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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

This is good advice for talking to any law enforcement really. They are not on your side if they are asking you questions.

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Well this is especially (aka more) important when talking to a "Federal Agent". This can be US Marshals, Secret Service, Fish and Wildlife management, DEA, etc. (if you find yourself in this situation ask the person if they are an "1811" job series). Lying to a federal agent is always an actual felony (18 U.S.C. SECTION 1001).

Lying to a local police officer, state patrol is not always a crime (local, state laws).

Don't lie?

FBI would need to prove a lie anyway. Not the easiest thing.

Edit: Some of these responses seem to be assuming "Don't lie" is the logical complement of "tell the truth". That is not the case.

Anyway, "tell the truth" is not a real strategy. That is: the sentence is essentially meaningless. We already know that actual truth is impossible to capture.

Defense lawyers aren't free.

You cannot be denied one.

Also: how does the advice "Don't lie" to the FBI get downmodded?

Yea, the one you can't be denied is a public defender who sucks and only wants to plea you out. Don't lie is bad advice, good advice is don't speak at all; they are not your friends, and speaking at all allows them to lie about what you said and they don't have to prove anything to completely fuck your life up.

Don't assume they're the good guys looking to solve a crime, they aren't; they're thugs looking to close cases by whatever means possible and they don't care if you're actually innocent, they don't care about you at all nor do they care about the truth.

> You cannot be denied one.

1) You still have to pay for one.

2) If you are not a suspect, you don't get the right to an attorney in the way you imply which leaves you with no reliable, neutral witness to call upon.

> Also: how does the advice "Don't lie" to the FBI get downmodded?

Because its an open secret that the FBI isn't above twisting arms and bending rules to win their cases.

One way to do that is to force you to defend yourself in court against a lie accusation which costs you 5 figures or rely on an overworked public defense attorney which is unlikely to have more than a couple hours on your case.

Yeah. I don't think you have any practical experience in the way the system works. You don't want a public defender unless you have 100% incontrovertible proof you are innocent. At which point, the FBI wouldn't pull this shit anyway.

> You cannot be denied one.

Also, in many jurisdictions, you have to fill out a financial form for them to "determine" if you could afford an attorney on your on. If they decide that you can, regardless of your true finances, they can decline to provide a court-appointed attorney to you.

>One way to do that is to force you to defend yourself in court against a lie accusation

This is pretty easy to defend as the burden of proof is entirely on the FBI.

>At which point, the FBI wouldn't pull this shit anyway.

Exactly. However, everyone here seems to be quite worked up over these synthetic hypotheticals.

> Exactly. However, everyone here seems to be quite worked up over these synthetic hypotheticals.

So you have a habit of recording all your conversations with full knowledge of the legal notification laws?

That is what "incontrovertible" evidence would require.

Fyi, its not a synthetic hypothetical. I debated explaining but honestly, I don't really expect you to believe me and I don't care at this point.

> This is pretty easy to defend as the burden of proof is entirely on the FBI.

In theory, yes. However, 5 figures in legal bills are the end result unless you have a literal recording of the conversation whose authenticity can't be questioned.

I do try to mentally record my conversations. I've found that very few other people seem to. Try asking someone what they just said some time, or asking them what you just said. I doubt they will give you a verbatim recording. Don't lie; ask questions whose answers contradict established theory.

Lol. Good luck with that being an effective defense that costs you $0.

You'd need to record it on a machine of some kind. Which has legal consequences, notification requirements, etc.

The FBI would be recording and I would have access to those recordings. Miranda right #1 I believe.

Look, I've accepted nothing I can say will convince you.

But, if you think that is how it works, good luck.

You think the FBI can introduce evidence against you, that you cannot examine?

You really are trying to be dense and I'm done wasting my time.

So, you tell them the truth, and say "Sorry officer, I wasn't in town that day," only they later find out that there's an eyewitness who says that you were in town that day, and your credit card purchases show you buying a cup of coffee a few blocks from where the eyewitness saw you.

It doesn't matter that the eyewitness was mistaken, and just saw someone who looked like you who drove a similar looking vehicle, or that the purchase was made by your wife who was borrowing your credit card, because that coffee shop didn't have security cameras proving one way or the other.

At the end of the day, you're looked at as guilty, for a time at least, and possibly forever. You have to waste your every spare dollar hiring a defense attorney to prove your innocence. You have to fend off mobs of social justice warriors who have ruined your reputation on the internet and real life, who may have lowered your business' Yelp score to approximately zero. You have to find a new job, because your old one fired you once you were indicted, and the newspapers justified them by placing your picture on the front page as the guilty party, but only printing the retraction months later on page 18.

