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Comment by foz | Hacker News Reader

> Bates was arrested and taken to the Rockland Police Department, where he was interviewed. He waived his Miranda Rights ...

> ... He also consented to a search of his laptop and iPhone and gave officers the passwords to his e-mail and Skype accounts.

Poor guy. I think he should have talked to a lawyer first before doing all of that.

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Never give any info to the police you don't need to if you are under any sort of investigation. They will always use it against you, it is their job.

Anecdote time: In my younger days, I was once stupidly walking down the street with a cup full of something I should not have been walking down the street with. It was late - only my girlfriend and I were on the street. Seeing a police car turning the corner in my direction, I panicked and tossed the cup. He must have saw this because he goes lights and sirens, and holds me for 45 minutes on the side walk while he asks me the all the guilt-admitting questions he can conjure. He was really desperate. At one point, he even attempted to breathalyze the ground where the cup was. It was a silly situation. I received a littering fine. Moral of the story: don't show your hand, and don't do stupid things.

Especially if you're actually guilty.

I watch a bunch of shows where a camera man follows the police, and see people confess all the time as soon as the officer asks "Are these your drugs under the car seat?" etc.

One time I saw someone who didn't confess, they were released the next day with no charges because they couldn't prove the owner of the drugs. Another case was someone who didn't pay for petrol at the gas station. The police caught them red handed, but they just kept saying it was an innocent mistake (obviously wasn't). Police had to let them go after they paid.

Unless of course, you really are guilty and want to be punished, don't do it.

> people confess all the time as soon as the officer asks "Are these your drugs under the car seat?" etc.

Not that I intend to ever be in this situation, but what's the proper answer? Can't lying add another charge? So, do you lie, say nothing, "plead the fifth", demand a lawyer, or something else?

I think in America I think you have the option of saying nothing. It is hard to keep your mouth closed because of the huge weight of social pressure telling you to respect the police authority.

I haven't been in this situation myself, but I imagine doing this would irritate the officers and cause you to be taken back to the police station and need to stay there at least overnight.

You can definitely say nothing, or just keep saying "I'd like to see a lawyer". An overnight stay at the police station is not a big deal compared to saying something stupid that you'll have to deal with for a lot longer.

Also something to keep in mind is that it's not illegal for cops to lie to you.

Woah, are you serious? So could they do something like 'Yes sir, I know you have Miranda rights, but since they passed <bs law> on <bs date>, if you are caught with possession of <some drug>, you no longer have the right to remain silent, and if you do, it can add up to <ridiculous amount> dollars to your charges.'

What if the guy confesses something there and then later finds out the cop was lying? Can he do something about it?

This is actually their standard line, almost verbatim. Replace XYZ law with 'lying to me is illegal' and 'if you make this hard it will much worse for you and I won't be able to help you...' It is a long and well established right for the police to use deception to gain confessions. They will Mirandize you and then convince and cajole you into waiving your rights. They do it every day, and in almost every case.

Use your judgement. YMMV.

This obvious comment doesn't answer whether lying/saying nothing can add charges or not.

Say nothing except to ask for council. You cannot be charged for asking for a lawyer. Google "Don't talk to the police" and watch the first YouTube video of the lawyer and the police officer both telling you the same thing.

Heck, they should play that video for kids in middle and high school right along with their DARE and Sex Ed.

The YMMV refers to situations such as this: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7WEcpLi7kB4 Exercising your rights is never the easiest path but never, never let yourself be interrogated by the police. You are not required to allow yourself to be questioned, and there is absolutely no possible way being questioned can ever help you. Get a lawyer, the police can talk to them.

The key is to know when you have to speak and when you have to comply. Cops tend to ask a lot of questions. The ask a lot of mundane, pointless questions, fostering the idea that they are a bit stupid, then they will start hitting you with silly or contradictory questions. This is the trap springing; they are hunting for Probable Cause, or PC, and their definition of what constitutes PC is quite broad. They bog standard pig has a narrow range of goals when dealing with a suspect: get them talking, get them nervous, get them out of control. They move in pairs for a reason (and often times they group up at traffic stops): one chats you up while the other looks for anything that could be construed as PC. The nervous part is easy; a dude with a gun asking a lot of questions should make any thinking person nervous. Getting you out of control is the finish line: they want you out of the vehicle. Once you are out of the vehicle they have de facto consent to search said vehicle. A previous poster brought up "social pressure" and they are absolutely right. Embarrassment and fear are super useful when manipulating anyone.

