“Do I have the right to refuse this search?” | Hacker News Reader

“Do I have the right to refuse this search?”

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101 pointsjp_sc15 comments

I once had a strange experience where, after taking a drink of water from a Camelbak bottle, a police officer asked me if he could see my water bottle. He was about 15 away, at the corner, waiting to turn left at a stoplight. I handed him the bottle, he opened it, smelled it, and made some comment about how it's illegal to have an open container of alcohol in public. It was summer, evening, and still light outside.

I remember being so caught of guard that I never even realized I was consenting to a government search until it was over. The officer was so conversational in his tone that I had no idea why in the world he would want to see my water bottle. Afterwards I regretted not refusing the search as it would have been an easy opportunity to stand up for my own constitutional rights. In the future, I can only imagine I will be on guard, treat any police officer with suspicion and only cooperative as much as is necessary.

Police provide a great service when you're not interacting with them. But when you are, you must always assume that they are looking at you as a potential criminal, even if you're in the act of reporting a crime.

I started to write a reply to your comment expressing my confusion, when I realized I had wrongly assumed you were in the car and the police officer on foot. Once I realized the situation was reversed, I immediately agreed.

Which makes me think there are two kinds of crimes. Crimes which are bad for their effects, and preventive measures. Of course there are grey areas, but driving and drinking is very close to doing actual damage, while walking and drinking is pretty much harmless.

I think it's a shame no law system makes any difference between the two. It would also put a lot of the drug legislation in a different light.

I do not even see where 'walking and drinking' comes in. The poster clearly said he took a drink of water out of his water bottle.

following up on this, i've received advice from extremely successful and well-respected criminal defense attorneys amounting to this: never talk to police; what you say can only be used against you not to your benefit.

scary but very true for some people.

I find this fragment really insightful. Seems like it's a common mistake in a lot of domains.

"Over the last fifteen years or so, many police agencies started capturing data on police interactions. The primary purpose was to document what had historically been undocumented: informal street contacts. By capturing specific data, we were able to ask ourselves tough questions about potentially biased-policing. Many agencies are still struggling with the answers to those questions.

Regardless, the data permitted us to detect problematic patterns, commonly referred to as passive discrimination. This is a type of discrimination that occurs when we are not aware of how our own biases affect our decisions. This kind of bias must be called to our attention, and there must be accountability to correct it."

This portion of the post that deals with 'random' data gathering is pretty interesting because it almost reads like a case study on how to discover flaws and biases in software development, testing, & analysis.

It's almost like a reminder that you forcibly need to step outside yourself to discover passive behaviors that can result in flaws or exploits or what have you.

You are what you measure.

I'm not so sure. I read the OP to say that they're making efforts to ensure that no demographic group is getting a larger proportion of scrutiny.

She says nothing about how this correlates to actual crimes. I assume that she's intentionally trying to keep that out of the picture -- but doesn't that make them less efficient? If young adult males account for a lion's share of the crime, then why force yourself to look away from them and choose an old lady?

Surely there's a difference when you're trying to prevent a very small number of high-profile events, versus regular police work. In trying to stop a terrorist organization, they've (presumably) got the resources to play this to their own benefit by intentionally choosing that old lady as their agent. On the other hand, in day-to-day police work, I'd think that statistics are everything: the potential criminal is a young man, and there's precious little he can do about that, so (assuming that's what the statistics say), that's where one ought to concentrate.

You've got a point there. More data would be nice too.

My understanding of it, is that the data is used to check whether some groups don't receive too much unnecessary attention at the cost of not paying enough attention to other groups because of some non concious bias.

"On the other hand, in day-to-day police work, I'd think that statistics are everything"

Statistics are worth attention, but I really hope they're not everything in police work;)

I love how people try to be logical about all this. There is no logic, it's nutcases vs power-trippers.

Here's the reality - it's not IF but WHEN the next nut gets through TSA with something else, not something new, but something they were supposed to be looking for in the first place. These are all slackers on a power-trip, who else would apply for such a job?

So what are they going to invent next to harass everyone? How exactly are they going to do cavity searches, or is this step meant to get us accepting enough for the next level?

The next idiot might hijack a private corporate jet with no security, and that's going to make an interesting battle of corporate lobbyists for "freedom" vs. power-tripping security theater hiding behind "keeping you safe".

But, that will always happen as TSA can only plan for what past happen not future happened.

The FBI, Secret Service, Treasury, CIA, etc have a record of 75% or higher of catching terrorists before the act.

Guess what TSA's record is? ZERO! Think about that for second. How many Congress people are connected to the companies supply and benefiting from TSA's obvious miss-management?

For security you hire law enforcement or military. Guess who does security at embassies? That is right law enforcement and the military not TSA.

"I believe what we have here is the beginning of the end of complacency. It is now apparent to me that in the haste to ensure compliance with procedures that are inconsistent if not inarticulable, TSA has hastened the likelihood of failure."

It's interesting this was written a year ago and only now are we starting to exert our right to refuse.

My guess as to why she's "randomly selected" so much is the way she holds herself. Having been a cop, she probably has much different body language from everyone else.

I always get selected in about 90% of the times I travel.

I can think of no other reason than I look like I'll be easy to search and they have a quota to fill. I also think it's because I often travel alone.

In no way could I be being racially or behaviourally profiled.

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