And this is of course a scenario predicated on the notion that your attorney is able to actually get you found innocent, and you aren't further hindered by spending decades in prison for a crime you didn't commit.

Hmm. I didn't say "tell the truth". I said "Don't lie". You may construe that however you want, I guess.

I don't see how all of what you described couldn't also happen if you just didn't say anything. The difference would be that you now have no contradictory statements or evidence.

If you've made no statements, you can't be charged with lying (whether the charge is actually true or not), unless you say they lie about you making statements.

It seems like the easiest way to not lie is to not talk. YMMV.

"You wouldn't be there if you weren't guilty."

I've heard this line from people who've served on juries before.

Grounds for an immediate approval of a mistrial motion.

Which is irrelevant to the point I think is being made. People sometimes believe this, and if the facts can be twisted to put you in front of a jury as a defendant, it's not good for you. Whether this statement would cause a mistrial doesn't help you if it's stated to some non-involved party twenty years later and you've already served your time, or even if you are still in prison and the person saying and the person hearing that statement have no incentive to notify someone who can and will do something about it.

Too true. I know a person who said that, but I don't know which state, which county, when, or what they served as juror. Are the accused still in prison, or have they served time and done?

And it's hear-say. I have no recording of what they said.

But still, miscarriage of justice is still done. And with numbers showing federal cases end up in the +95% conviction, sure seems the quote is the majority thought. Even if it is completely wrong.

You were downvoted, but I'm upvoting you because yours is a common argument, and people should see the replies here.

Watch this video explaining how you can still be put in a difficult position, even when telling the truth:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2013/05/08/why-you-shoul...

Downvote to disagree is a very bad system, though it's not explicitly discouraged in HN. That just seems bonkers to me.

Its actually the norm here, an expected behavior according to the originators of HN, so of course not discouraged at all.

It takes some getting used to. But as long as you're not rude or profane, the numbers eventually take care of themselves.

Ooo, this inspires a good idea: a multi-dimensional voting based forum. You can up and downvote based on things like veracity, tact, agree/disagree with position, etc.

I think that's slashdot.

Checking slashdot, they appear to have filters in their comments for things like 'insightful' and 'imformative'. Thinking more along the lines of being able to rate things like the veracity and tact of the response, with automatic filtering and prevalence based on a few metrics.

I think it's a good start, but of course, everything lies in the details of the implementation.

I've been considering how to do something like this for awhile. Almost ready to start up work on the prototype :)

Agents are deemed reliable and often don't need proof. Their word is good enough to the courts.

The testimony of any witness is admissible in court; agents aren't special here. Whether the agent's testimony is sufficient evidence depends on the jury and the context.

Martha Stewart was convicted based on an investigator's memory and the notes he had written in his notebook. It wasn't what she said, but what she said in someone else's words.

Do you really want to bet your freedom on the basis of someone else's interpretation of what you said?

This is how Martha Stewart was imprisoned. The securities fraud charges could not be substantiated and were thrown out, so they continued her case on, among other "meta"-crimes, making false statements to a federal agent.

Moreover, since she lied to SEC investigators involved in her case, prosecutors could easily tack on an obstruction charge. And since her business partners lied as well, a conspiracy charge was on the table.

If you don't speak, you cannot lie.

Also a great example of how vindictive the justice system can be. Once you're a part of the process they will have decided that you are guilty and deserving of punishment, and they will seek out any avenue of attack they can.

I've recently listened to the podcast Serial, and another called Undisclosed about the 1999 murder of a high school girl in Baltimore. Really interesting listen, and a of a scary view into the criminal justice system.

"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine." Exceedingly.

This is as good a place as any to re-post this:

http://corporate.findlaw.com/litigation-disputes/how-to-avoi...

This is true. If a local cop doesn't like what you're telling him, it's a lot more difficult for him to charge you with a felony, though.

Witnesses for the FBI sometimes find themselves in the predicament of having to either agree to a heavily "edited" version of their testimony - or face felony charges.

I would agree that it's not a bad idea to have an attorney present in either case - they have the effect of "keeping them honest", but you can decide to "help" a local detective with very little risk of you being made into a felon. Not so for the FBI.

"This is true. If a local cop doesn't like what you're telling him, it's a lot more difficult for him to charge you with a felony, though."

Is it? How hard would it be for him to "find" enough drugs in your car to charge you with felony possession? Or charge you with assault against a police officer? (what assault? The one that he and his colleagues just "witnessed" while you claim you were handcuffed to a chair - who is the jury going to believe? You or 5 uniformed police officers who "saw" the whole thing?) Better hope you don't "steal" his gun and end up dead in a self-defense shooting.

