LAPD officers told to collect social media data on every civilian they stop
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/mediu...
No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of people. More than the populaton of California.
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.
If you require a safety-net to speak up for your rights, be prepared to lose them.
Also consider that now the system has perfect memory. Moving to another county or state, waiting a few years, it doesn't matter.
> This is an American-centric attitude towards government and government representatives.
Of course, you're right. The US does have this unique tilt. it's not all bad, IMO, good to have some distrust of those in power.
But the real problem is decades worth of thuggish behavior by police officers. The awesome power we grant them is sought out by those who would abuse it. This is compounded by 20th century crime and violence which caused police forces to ratchet up their process for dealing with the public to treat each interaction as potentially life threatening.
So the real threat is implied by the unpredictable reaction when you describe the limits of the police officers' power. Some would recognize their bluff has been called. Yet others would double down.
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.
The first case involved a detective investigating an accusation by someone we knew against someone else we knew. There was no suggestion we were anything but observers, no reason not to talk.
The second time was out at a trailhead, I had just finished a hike. They were working with search & rescue extracting someone who broke a bone. They correctly deduced where I had been and came over and asked about the snow conditions high on the mountain. In hindsight I was a little annoyed at how they asked it as I responded a bit too literally--addressing the snow conditions but forgetting the three trees that had fallen across the trail, one of which would have been a substantial obstacle to a stretcher evacuation.
Personally speaking, I don't think the American ideology will ever lend itself to this idea. Our country was born out of revolution and inherent distrust for government. What you're describing seems to align itself more to a world where citizens have a cooperative relationship with government. Both attitudes have ups and downs, strengths and weaknesses, and potential vulnerabilities in my mind.
Could be something to do with the fact that the police don't generally draw their weapons unless faced with violence.
Of course there are areas where policing is more direct and there are groups that have been historically given a hard time by the law, but these are comparatively small.
I believe American Culture is one that supports each other and society, we have just lost our way and we are in a bit of a battle for the soul of America. It is being hijacked by super individualist who forget they are part of something bigger and that they have a responsibility to society as much as society should respect the individual.
If you have a bike accident people will stop to help. If your car breaks down, people will stop and help. If you have a medical emergency, people will stop and help. If you need directions people will help. The media likes to show fear and we think that is the norm, when in fact the vast norm is that we are always going to help our fellow humans. Cops are still human, despite really bad training that causes them to fear everything and everyone. If a cop asks you to stop and the only thing that makes you stop is the threat of violence I would seriously rethink who I am and my values.
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.
What nonsense is that? It's only the fear that the police officer will beat you that will cause you to stop. Not that you might wake up tomorrow to a towed car, a summons nailed to your door and a jail term?
I think this is outlandish. Most people are law-abiding and happily comply with the law and government authority without any threat of violence. I don't think I've ever had it factor into my decision-making.
Most poeple have never had a practical opportunity to decide whether or not they will choose to comply with the law or government authority without any threat of violence, because the threat of violence is always present if they fail to comply.
This obviously does not mean that people would never comply if the threat of violence were removed. Much of the time the law aligns with what people would choose to do anyway, so compliance comes naturally. The interesting case are those where natural inclination is at odds with the law (or with the orders of a government official), and in those cases I think you might be overestimating the average person's willingness to comply without being forced.
>Cops don't have to use violence to solve all their problems.
They don't have to, but its usually the first resort. There's literally thousands of hours of videos online of cops knowingly making illegal 'requests' on video and threatening arrest for noncompliance.
[1] I had to ride my motorcycle over a curb because a police SUV somehow thought he could outrun a race bike and came flying around a blind stop sign in my neighborhood at a fast enough speed to hit the opposite lane. Policy in my city is no pursuit.
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.
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.
The situation is that American police are generally there to enforce the law, generally follow policy but, depending on area, are infested with a minority of types who use or threaten violence whenever it makes their job easier or simply serves their ego. And these forces also tend to have a much larger group who won't say anything about the overt criminals - out of conformity, alienation from civilians or because the intimidation factor is convenient to them. This situation, that is effectively well publicized at this point, fundamentally changes the way police and civilians relation because it goes a lot of police actions a threatening quality and so, as I said earlier, it's hard to have question appear "optional" to the average person stopped by the police.
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.
I agree, but also they are pretty well trained in scripts for extracting confessions/assent for searches/etc. People simply don't know the law and there's always the hope you'll catch a break.
If Live PD were still on, you'd notice how often the same phrases are used throughout the US. It all sounds like a lawyer wrote scripts for traffic stops and that those training materials were used nationwide. 'honesty goes with me a long way' 'you are being detained you are not under arrest' or whatever.
If my boss is making small talk, and asks what I did at the weekend, of course I am under no obligation to tell him. I can tell him it's none of his business, and I'm quite within my rights to do so. Some people would.
