get "rightfully arrested" because of that? I'm pretty
| sure you agree this would be over the line, so I don't see
| why scouring your social media in the hopes of getting a
| conviction is okay. Especially since this is just a minor
| extension away from looking through your DMs, and then your
| WhatsApp chat history ...
| [deleted]
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Most of the traffic stops I've experienced have involved a long
| series of questions followed by a long computer look up. "Can
| you give me your social media accounts" wouldn't slow things
| down. The cops would just write it down and send it to a
| database. Of course, a person could lie and the cop wouldn't
| check it then-and-there but there's the implicit threat that
| the cops might check it later if they were interested in you.
| slownews45 wrote:
| Is there any actual evidence AT ALL that they are asking for
| social media at traffic stops?
|
| There is a big diff between "license and registration" and
| what this headline is claiming.
|
| [edited] - Correction: There has been a big push to collect
| data on all stops (primarily race etc) so it is actually
| likely it looks like that all stops are getting FI Card
| completions in many jurisdictions.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| The OP, a detailed article from creditable news source
| saying that the LAPD has directed officers to do this,
| would normally be considered evidence. What is your concept
| of evidence.
| slownews45 wrote:
| Here is a copy of a standard field interview card:
|
| https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2021-09
| /I....
|
| [edited] wrong spot to have this
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Your complaint seems addressed to the OP, perhaps you
| should post it at that level rather than a reply to my
| particular comment. My (original) comment here being
| simply that adding a question concerning social media
| would be practical for police officer making a traffic
| stop.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Don't talk to the police, parts 1 and 2:
| https://youtu.be/t8Iw2SH3mso https://youtu.be/DMXhmoruIJQ
| rasfincher wrote:
| I love these two videos.
|
| TLDR,
|
| Defense Attorney: Don't talk to the cops.
|
| Cop: Yeah, what he said.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Then, hilariously:
|
| Cop: how many sped in your cars on the way here?
|
| Audience: a few hands go up
|
| Defense Attorney: I JUST TOLD YOU NOT TO TALK TO COPS!
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| Sure but you have to say something when a cop pulls you over or
| detains you as part of an investigating.
| mywittyname wrote:
| It's really hard to know what you have to do and what is
| optional unless you're actually a lawyer. And not answering
| optional stuff might still end up with you getting your ass
| kicked by the police.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| What you say is, "I'd like to speak to a lawyer, please."
|
| Over and over, until they are bored and give up trying to
| intimidate you.
| MontagFTB wrote:
| The whole video can also be seen here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
| nacs wrote:
| There's also the popular, much simpler version:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o
| [deleted]
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Anyone remember a fews ago, one of their LAPD police officer went
| rogue and started shooting at them. It took a few days to hunt
| him him down. In the process ended up shooting two totally
| innocent people through a back car window. I totally forget the
| names of the people involved, its been a few years. It seemed
| like something a mafia movie more than real life. Made me wonder
| why the guy turned against them.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| The guy they were chasing was named Christopher Dorner.
| adventured wrote:
| The guy you're referring to, Dorner, apparently published a
| manifesto, detailing why he did what he did (he claims to have
| reported excessive use of force, and that he was fired in
| retaliation for reporting it). Wikipedia has some of the
| details:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_a...
|
| And how about this police lunacy, related to the manhunt for
| Dorner:
|
| "Torrance to pay $1.8 million to settle surfer David Perdue's
| lawsuit in mistaken Christopher Dorner shooting"
|
| "The city of Torrance will pay $1.8 million to a Redondo Beach
| surfer who was mistakenly shot at by its police officers during
| the manhunt for rogue Los Angeles police Officer Christopher
| Dorner, officials announced Thursday. The agreement settles
| David and Lizzette Perdue's lawsuit against the city and its
| Police Department, ending the acrimonious battle over what
| occurred that chaotic week in February 2013. Officers rammed
| Perdue's truck thinking he was Dorner fleeing a shooting, then
| fired three shots at him."
|
| https://www.dailybreeze.com/2014/07/24/torrance-to-pay-18-mi...
|
| Apparently there were three separate mistaken shootings by
| police in one day, where they thought it might be Dorner.
| Including one instance where police fired dozens of bullets
| without warning at two ladies in a Nissan truck delivering
| newspapers (both survived it amazingly).
|
| "In three separate incidents in the early morning hours of
| February 7, 2013, police fired on people who turned out to be
| unrelated to Dorner. Dorner was not present at any of the
| incidents."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_a...