You may be asking yorself: Classicsnoot, what is the point of all this babble? Is there an answer to the question anywhere in my future? Here it is:

Say. Nothing. Smiles and nods are absolutely enough. You are legally obligated to hand over your ID. You are NOT obligated to answer in detail. "yes", "no" and "I don't know/I'm not sure" are the script. As a very wise penguin once told me: "Cute and cuddly, boys, cute and cuddly." If Mr. Piggsly can't handle your clipped responses, he will become frustrated and agitated. A frustrated cop is a mistake prone cop. If you are male (particularly a male of color, but cops shoot white people just as often as black or brown people) DO NOT ACT IN ANY WAY THREATENING. Always ask or inform when you reach for anything. Do not explain, give reasons, or give back story. It is none of their business where you are going or what you have been doing. And finally, they will always threaten you with "a ride to the station". This is their Queen. Everybody is afraid of this, but it is actually to your advantage. They can only legally hold you for 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds without charge. And you are not legally obligated to say a damn thing. I know this is a lot. I am available to answer specific questions should you want clarification. Here is the script:

Yes. No. I don't know. Lawyer.

Edit: IANAL. I speak from experience: stopped as driver, stopped as passenger, retrieving friends and girlfriends who have been stopped. Arrested when guilty. Arrested when innocent. Arrested while existing in the nebulous region betwixt guilty and innocent that most citizens seem to occupy. Dated a lawyer. Related to lawyer. Paid a lawyer. Supplied a lawyer.

If you're actually guilty, please do talk to the police. It will save everyone a lot of time.

Where everyone excludes you, because you will not just save time, you will _gain_ time - jail time. So, if you're guilty, only talk if you _want_ to turn yourself in/face charges.

If you don't want to face charges, don't commit the crime in the first place.

But more seriously, you will face charges anyway. And if you haven't said anything, that will only prolong the inevitable. Or is it your personal goal to get away with committing crimes?

Many routine crimes occur because the legal system diverges from sanity. And indeed it is people's goals (and the proper moral thing) to "get away" with these "crimes".

I too would love if the map matched the territory. But the map has got to be the thing to change.

I disagree. If you want to use civil disobedience as a tool for changing bad laws, you have to be willing to accept the punishment for disobeying those laws. Otherwise you're not an activist, just an asshole.

If you'd rather not be punished for breaking a bad law, that's fine too. Just lobby for it to be changed without violating the law, like the rest of us.

I'm not talking about civil disobedience, but simply living your life without dwelling on someone else's proscriptions for it.

> like the rest of us

False appeal to a nonexistent herd. People living your viewpoint are actually in the minority. Many people do drugs, and most people speed.

As I said, I too would like actions to better line up with laws. But in our society of victimless "crimes", the answer isn't to insist that people need to follow the abstract model harder, but to fix the model to line up with reasonable people's behavior. And this is not the moral responsibility of people who simply wish to live their life, but of those who are creating this system of rules and calling it justice. To think otherwise is to believe that individuals should be servants of their government.

Nobody's claiming the answer is to simply accept bad laws along with the good ones. That's absurd. It should be pretty obvious that the only sensible answer is to get rid of the bad laws. We're just talking about what to do in the interim, since that process is not going to be instantaneous - scoff at whichever laws you personally disagree with, break those laws and accept the preposterous consequences as a form of protest, or follow them even though they're stupid. If you don't see the first option as a recipe for chaos, I don't know what else to say to you.

Sure it's a recipe for chaos, but that chaos should be blamed on the people who made the unreasonable laws in the first place. "Stop snitching" isn't the problem, it's a symptom.

Or instead of playing a blame game, perhaps we can try to be good people and improve society.

We're both trying to be good people and improve society, which is why we're debating a moral code to live by.

Correctly assigning blame is an important part of diagnosing a problem. Otherwise, being free from scrutiny, the responsible party keeps right on creating problems.

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