But in the long run, whether it's right or wrong, not answering probably makes my life harder (passed over for promotions, etc.).
So I don't ask this question from those who report to me, because I can't easily ask it in a way that doesn't seem to carry an obligation to reply.
And neither I nor my boss have a gun and a pair of handcuffs.
With a smile and a calm voice. Do you really believe every single cop is going to punch you if you don't comply?
Burglars are routinely prosecuted and convicted for burglary. That is the difference.
Simply and agreeably assert your rights. More people do it than you think.
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.
Given how rarely police blow the whistle on other police, I’d say there’s evidence that the majority are actively unlawful.
Are they operating under the assumption that everyone is on social media, and if you deny it then you’re lying?
No, you aren't going to jail unless the search “justified” by the drug-dog “hit” reveals something that the police can spin into probable cause of a crime.
Needn’t be drugs, or even actual contraband.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWyzPpYslYc
People have been arrested because the police claimed that a standard dose of Tylenol the night before was driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If a police officer wants to take you to jail you're going to jail.
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.
All American culture increasingly feels disgust and disdain for the notion of rights. The police culture is the result of that broader problem.
> 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.
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?
It links to this interesting article: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200722/17410744953/appea...
Legally I agree with you, but the police don’t appear to operate legally as a general rule.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So no, I'm not at all disregarding police coercion. However it has not, does not, and will not convince me to surrender my rights.
If you'll forgive me for saying so, your response also is a symptom of living in a police state: regardless of what is right or legal, you expect the police to act with disregard for it and to suffer no consequence for their actions. It's a common-enough belief, but is not universal in civilized societies. This is wrong, nearly as wrong as anything can be in a democracy.
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.
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.
https://www.justice.gov/crt/deprivation-rights-under-color-l...
Unfortunately, prosecutors are chicken shit when it comes to criminal cops.
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.
They can essentially detain you for hours, unless you know the keywords and are able to ask for and actually summon legal support.
Better to know and exercise your rights when the risk trade off works for your risk tolerance.
In the end, most officers will give more scrutiny if the civilian they are dealing with “fails the attitude test”. Remain calm and when you disagree / reject a request, do it politely and that will increase the odds that the officer won’t spend extra time to find a reason to cite/arrest you.
Also, quit with the civilian crap. Cops are civilians too. If they want to play special forces join the military.
In my experience, police make lots of quick judgements about whether you are “a criminal” based on how compliant you are with their instructions and how normal your behavior is. If you are a nail sticking out, expect most officers to at least consider putting more effort into looking into what they can cite/arrest you for.
The joke is that given enough time and incentive, any officer can cite any person for a vehicle infraction. Take that, but assume there are tons of other laws (not just vehicle codes) that a sufficiently motivated officer can use.
I suspect it actually takes a lot to make an officer turn just a Terry Stop into an arrest. Maybe a verbal or gesture threat against the officer, maybe an admission of a crime, maybe behaviors that a jury would agree describe a person under the influence. I don’t think just saying “no” to a question on the first ask will cause any arrests. LEOs are very experienced at using small psychological tricks/nudges/anchoring to get what they want with compliant detainees.
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.
Top Note: tptacek, uncooperative with police.
A rogue officer acting under color of law with an axe to grind against you won’t act any differently if you are compliant with the social media handle info or not.
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.
That's stupid. Don't do that. Refusing is fine and legal. It's your right! Lying is not fine and is illegal, and you can be arrested. Supplying false information when you can supply no information is a bad idea.
But I agree with the gist: just kindly decline.
Lying and saying that you don’t have a social media account isn’t so clear.
Reality is police have far too much power, and the few cases they lose mean nothing to them. That's covered by insurance, paid by tax payers, and those officers never face criminal charges for their criminal acts, because DA's value their jobs.
And one under your gangster name that shows you posing with your glock and waving bundles of cash.
‘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.
/Of course, you shouldn't talk to them without a lawyer, this is mostly a joke comment
she said it was suspicious.
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.
> 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.TBH I think the Guardian article is a bit alarmist. Basically they're combining the implications of a pair of memos:
1. A memo from 2015 basically saying "We're updating the description of the additional info field to suggest that you collect someone's email address or social media names"
2. A memo from a different chief 5 years later, basically saying "please don't get lazy and put incomplete or inaccurate info down when you fill out these forms". My perception of the July 2020 memo is that the Chief encouraging cops to CYA when talking to witness about what happened at last summer's protests. Anyone who has worked in a documentation-heavy bureaucracy has probably seen similar memos.
Sure, it's technically true that the second memo is encouraging LAPD to be more thorough when filling out the forms. But it's not like there's an expectation for everything on the card to be filled out (for example, if you're just walking down the street they're not going to arrest you because they're afraid to leave the "booking number" field blank[2]).