| slapfrog wrote:
| Dorner himself doesn't get much sympathy (he murdered people
| who weren't police, despite having grievance with the
| police.) But the exact circumstances of his death are
| probably worthy of examination, since it seems the police
| opted to burn him out of a building instead of wait him out
| in a siege (he was obviously going nowhere, and had no
| hostages.) He probably shot himself after the building was
| partially demolished and lit on fire, but what justified that
| demolition and fire-starting in the first place? Why were
| they in such a big rush to drive him out of the building?
|
| I think they wanted him dead. They knew if they lit the
| building on fire, they could either shoot him when he ran
| out, wait for the fire to kill him, or let him kill himself.
| I believe the police had already decided he would not be
| taken alive.
| _boffin_ wrote:
| I still remember listening to the livestream radio
| broadcast of that happening and hearing "burn this
| motherf**er down"
|
| https://youtu.be/cNk-bV40XMc?t=39
| adventured wrote:
| I agree on the no sympathy, even if his grievance against
| the LAPD (regarding retaliation against him) was
| legitimate. No question they wanted him dead in the case of
| what happened. There was probably no scenario where they
| didn't end up killing him. They nearly murdered several
| other innocent persons that had nothing to do with Dorner,
| in the process of the manhunt, so it's clear they were very
| eager to murder him on sight (officers opened fire on the
| ladies in the Nissan truck with zero warning, so the intent
| was clear; and they rammed the surfer's truck and
| immediately fired upon it, similarly).
| asdff wrote:
| I can imagine why honestly as a local. Recently there have been a
| LOT of street races and especially takeovers, where 300 people
| with drugs and alcohol gather at a random intersection in LA and
| watch some dumb people do donuts until the cops show up and clear
| it out. There have been a lot of injuries and deaths from both
| innocent pedestrians walking by, and people bringing guns to
| these events and getting into shootouts with other people who
| bring guns. Where do I see these videos of people getting hit by
| cars at these takeovers and sideshows? On instagram, on the
| public account of one of the assholes who owns these cars and
| does this stuff every single weekend.
|
| This is 2021, people live stream themselves on social media
| committing crimes like illegal racing, flaunting unregistered
| guns, and breaking into federal buildings in D.C.. If a cop is
| able to connect these accounts to individuals and make arrests,
| all the better. A lot of people are reckless idiots that just put
| others in danger constantly, and they rarely are stopped before
| they put someone else in harms way.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Okay - but why do they need to collect social media info on ALL
| civilians they stop?
|
| Can't they get a warrant for someone's social media info if
| there's any reason to actually have it? What you described
| seems like a reason.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Police have no "need" to collect any info on anyone, but
| regardless of that people do things that they don't need to
| do every day. In this case, it seems like they've decided
| that it makes their jobs easier if they ask for this info, so
| they do.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| It would make their jobs easier if they asked for all our
| money, too.
|
| Not sure the only requirement for a privilege is that it
| makes your job easier.
|
| My job would be easier if I had all privileges at my
| company. Doesn't mean they're going to give me all of them.
|
| Why is this different?
| asdff wrote:
| If the account user name is something random like "ac309"
| with no other info how do the police get a warrant in front
| of a judge?
| edmundsauto wrote:
| They use proper channels (a warrant) with the service
| provider, asking for the persons identity?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| "John or Jane Doe, aka 'ac309' on Instagram".
|
| This is a solved problem. Police get subpoenas to services
| to release identifying information regularly.
| klyrs wrote:
| "Don't friend me, bro"
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| "We can take this in front of a judge, and I doubt your probable
| cause will stand up... causing a lot of issues for both of us."
|
| ^ This line will get many officers to back down. It's calm,
| reserved and true. They will then argue with you and you just
| repeatedly point back to, 'I see what you're asking and you're
| trying to do your job, but I don't see our judge / warrant /
| district attorney / etc. I will now go about my day, thank you.'
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm a little confused by the framing of this article, because
| LAPD actually can't demand the social media information of
| everyone they stop. They can ask, and it is problematic that they
| do since many of the people they stop won't realize that they can
| simply decline, but the police have basically no authority in the
| general case to require it.
|
| Without individualized suspicion, the police can barely even ask
| for ID. They've lost cases over it. Even with suspicion, it's
| unlikely that they can forcefully demand social media
| information. (They can, with sufficient evidence, arrest you and
| conduct a search of your person to try to uncover it, but arrests
| are a big deal; they can't dragnet arrest.)
|
| With that in mind, I assume the productive article to write here
| is the one framed around informing people that they shouldn't
| cooperate with requests like these.
| csomar wrote:
| > the police have basically no authority in the general case to
| require it
|
| Top Note: tptacek, uncooperative with police.
