Comment by clouddrover | Hacker News Reader

Comment by clouddrover | Hacker News Reader

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> He didn't search his backpack without consent

I never said he did. I said greedo shouldn't have given that consent.

> Allowing a quick search to confirm that you're just pursuing a harmless hobby and are not putting yourself in any danger or likely to be reported missing a couple of hours later, seems like the easiest and fastest way to deal with that particular encounter.

It puts you in danger of arrest and false charges. It's irrelevant what police suspect. You do not submit to them to make things 'easier' or 'faster'. Your only concern must be to protect yourself, even and especially when you're 13.

Duane's book is full of examples of people who thought it would be a good idea to cooperate with police, only to find themselves charged with crimes they didn't commit and some of them ended up in jail.

If you're starting from a position where the police can't take any action against you without more evidence, and they need you to provide that evidence, sure. In that case, there may be no benefit to you to cooperating. But that's not where the parent post was.

He was a juvenile, carrying a rucksack, walking alone at 5am. He is already starting from a position of being detained as a potential runaway. His encounter can get better (proving that he's just a birdwatcher and being allowed on his way) or worse (if he's carrying anything he can be arrested for). If he's just carrying a camera and a pair of binoculars, it seems like its worth the risk. The officer has better things to do with his day than ferry around kids who clearly aren't runaways.

> In that case, there may be no benefit to you to cooperating.

There's never any benefit to you in cooperating. You do the absolute minimum you are compelled by law to do, and do nothing further.

I encourage you to read James Duane's book. You are the target audience.

In this case, failing to cooperate would almost certainly have led to him being detained as a potential runaway, and returned to his parents, or if he refused to provide any information at all, taken to the police station and turned over to Child Protective Services. In this particular scenario, it seems that cooperating was the best approach.

By all means enforce your rights, but make sure you know your opponents rights too, and choose your battles carefully.

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