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In a victory for privacy rights at the border, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit today ruled that forensic searches of electronic devices carried out by border agents without any suspicion that the traveler has committed a crime violate the U.S. Constitution.
The ruling in U.S. v. Kolsuz is the first federal appellate case after the Supreme Court's seminal decision in Riley v. California (2014) to hold that certain border device searches require individualized suspicion that the traveler is involved in criminal wrongdoing. Two other federal appellate opinions this year—from the Fifth Circuit and Eleventh Circuit—included strong analyses by judges who similarly questioned suspicionless border device searches.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday May 14 2018, @04:17PM (6 children)
Try this one: "You seem to be calm and not nervous."
That makes me suspicious.
We have an alert to be on the lookout for people not wearing purple and green stripes on days ending in "y".
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 14 2018, @04:29PM
Then you're letting too many drug users go! [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Monday May 14 2018, @06:13PM (3 children)
The book "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts", which focuses on cognitive dissonance theory, has a chapter on how the most common official police training for interrogation encourages exactly such double-think -- officers are trained essentially that any reaction or none at all is taken as evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistakes_Were_Made_(But_Not_by_Me) [wikipedia.org] And the book argues that over time, many police officers become so convinced that "bad guys" are let go that planting evidence becomes commonplace. Essentially, if someone arrested, there is too much cognitive dissonance for police offices to think they are not guilty of something because otherwise that would imply the arrest was in error. And by the time someone has been in jail for a bit after a conviction, then even if contradictory evidence shows up later, it is human nature to want to avoid the thought that an innocent was jailed, so new evidence of non-guilt tends to be ignored by prosecutors and many others in the legal system.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday May 14 2018, @06:20PM (1 child)
If there MUST be a choice, because police work is imperfect, then I would prefer that we let too many bad guys get away than let innocent people be prosecuted.
The whole purpose of rights is to protect people from government overreach.
Police work is hard.
(Except in a police state where police work is easy. Beat 'em to a bloody pulp. Declare they are guilty. Lookup some offense to charge them with, although an offense on the law books is not always a strict requirement. Of course, our country would never become like that.)
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Monday May 14 2018, @06:37PM
For another aspect of this, see: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mvkgnp/law-professor-police-interrogation-law-constitution-survival [vice.com]
"In 2008, Duane, a professor at Virginia's Regent Law School, gave a lecture about the risks of talking to police that was filmed and posted to YouTube. It's since been viewed millions of times, enjoying a new viral boost after the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer spurred interest in false confessions. His argument, which he's since expanded into a new book called You Have the Right to Remain Innocent, is that even if you haven't committed a crime, it's dangerous to tell the police any information. You might make mistakes when explaining where you were at the time of a crime that the police interpret as lies; the officer talking to you could misremember what you say much later; you may be tricked into saying the wrong things by cops under no obligation to tell you the truth; and your statements to police could, in combination with faulty eyewitness accounts, shoddy "expert" testimony, and sheer bad luck, lead to you being convicted of a serious crime. Duane's book details several outrageous incidents just like that around the country, clearly showing the many ways the system is stacked against suspects. These include a proliferation of poorly written laws that make nearly anything a potential crime, rules that allow prosecutors to cherry-pick only the most damning parts of police interrogations at trials, and a little-known 2013 Supreme Court ruling allowing prosecutors to tell juries that defendants had invoked the Fifth Amendment—in other words, telling an officer you are making use of your right to remain silent could wind up being used as evidence against you. For that reason, Duane thinks that you shouldn't even tell the police that you are refusing to talk. Your safest course, he says, is to ask in no uncertain terms for a lawyer, and keep on asking until the police stop talking to you."
He also gives an example where a boy was interrogated for hours, and all the time his parents were outside the room with a lawyer -- but because the boy did not say those four words, the interrogation went on and on. Sometimes suspects are emotionally beaten down after many hours and then confess to a crime they did not commit just to get the police to stop the interrogation. Imagine having that happen when all the time there is a lawyer right outside the door and you could stop the interrogation of the moment with those four words "I want a lawyer" -- but you don't know to say them. And they can't be said in a wishy-wash "maybe I want to talk to a lawyer" or "my dad says I should ask for a lawyer" or such. Obviously, the investigation will likely still proceed afterwards, but at a different pace and in a different way.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NewNic on Monday May 14 2018, @06:36PM
Before you attempt to justify the way police interrogations are done as unconscious confirmation bias, consider this: why are so few interrogations in the USA recorded?
The lack of recording shows an awareness by police that their interrogations are not focused on finding facts and instead, are mostly on finding a way to make the person under interrogation implicate themselves.
The interrogation method taught to police in the USA is known to have a very high false confession rate. Other countries use different techniques which are aimed more at fact finding rather than confirming a pre-conceived notion of guilt.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Monday May 14 2018, @06:45PM
My favorite, was the state trooper that calmly asked me if I had any alcohol in the car, or dead bodies and tanks in my trunk. I was nervous in the beginning, but then I looked at him and asked how many bodies in the trunk is illegal?
He laughed, and said based on my reaction that I was probably okay, and that was his little psychological trick to pull on people. Guilty people he said most often don't hear the dead bodies or hand grenades. At which point I laughed again.
Not sure if I agree with his psychological assessment, but thank God he didn't ask about any weed or cookies :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.