| t-3 wrote:
| My bet: refusing to give up your social media information will
| be considered probable cause.
| tptacek wrote:
| That's not how probable cause works. It's not a message board
| argument. This ain't 'Nam.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Does "You May Beat the Rap, But You Can't Beat The Ride"
| mean anything to you?
| tptacek wrote:
| Not in this context, no.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Stop resisting! That's it, we're taking you in for public
| obtuseness and resisting arrest. Yeah, yeah, you can make
| a phone call at the station, stop resisting.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Probable cause operates quite different on the street from
| the way it works in a courtroom. After all, there are few
| to no penalties for police who make an incorrect call in
| this regard. Lack of promotion might be an incentive, but
| not all cops are trying to make detective or captain.
| tptacek wrote:
| It's not just formal career consequences. It's also that
| a full request involves a whole rigamarole that the
| arresting officers have to go through that basically
| takes them out of their workday for as long as it takes
| to get you processed, and to complete the paperwork. They
| have actual jobs they're supposed to be doing. If they
| routinely arrest people for not revealing Twitter
| accounts, they won't be able to do that job.
|
| I think for the most part people are well served by being
| told that they should simply say "no" to requests like
| these. The article has a different framing, that
| Californians should instead feel angrily but passively
| victimized by the process, which is I think not
| productive.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Cops dislike paperwork, but many of them also don't give
| a shit about their jobs except insofar as each day gets
| them one step closer to early retirement, with the payout
| based on whatever overtime they were able to rack up a
| few years prior.
|
| Sure, people should just decline to share any information
| with police and many police won't push the point because
| it won't play out well. But some portion of the desirable
| assignments will flow toward those eager beavers who most
| assiduously supply the desires of the brass for more
| information. Legalities are one thing, the incentives and
| internal dynamics of the police department are something
| else, and they don't always line up neatly. Furthermore,
| not all police officers are rational utility maximizers
| who base their decision-making on optimizing their future
| wellbeing.
|
| The gist of the article is not 'you're being passively
| victimized again, oh no' but nor is it, as you point out,
| 'they have nos uch right so don't be fooled.' The news
| here is that LAPD management have _instituted_ a policy
| of maximizing data collection for pre-emptive
| surveillance purposes, which is something quite different
| from individual cops being overzealous or prosecutorial
| standards having shifted.
|
| I think it's reasonable for the writer to be descriptive
| rather than prescriptive, and that it is not his job to
| act _in loco parentis_ or _in loco advocatus._
| refenestrator wrote:
| You know overtime is time and a half, right? Cops aren't
| worried about OKRs, if they're on patrol then whatever
| they do in a day _is_ their job. If there 's additional
| must-do work, hey, overtime hours.
| suifbwish wrote:
| You don't smile during your cavity searches eh? Must be
| hiding something in there.
| adventured wrote:
| > My bet: refusing to give up your social media information
| will be considered probable cause.
|
| It won't be. That won't come close to holding up in terms of
| legal challenges. And it won't take long to get challenged
| legally. It's not a close debate, it's not a maybe situation,
| it won't come close to holding up.
|
| The LAPD may attempt to use that angle - probable cause - in
| some isolated circumstances short-term, before there's
| anything specifically legally blocking them, if they're going
| to get aggressive with trying to procure social media
| information from people. They would know that refusal to
| provide social media details as probable cause can't hold up
| legally to a challenge and they'll risk getting barred from
| asking entirely, so they'll likely be careful about who they
| try that tactic on.
| babyblueblanket wrote:
| Who can afford to legally challenge an entire police
| department? Probably not the disproportionately targeted...
| chrisco255 wrote:
| You've never heard of class action lawsuits?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Being falsely arrested and sent to jail is bad enough.
| Many people who experience that have no desire to relive
| the experience through a long-=drawn out and possibly
| expensive process of litigation.
| r00fus wrote:
| There's a lot of room between "probable cause" and "we
| don't like you".
|
| They can essentially detain you for hours, unless you know
| the keywords and are able to ask for and actually summon
| legal support.
| kuraudo wrote:
| We live in a world where people get shot for less. You better
| believe I'm complying with whatever they ask.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| You're talking about legal authority, which is important.
| However, de facto, police have far more power than that.
| Remember the police who act without restriction or regard for
| legal limits, including physical, emotional, and legal abuse,
| arrests, fabricated charges ('resisting arrest', threatening an
| officer, etc.) etc.
|
| > They can, with sufficient evidence, arrest you and conduct a
| search of your person to try to uncover it, but arrests are a
| big deal; they can't dragnet arrest.
