> "No sir."
> They opened up two doors and found my roommates sleeping. "Who is this?"
> "Oh, those are my roommates." I didn't realize it was 8 am. I was up late the night before, and I figured it was ten or eleven already, and that they had left for work.
That's making false statements, a felony punishable by up to five years in federal prison.
FBI agents are trained in interrogation techniques designed to manipulate you into saying contradictory things, for the sole purpose of being able to slap you with a false-statements charge in case they can't get enough on you to convict you of the crime they were actually investigating.
The book “Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice” discusses a lot of the failings of the system, and gives suggestions on how to fix the system without tearing it down. In discussing the failings, he gives a lot of thoughts on why things are as they are, etc. It’s a pretty easy read.
In case you missed the link on the origins of police somewhere else in the comments: https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the...
It's also handy for dealing with political opponents. Like imagine Occupy starts up again and gains real traction this time. The sight of its leadership being perp-walked into federal court can be real demoralizing. If the FBI has the ability to arrest them on procedural crimes any time they want, they could break up the entire operation before it poses a threat to the status quo. Do you think COINTELPRO actually went away?
I think that's only true if you lie to a federal agent. Lying to a cop is usually a misdemeanor. Depends on the state and the circumstances.
If later, the author said something like "I was talking to my roommate in his room just before you guys knocked on the door", then he might be charged with a felony. But the statement by itself was fine, even if false. 18 U.S. Code § 1001