There's a lot that a local cop can do to make your life miserable if he's not bound by law (or ethics)

Don't count on police cameras to keep you safe since they can "malfunction" when the video they capture may be inconvenient like "officials say all seven dashboard cameras in the police cruisers coincidentally malfunctioned." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/03/26/...)

indeed, all those Chicago cops using their blacksite didn't seem to have any trouble doing what they please to their victims, including murdering them.

Unclear why this is getting downvoted, I googled and found reputable sources verifying the OP's claim. [0]

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-polic...

I imagine because if you are going to make a polarizing claim like that, you should include a reputable citation, not require everyone who reads your comment to have to research whether it's true if they aren't familiar.

I thought it was big news a while back, but now it's old news. Not unimportant, but not the sort of thing that sounds so controversial that it must be cited every time.

Well, you don't necessarily need to cite it, but linking it to a real event and not an opinion by appending "as has been reported in the past" or even just "as we've seen" will take it from what appears to be a snide remark to the those ignorant of those events to something they may want to investigate further. It was just communicated more poorly than it could have been, and now we're all wasting our time on this rather than something more useful. :/

Those are all just as good as justifications for why to cooperate. If you believe the officers you are dealing with are willing use illegal practices to make your life difficult when you talk to them, what's to stop them from doing the same if you don't cooperate?

But what if you didn't do what they want you to confess to? Or what if they want you to admit that a friend or family member did something that you know they didn't do? Do you just confess to make it easier on yourself?

If you think you are being targeted as a suspect, that's one thing. If they are asking you simple questions (which is what a lot of this is about, people think they are helping law enforcement, when really they are being targeted) and you believe the law enforcement officers you are speaking of are willing to break the law on little provocation, your decision as to whether to cooperate or not should be more nuanced. Try not to say much without a witness of some sort, preferably a lawyer, but also try not to upset them. At that point are basically the same as mobsters, so act accordingly.

So basically, you're screwed because the fox is guarding the henhouse.

This is one place where ubiquitous surveillance can be a good thing - police cameras (body cams, dash cams, and police station cams) should be unalterable (with footage signed by a neutral 3rd party with civilian oversight) and non-disablable, if a police camera is turned off or is blocked, it should send out an "officer assistance" signal by radio, and courts should view police actions skeptically when they happen outside of camera view.

Release of footage can still be governed by the courts to protect suspect privacy, but there's no reason that a police officer's official actions should be kept from the public.

Resisting Arrest, or Assaulting a Police Officer. In many cities, (I believe DC, for example, is promenantly know for this), many people are charge solely with assaulting an officer. One would be led to believe that there are thousands of wreckless citezens wantonly assaulting the police, if one did not realize that this was a euphemism for declining to censent to be searched, or "getting lippy".

EDIT: Why the downvote? Can't handle the truth? Here's some evidence that, at least in DC, the law is used to effectively arrest people for resiting arrest, with no other charge:

"Nearly two-thirds of those arrested [in the District of Columbia] for assaulting an officer weren’t charged with any other crime, raising questions about whether police had legal justification to stop the person."[1]

"In Coghill v. United States, 982 A.2d 802 (D.C. 2009), the court upheld a conviction for misdemeanor APO. Mr. Coghill was stopped by police while driving a car, and refused to let police search his car. He then got out of the car at their instruction, but at some point got back in the car. Officers tried to drag him out of the car, but he braced himself against the floorboards and gripped the steering wheel."[2]

"On Tuesday, Ward 3 DC Councilmember Mary Cheh introduced a bill to reform some elements of criminal justice procedure. It would change the law around "assaulting a police officer," strengthen prosecutors' duty to turn over evidence to defendants" [3]

[1] http://wamu.org/projects/assault-on-justice/ [2] http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/10619/assaulting-a-... [3] http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/26688/mary-cheh-wan...

There is a very good video on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

One of my favorites of all time. Everybody should watch this at least once.

>They are not on your side if they are asking you questions.

It really depends on whether you are a suspect. If you saw someone get murdered by another person, who you don't know, then you really have nothing to fear.

You can still get a lawyer if you want, but paying $300 an hour to report a crime is probably a waste of your money.

But if there is any chance you could be considered a suspect, you should get a lawyer.

I might agree with federal agents always necessitating a lawyer because they don't fuck around. But state police aren't going to drum up a case about lying to police because they didn't like your answers.

> If you saw someone get murdered by another person, who you don't know, then you really have nothing to fear.

Not at all true; they could very well try and make a case against you. You always have something to fear when dealing with cops/fbi, they don't care about the truth, they care about closing cases.

If you "saw someone get murdered" you are going to be considered a suspect to some degree. Moreso than someone who knows nothing about the crime, anyway.

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