|
| Police do arrest people arbitrarily and without cause; it's not
| so rare. They don't need a dragnet, they only need to arrest
| you.
|
| > I assume the productive article to write here is the one
| framed around informing people that they shouldn't cooperate
| with requests like these.
|
| That might not be good advice for everyone.
| suifbwish wrote:
| Simple solution is to always deny having social media to anyone
| you physically interact with.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Now you've lied to a police officer.
| jedberg wrote:
| It's not alway illegal to lie to the police. Each state is
| different, but in most states you only have to be truthful
| about your identity and when you are under oath.
| tptacek wrote:
| In California, if you give false information to a police
| officer and they in some meaningful way rely on that
| information to their detriment, you're probably culpable
| for some offenses. As a general rule, you should not lie
| to police. I think this is like 60% of the "don't ever
| talk to police" meme; the reality is much more subtle,
| but if you take away the message that you can troll them,
| you can actually get in trouble, and it's better just to
| shut up.
| suifbwish wrote:
| That's an interesting one. The validity of your past
| statements ultimately rests on whether you understood
| what you were being asked. If someone does find
| themselves having talked it seems at least a court in the
| US would throw out the "statement" if you had a good
| lawyer. This is why people are often acquitted when a
| witness either changes their story or becomes non
| credible. Besides if the court believe that someone is
| lying in any way, nothing about their testimony can be
| trusted
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| What constitutes "social media"? Is this social media? Is
| there a legal definition yet?
| bentcorner wrote:
| You're getting downvoted but IMO you're right. Just don't
| answer.
| noasaservice wrote:
| Not talking to pigs is a good start.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Have two! One under your real legal name which is 100% pure.
| Inspirational quotes, photos of you with your Church group
| feeding the homeless, etc.
|
| And one under your gangster name that shows you posing with
| your glock and waving bundles of cash.
| koolba wrote:
| If I was asked by a cop during a traffic stop for my social
| media account I'd give them either a link to Rick Astley or
| goatse depending on my mood.
| cryptonector wrote:
| There's what the police can legally demand. And then there's
| what the police can legally do to make a civilian think they
| can legally demand anything. Turns out they can pressure you
| quite a bit during the length of a Terry stop.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| The article is yet another unsubstantiated piece by the author
| (will not mention his name here), in line with other extremist
| and poorly sourced clickbait pieces like this one:
|
| _'A nightmare scenario': how an anti-trans Instagram post led
| to violence in the streets '_
|
| The documents released by the Brennan Center simply do not
| support the claims of the news article. This fits a pattern of
| the author citing anonymous sources and then public sources
| which do not back up his story. It's unfortunate how low the
| Guardian's standards have fallen that they would allow this
| mishmash of agit-prop on their newspages.
| 3434g34g34 wrote:
| There are a lot of things the police can't do, but do do and
| get away unscathed because of union or department backing. I
| wouldn't be surprised if they beat a person to death for
| refusing to give this info up.
|
| Personally im not taking a fucking chance. If they ask, I'll
| provide any info I have. I am trying to live, not demonstrate
| to a cop that I know my rights he is violating. If you think
| that's a wrong mentality to have then maybe we should step back
| and figure out how to make actual progress to de-escalate a
| police state.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I can't see why you're confused, since your second sentence is
| the basis of the entire story. The article offers a summary of
| research establishing that collection of this information is
| treated as a departmental priority rather than being collected
| on the initiative of individual officers; thus it's news, not
| life or legal advice.
| threatofrain wrote:
| If a cop requests your ID, it's a gamble as to whether it's
| worth your time to assert your rights.
| tptacek wrote:
| Of course. I would just give my ID up. I would not give
| information about my social media accounts.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Look at this guy, not using his real name on his social
| media. Book him, Zuck!
| sonofhans wrote:
| I noticed the same thing. I kept waiting for the writer to say
| the obvious and responsible thing, "While the police may ask
| for this information, there is no legal way for them to compel
| you to provide it." This is part of the problem with living in
| a quasi-police state: questioning whether the police are
| allowed to do a thing is literally unthinkable.
| jhayward wrote:
| This could only be said by someone who is completely
| disregarding the coercive power of a police "interview".
|
| There is always, always, a subtext of "if you don't wish to
| cooperate, I may need to exercise my discretion to ...", with
| the ellipsis being anything from literally tearing your car
| apart in a "reasonable suspicion" drug search, to some made-
| up traffic infraction, to anything else that police are
| trained to use as coercion.