FWIW I've had multiple interactions with LAPD and they've never asked for my social media, email, gang affiliation, booking number, or anything on this form other than "Name".
[1]: https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d765cbdb15097d091421dc9e0e5cf...
[2]: However LAPD did get caught fabricating gang affiliations that didn't exist, which IMO is a much more outcry-worthy problem than a cop trying to see if you posted evidence of lawbreaking on your public Instagram
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Well, you were yelling at that cop. Maybe he had just added it to your file. Maybe you yelled at other cops. Maybe you had no notice in your file and he was lying to you. Maybe you had a Black Lives Matter or Democrat bumper sticker. Who knows.
If someone is yelling at a cop, it's not a giant stretch to think they don't like cops.
Meanwhile, unless you were speeding because you were transporting someone to the hospital, were racing to donate an emergency organ or needed to be there to supply a legal signature, I'm not sure you have an excuse. A cop should probably cut you some slack, but there's no "I was in a hurry for a decent reason" exemption. It's a "hurry for a good reason" exemption.
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?"
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.
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.
It was literally me.
If you see it more than there and here, it was not me.
*edit: than, not that
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
He told me as he left "We're not all bad."
It was surreal.
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.
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!
You've mentioned this previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28028743
^ 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.'
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.
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.
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.
See also for reddit: https://github.com/x89/Shreddit
> dangerous individual
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.
> Apple now says users do not need to unlock or hand over their phones for the system to work for airport security.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/01/facts-about...
I’d be interested in seeing the details.
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.
https://www.lapdonline.org/join_the_team/content_basic_view/...
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.
(Shut the Fuck Up has apparently been Shut the Fuck Upped.)
TLDR,
Defense Attorney: Don't talk to the cops.
Cop: Yeah, what he said.
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!
Over and over, until they are bored and give up trying to intimidate you.
You have the right to remain silent. For example, you do not have to answer any questions about where you are going, where you are traveling from, what you are doing, or where you live. If you wish to exercise your right to remain silent, say so out loud. (In some states, you may be required to provide your name if asked to identify yourself, and an officer may arrest you for refusing to do so.)
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/
________________________________
Notes:
1. Within the United States or its territories.
I have no qualms regarding speaking with police in Australia. I don't have fears of them planting evidence or tripping me up on something. But that might not be true of all Australians, I guess.
The median age on Reddit has dropped into the teens.
I believe that is why the Reddit redesign specifically hid more of the comments - to both hide the rampant low-effort comments, and to discourage kids in high school from commenting in the mobile app.
When it comes to social media platforms - less is more. Trying to get literally every human to participate reduces the quality of the conversation.
Article like this make me glad to live in Canada, outside of the major metropolitan areas.
bruh, you are commenting on a social media website.
Does it even count as surveillance when it’s stuff people post publicly online?
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...
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.
I rolled down my window at the stop, the cop looked around, and waved me through. I hesitated and said, "what if he is in the trunk?" - the cop's eyes got wide. I then said, "no, he is not back there, but that's what I'd do, I'd hold a family member hostage back there."
The next morning at the check point, they were checking trunks.
It's not reasonable, nor rational.
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.]
Voting out the people who are allowing this is very important.
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.
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.
"If you were honest and actually thought about it, then of course you'd agree with me." So everybody who doesn't is either thoughtless or on the take. You are, at a minimum, not assuming good faith.
You can see the problems with the current system and still disagree with all the values and mechanisms that are proposed as replacements, thinking they are inadequate. That leaves you, by default, supporting the current system, not because you think it's the perfect system, but because you don't think any of the alternatives are better.
So to restate your question: On what basis do the police think they can arrest you?
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).
The answer involves a lawyer, a lot of time, a lot of money, and low expectations.
The list isn't short.
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).
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?
No, it is not.
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.
* If driving, this violates CA Vehicle code s31: https://leginfo.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: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....
Better to just keep quiet
This is obviously ripe for abuse, as in OP's case, but if some MAGA cultist Tweeted about hanging Mike Pence, and he got pulled-over driving into the Capital on the morning of January 6th, maybe the cops should give him a little extra questioning. Not so sure I'd be mad at that.
99.9% of people's facebook posts don't look anything like that. You're essentially using the argument of "if you have nothing to hide, why should you be against this"
And, once again, I'm pretty much just playing the devil's advocate. My real concern isn't so much the visibility of the data, it's the analysis of the data. Any conclusion can be drawn from any data set, given sloppy enough analysis. I learned this back in the 90s, doing performance testing for a large pharma, comparing an app written in C and the same app written in something called "Java". My mentor, and old school C programmer, told me, "The data is what we say it is." Guess what? The app written in C performed better, and the young punk "Java" programmers lost the contract. The bad old days. The point is, if cops are buying this data and the analysis, the data companies know what the cops want, and they'll give it to them. That's scary.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 ...