|
| Just because you have some theoretical rights that a judge
| may at some point months later grant you, doesn't mean the
| officer can't violate the hell out of you right now and
| probably get away with it - and end up getting a baseless
| conviction, or a paper trail in police records, or just make
| you late for your job interview.
| mikestew wrote:
| Sounds like something a cop would say: "oh, if you don't
| cooperate, they'll make life difficult, so you best just
| keep those civil rights thoughts to yourself!" Thanks,
| officer, but I'm going to keep refusing those unreasonable
| searches even if it makes things more difficult. And
| experience says, those difficulties aren't a given, or even
| to be expected.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Yeah, I feel that people who dismiss these concerns by
| saying "well you can always tell the cop no" haven't had
| many/any adversarial encounters with the police.
|
| I haven't had many, but I had a few when I was in college.
| When you lawfully refuse a request from the police, they
| don't just say "ok" and move on. They apply all kinds of
| pressure. They make veiled threats, they detain you longer,
| they get angry, they scare you. It is a lot easier to say
| what you would do while you are safe at home behind your
| keyboard.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| The comment you're responding to was not at all naive: it
| only says there's no _legal_ way for police to force you to
| provide this information. You are correct that they can in
| many ways force you to comply, but none of those ways are
| legal.
|
| Those ways of applying illegal coercion also break down as
| more and more people realize their rights and refuse to
| comply. The more people who force police to act illegally,
| the more risk there is of trouble for the cop. They can get
| away with it better if they don't have to do it too often.
| ArtDev wrote:
| They can legally lie to you about what is legal. They can
| also lie, without any reprocussions, to justify any
| physical force they feel like using.
| Impassionata wrote:
| You live in a fantasy world and are speaking delusional madeup
| nonsense as if it is real.
| arglebarglegar wrote:
| their authority is that they can beat you up and hold you for
| almost no reason, and 99% of the time they will face no
| consequences
| joe_the_user wrote:
| What the police can ask for legally and what they ask for based
| on a credible threat are rather different.
|
| If 99.99% of the people comply and .001% of the people refuse
| and the cop involved slugs the non-complying person, giving
| them a life changing injure. and even if that cop "doesn't get
| away with it" - gets filmed, get drummed out of the force and
| the city pays a million dollar settlement, the cops,
| collectively, will still get away with it and keep doing it
| since it nearly always works. And the one cop being caught is
| extremely optimistic.
|
| _Even with suspicion, it 's unlikely that they can forcefully
| demand social media information._
|
| How can a cop request information in fashion that isn't
| forceful? The softest, most polite question is backed by the
| threat of both violence and arrest.
| tptacek wrote:
| If a police officer has given you a life changing injury
| simply for refusing to disclose your Twitter account, we've
| left discussion of the law and what the police "can do" and
| entered a discussion about what to do about the problem of
| overtly criminal police. Nobody could have paid attention
| over the last 2 years (or the last 20) and come away
| believing there aren't criminal police officers; that is a
| real thing. It has not very much (some, but not very much) to
| do with official LAPD policy or their incident questionnaire
| cards.
|
| But that just brings me back to my point about the framing of
| this article. If The Guardian believes this question is
| problematic --- and I agree with them, if they do --- they
| should write an article about how you don't have to tell the
| police anything about your Twitter account just because
| they've stopped you on the street.
| delecti wrote:
| > we've left discussion of the law and what the police "can
| do" and entered a discussion about what to do about the
| problem of overtly criminal police
|
| I genuinely think this point has long since come and gone.
| Most encounters with police are going to end fine, but
| there's basically no recourse in the majority of cases
| where they don't.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| It's not that bad. No, really. If a cop pulls you over based
| on speeding and asks for anything else unrelated to that, you
| simply and politely decline. It's very rare that a cop will
| risk their job or go through the hassle of taking people in
| simply for exercising the 4th or the 5th amendment. As a
| citizen you have many avenues for recourse, your cynicism is
| unwarranted.
|
| Simply and agreeably assert your rights. More people do it
| than you think.
| threatofrain wrote:
| There's no way to agreeably assert your rights. The cop
| wants something from you, and you're saying no. Being extra
| polite merely increases your chances of a neutral
| interaction, but you're already starting off on a negative
| feeling.
| swader999 wrote:
| I just say "Sorry, my attorney forbids me from any
| discussion, here's my license and registration"
| ArtDev wrote:
| It is perfectly legal for cops to lie to you about anything
| at all. Including about what the laws are.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _you simply and politely decline_
|
| And then the cop calls for the drug dog, and suddenly,
| you're dealing with a dog trained to please it's handler,
| which in this case means telling the cop that you have
| drugs in your car. And off to jail you go. As far as the
| cop is concerned, his thuggish behavior is now vindicated
| because you're a drug dealing degenerate.
| technothrasher wrote:
| And the SCOTUS has already ruled that a cop cannot make
| you wait for a drug dog without probable cause (Rodriguez
| v. United States 2015). So in your scenario you've got a
| cop who is willing to break the law, and in that case all
| bets are off.
| arglebarglegar wrote:
| "I smell marijuana" is probable cause... it's been
| weakened recently, but probable cause doesn't have to be
| proven. "Bloodshot eyes" is another one that works for
| DUI cause.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Alternatively, the cop uses a bunch of highly sensitive
| field drug tests on your car and gets a false positive.
| In america it seems that's enough to jail people. And
| then they lose their jobs, their home.
| revscat wrote:
| > Simply and agreeably assert your rights. More people do
| it than you think.
|
| Police culture in America is based around disgust and
| disdain for the notion of "rights". You can try standing up
| for your rights, but that is likely to be responded to with
| "stop resisting!" and a subsequent (constitutionally
| protected) physical assault.
|
| Then Ted Cruz will go to Jamaica.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| > Police culture in America is based around disgust and
| disdain for the notion of "rights".
|
| _All_ American culture increasingly feels disgust and
| disdain for the notion of rights. The police culture is
| the result of that broader problem.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > How can a cop request information in fashion that isn't
| forceful? The softest, most polite question is backed by the
| threat of both violence and arrest.
|
| With a smile and a calm voice. Do you really believe every
| single cop is going to punch you if you don't comply?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > How can a cop request information in fashion that isn't
| forceful?
|
| They can explicitly inform you that you are under no
| obligation to accede to the request and will face no adverse
| consequences if you choose not to.
|
| Except where explicitly legally mandated to do so, they do
| not tend to this, specifically because even if it is _true_ ,
| they wish people to perceive and act upon an implicit threat
| of violence for noncompliance.
| kodah wrote:
| > How can a cop request information in fashion that isn't
| forceful? The softest, most polite question is backed by the
| threat of both violence and arrest.
|
| This is an American-centric attitude towards government and
| government representatives. The power the government holds
| over you and I is a monopoly on violence (defined broadly)
| that they license to specific representatives to enact their
| will in order to form some loosely held cohesion among
| chaotic ideas. More simply put, something has to stop us from
| taking something that is not ours out of perceived
| hierarchial need.
|
| I'm a liberal man raised by classically conservative parents,
| the lessons I was taught as a young man were that the
| government by it's very nature always wants more power and to
| exercise that power over you. More simply put, if you give an
| inch the government will forcefully seize a mile. As a result
| I was taught that innocent men go to jail all the time for a
| litany of reasons, most of them bullshit to laypeople. This
| is the foundation of healthy distrust for government and
| government representatives. There are counter-balances we
| carry with us, as a yin and yang of sorts.
|
| So, with that explained, how does one take a request for
| information as non-violent? You don't. You expect that the
| government is willing to enact it's monopoly on you and
| choose to seek the most amicable (for you; which is likely
| less violence) solution. You exercise your fifth amendment,
| you request representation, and if the representatives so
| desire it the best you can do is hope to represent your
| claims at trial. Democracy is fought in the court room, not
| with the enforcement representatives of government.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| The government has won. I say that because the majority of
| the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck
| and they cannot afford any hiccup or else they will be
| underwater. From there it is an easy spiral down to the
| bottom. They cannot afford good counsel or even afford to
| take time off to fight this. This is the perfect
| environment for a population that will not fight back.
|
| The only hope is that people who are able to fight back do
| fight back for the rest of us. However we have seen that
| many people who are able to do this benefit from the
| current situation. Effectively 80% of this country live to
| serve the other 20% and thats why I believe we don't see as
| much progression of many areas as we should.
| effingwewt wrote:
| A huge imbalance is money, specifically enough to have a
| lawyer appear on your behalf ASAP. Those with means
| usually won't ever see the inside of a holding/processing
| cell because there lawyers are there before they are
| booked.
|
| This means they need to bail hearing, since the lawyers
| will even demand immediate bail based on charges.
|
| No jail time, not even 24 hours. No dealing with bail
| bondsmen. That is huge. Most jails only offer free calls
| within their area code. Not being in jail means their
| life continues uninterrupted, as does their job/income. A
| poor person will likely lose their job if they can't
| afford bail, as they are stuck an inmate until their
| hearing. If their public defender is backed up, which
| they always are, they will likely push thw court date
| back for more time.
|
| It's just a complete nightmare. The rich have straight up
| taken control of everything, including the government.
| kodah wrote:
| Agreed. From my perception people knew the system _is_
| and _always will be_ imperfect, and relied heavily on the
| idea that not all people can afford to fight the
| government, but that at some point the government will
| mess with someone who can. Democracy in the US is like
| standing on the shoulders of giants who bravely carved
| the way ahead for us. One of my favorite examples is
| Larry Flint who lost his ability to walk, much less his
| representation as human among other humans, for the
| principles of free speech. Although you may not agree
| morally with Larry Flint, you likely stand in his shadow
| when you say things other people and the government don
| 't like.
|
| That said, when the middle, and upper middle class are so
| squeezed that they cannot fight the government anymore --
| then who is left to? When economic (or class, whatever
| your favorite rhetoric) mobility has chilled, who will
| rise to the ranks of those _who can fight_ who have
| memories of the time when _they could not_?
|
| Anyway, this is the way these problems are postured in my
| mind.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > the majority of the people in this country are living
| paycheck to paycheck and they cannot afford any hiccup or
| else they will be underwater
|
| While possibly true, that doesn't necessarily mean they
| are poor. Plenty of middle class people operate on see-
| money-spend-money. There were plenty of them at Boeing
| when I worked there - the paychecks were distributed on
| Thursday morning, and at noon a flood of engineers would
| _run_ to the parking lot to deposit the paycheck before
| the checks they wrote bounced.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That sounds like spending money before seeing money.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| About 15% of the US population (50 million people) are at
| or below the Federal poverty rate.
|
| About 6% of the US population (20 million people) are at
| or below _half_ the Federal poverty rate.
|
| http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/sites/main/files/imagecache/me
| diu...
|
| No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of people. More
| than the populaton of California.
| slapfrog wrote:
| If there were no implicit threat of violence, I (and most
| other people I think) would never stop for a cop in the
| first place, let alone utter a word to one.
| xmprt wrote:
| Why does there have to be an implicit threat of violence?
| If you didn't stop, the cops could take your license
| plate, find where you live, and send you a ticket for a
| much bigger crime. Cops don't have to use violence to
| solve all their problems.
| b3morales wrote:
| If you continue your scenario, so that the subject
| refuses compliance even further -- does not pay the fine,
| ignores court summons -- physical coercion crops up when
| they are arrested, and perhaps later sent to prison. This
| may not be "violence" as you meant it, but it is one
| aspect of what people mean when they say "state monopoly
| on violence".
| joe_the_user wrote:
| A wide variety of government authorities occasionally
| walk around and talk to citizens - zone officials, fire
| fighters, etc. People talk to them without them carrying
| any threat of immediate violence (they carry the threat
| of later legal action sometimes but that's different).
|
| You might be right about the cops depending on how you
| mean it. Now, American police may well have created some
| much distrust in public no one would willing speak to
| them, everyone would prefer some other level of
| authority. If you mean effective policing in general
| requires the constant threat of violence, I'd disagree
| with you there.
| slapfrog wrote:
| If people thought the reward for talking to a firefighter
| was a hundred dollar fine, they wouldn't be so willing to
| casually chat with firefighters either.
| bwb wrote:
| In a working system you stop because someone needs
| something who provides a valuable service to society.
| And, we are all part of what makes that system work. That
| said, the USA does not seem to be there yet.
| slapfrog wrote:
| If I choose to drive 80mph in a 60mph zone, I am also
| going to choose not to voluntarily stop to receive a fine
| for it. I don't believe the average European is any
| different. The implicit threat of violence in Europe
| might be more tenuous, indirect or vague, but it is still
| there. Normal people don't voluntarily fine themselves if
| they have another choice.
| buran77 wrote:
| A common assumption is that when dealing with the Police
| in the US the problem isn't that they will operate within
| the law and apply it as intended to punish you but rather
| that they will _not_ operate within the law which almost
| invariably end with someone getting needlessly harmed.
|
| So the issue isn't that you're speeding, the Police stops
| you and writes a $50 ticket. You voluntarily speed and
| voluntarily stop for the fine because you voluntarily try
| to avoid a bigger punishment under that system. The
| problem is that you're speeding, the Police stops you,
| overreact, pretend they saw something dangerous (smelled
| marijuana, something looked like a gun, you were acting
| suspiciously, had the wrong skin complexion, etc.), you
| get pulled out, roughed up, hurt, or killed.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| It's the same as how a burglar "can't" rob your house. Of
| course they _can_ , and then you get to attempt legal
| recourse afterward, which sometimes works.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| The burglar does not have qualified immunity.
|
| Burglars are routinely prosecuted and convicted for
| burglary. That is the difference.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Especially given that the officers were told _by higher-
| ups_ , you wouldn't want to press criminal charges
| against the individual officer anyways - you'd be better
| off with a civil suit against LAPD.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Legal recourse? I suppose people could maybe bring civil
| suits against burglars, but generally they face criminal
| charges, and you make an insurance claim?
| cronix wrote:
| > Without individualized suspicion
|
| That is an illusion, or just words on paper. Look into
| geofenced cell phone requests by law enforcement for everybody
| within x boundary at x time of a crime being committed. Look
| into law enforcement using "predictive policing" software from
| companies like Palantir. All of those people are individually
| under suspicion? No one cares anymore. We are slowly becoming a
| police state, but as long as we're not as bad as x country's
| police state, it's ok, right?
| tptacek wrote:
| Congratulations, with this citation you've gotten us to the
| point where the police can lawfully demand identification
| from you, which is something I concede they can do. You
| haven't gotten us anywhere near the point where they can
| compel production of social media accounts during a stop, and
| you won't be able to.
| lovich wrote:
| Are you talking about legally compelled or pragmatically
| compelled?
|
| Legally I agree with you, but the police don't appear to
| operate legally as a general rule.
| danShumway wrote:
| > You haven't gotten us anywhere near the point where they
| can compel production of social media accounts during a
| stop
|
| Well... but they're doing it. The memos tell them to demand
| social media accounts, and it warns officers that failing
| to collect this information might come up in reviews and
| have negative impacts on their career. So we're at that
| point, regardless of what they are or aren't legally able
| to do, and regardless of what a judge would rule during
| trial.
|
| Of course, it's good for people to know their rights; it's
| good to educate people about what the law says. And sure,
| the average low-wage, stressed out, busy commuter can roll
| the dice about what will happen if they say no. Maybe they
| won't get arrested, maybe they'll just get a harsher ticket
| written up. Maybe the cop will get visibly angry and demand
| that they unlock their phone and then hold out their hand,
| and that person can then try to overcome an entire lifetime
| of social conditioning to avoid placing their phone into
| that hand. And maybe the cop will shrug it off and walk
| away. It's a fun gamble.
|
| But the base action of a cop saying to someone, "you need
| to give me this" is still going to happen to people
| regardless of whether or not you say it's supposed to
| happen. It is good to educate people about their rights,
| but rights are not a panacea against police abuse.
|
| The awful thing is that it's entirely _rational_ for people
| who are scared, who are busy, who are stressed, who are
| poor, and who don 't want a confrontation to decide that
| they're not going to roll the dice and that when a cop
| tells them to unlock their phone or write down their
| Facebook username, that it's better to comply. For some
| people, that might be the correct choice, because
| antagonizing a cop is too risky for them. In a situation
| with a large power imbalance, "demanding" or "compelling"
| information doesn't always need to be backed up by a
| specific law. It's enough for a cop to tell you that you
| have to do something, with the implicit suggestion that
| they _could_ arrest you or injure you if they wanted to,
| even if they aren 't likely to do it.
|
| So saying that cops aren't allowed to do something (while
| completely _legally_ correct) still doesn 't mean much
| unless you also have a working enforcement strategy that's
| going to prevent them from doing it. Eventually getting
| your case thrown out in court over an improper stop is
| still going to be a traumatic experience for most people,
| it's still something that someone scraping by on minimum
| wage can't realistically afford to risk.
|
| You point out (accurately) that arresting someone over this
| would be uncommon. But this is still a situation where one
| party might be risking something life changing, and where
| the police officer is realistically risking very little.
| Nor does an officer need to arrest everyone who refuses the
| request, they just need to have a credible threat that they
| _could_ arrest you. A power imbalance is enough on its own
| to allow an officer to demand something that most people
| see as a small concession -- they don 't need laws to back
| that up.
| nsajko wrote:
| There's a Wikipedia page for "predictive policing":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_policing
|
| It links to this interesting article: https://www.techdirt.co
| m/articles/20200722/17410744953/appea...
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Being near the area of a crime when it happened _is_
| individualized suspicion.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| More confusing to me is that interview cards have effectively
| always had a aka field and police records have "known"
| associates fields. I remember my parents gleefully showing me
| their FBI files that outlined that info (and how frequently
| wrong it was).
|
| Is it bad that cops dragnet data? Probably? Is it shocking? Of
| course not, it's one of the reason the proponents of the bill
| of rights demanded it. It's what cops do.
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