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Tl;dr: The least ethical time to ignore the law is when a highly dynamic incident is underway. > If three armed gang members are on the run after shooting som

Tl;dr: The least ethical time to ignore the law is when a highly dynamic incident is underway. > If three armed gang members are on the run after shooting someone, and an informant names some suspects, looking up the location of the suspects' phones seems acceptable to me. I have no doubt that stingrays are abused, but this specific instance, even if not legal, is ethical. This assumes that 1. The informant is truthful and accurate 2. The informant is truthful and accurate Laws and procedures exist so that in situations of increased emotion, there is a guard against making rash, unethical, or illegal decisions. Eyewitnesses are generally pretty terrible at providing a true and accurate accounting of specific details in a sudden situation. For many reasons, informants can be misinformed, confused, incorrect, malicious. And, if there's an emotional imperative to act on the part of the police, there will be an active pressure to ignore some of these concerns or some of the rigor needed to be certain they're pursuing the right suspects. So, you have procedure, and you absolutely have to follow it because it's the one thing that's protecting you (as the officer) from making a bad decision (when the emotions are running high).

ggreer 11y ago
I'm aware of the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony, but that's not relevant in this case. The tip came from a known confidential informant, not a random person. The police were going to pursue the lead, stinger or no. The stinger just made it easier for them to verify that the suspects were at their homes. Yes, proper procedures are important. Yes, I doubt this stinger usage was legal. Yes, this was bad police work. I agree with all of those points. As I said before, the OPD was incompetent. Now for a thought experiment: Imagine we lived in a world where police needed a warrant to dust for latent fingerprints. Such procedures would safeguard the privacy of citizens and prevent many abuses of power. Still, I think that world would be worse than this one. Such hindrances would, at the margin, make it harder to solve cases and allow more criminals to evade capture. Those costs are high enough to outweigh the privacy benefits. Now imagine trying to convince people of the advantages of warrantless fingerprint-dusting. No matter how you frame it, everyone thinks you don't care about civil liberties. Many of them try to educate you on the importance of checks and balances in the legal system. Sounds pretty frustrating, huh? I hope that helps you see where I'm coming from. Edit: So far in this whole thread, not a single reply has engaged with my actual argument. (sigh) I give up. Here's another thought experiment: If the Supreme Court ruled in favor of warrantless stingrays, would you be OK with them? If not, maybe legality isn't your true reason for opposing them.
- mattlutze 11y ago
  >> Eyewitnesses are generally pretty terrible at providing a true and accurate accounting of specific details in a sudden situation. For many reasons, informants can be misinformed, confused, incorrect, malicious. > I'm aware of the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony, but that's not relevant in this case. The tip came from a known confidential informant, not a random person. Many informants provide information all the time about crimes. Accuracy and reliability of informant reporting is always an issue for police. Again, that's why they have procedures dictating how they have to verify information, etc. The article says only "confidential informant," so you may have misread and assigned more value to the informant's report than you otherwise would have, which is understandable. > Yes, this was bad police work The issue here isn't "bad" police work as much as it's "warrant-less search and seizure." So, possibly illegal police work. They were quite competent and use tools that haven't necessarily been outlawed yet; when courts start outlawing stingrays, then its incompetence. > Now for a thought experiment: If I leave evidence at the scene of a crime, it's understood to be within the law for the police to collect it and analyze it. Fingerprints, body fluids, electronic devices, all fair game. I have no reasonable expectation of privacy if I've left stuff at a crime scene. This is not that. This is if the police didn't need a warrant to enter your house and collect fingerprint/other samples, for the purpose of determining if you may have been involved in a crime in the past. That's a violation of your right of the people to be secure in your person, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. In a similar way, the courts need to decide if it's also a violation when police, without a warrant, sett a wiretrap to spoof a cell phone tower with the intent of discovering a person's location or other personal information from a person's private electronic devices. It's held to be the case that a wiretap cannot be placed without a warrant. It is reasonable to extend that logic to the automatic/unintentional/"unconscious" communication a person's cell phone does with the cellular network, to say nothing about using that stingray to capture actual explicit communications made by the person over that network. I do get where you're coming from; I just don't agree that the argument you've laid out is sufficient to subjugate a constitutionally dictated right. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the federal courts and in congress.
  - merpnderp 11y ago

ggreer 11y ago

I'm aware of the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony, but that's not relevant in this case. The tip came from a known confidential informant, not a random person. The police were going to pursue the lead, stinger or no. The stinger just made it easier for them to verify that the suspects were at their homes. Yes, proper procedures are important. Yes, I doubt this stinger usage was legal. Yes, this was bad police work. I agree with all of those points. As I said before, the OPD was incompetent. Now for a thought experiment: Imagine we lived in a world where police needed a warrant to dust for latent fingerprints. Such procedures would safeguard the privacy of citizens and prevent many abuses of power. Still, I think that world would be worse than this one. Such hindrances would, at the margin, make it harder to solve cases and allow more criminals to evade capture. Those costs are high enough to outweigh the privacy benefits. Now imagine trying to convince people of the advantages of warrantless fingerprint-dusting. No matter how you frame it, everyone thinks you don't care about civil liberties. Many of them try to educate you on the importance of checks and balances in the legal system. Sounds pretty frustrating, huh? I hope that helps you see where I'm coming from. Edit: So far in this whole thread, not a single reply has engaged with my actual argument. (sigh) I give up. Here's another thought experiment: If the Supreme Court ruled in favor of warrantless stingrays, would you be OK with them? If not, maybe legality isn't your true reason for opposing them.

mattlutze 11y ago
>> Eyewitnesses are generally pretty terrible at providing a true and accurate accounting of specific details in a sudden situation. For many reasons, informants can be misinformed, confused, incorrect, malicious. > I'm aware of the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony, but that's not relevant in this case. The tip came from a known confidential informant, not a random person. Many informants provide information all the time about crimes. Accuracy and reliability of informant reporting is always an issue for police. Again, that's why they have procedures dictating how they have to verify information, etc. The article says only "confidential informant," so you may have misread and assigned more value to the informant's report than you otherwise would have, which is understandable. > Yes, this was bad police work The issue here isn't "bad" police work as much as it's "warrant-less search and seizure." So, possibly illegal police work. They were quite competent and use tools that haven't necessarily been outlawed yet; when courts start outlawing stingrays, then its incompetence. > Now for a thought experiment: If I leave evidence at the scene of a crime, it's understood to be within the law for the police to collect it and analyze it. Fingerprints, body fluids, electronic devices, all fair game. I have no reasonable expectation of privacy if I've left stuff at a crime scene. This is not that. This is if the police didn't need a warrant to enter your house and collect fingerprint/other samples, for the purpose of determining if you may have been involved in a crime in the past. That's a violation of your right of the people to be secure in your person, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. In a similar way, the courts need to decide if it's also a violation when police, without a warrant, sett a wiretrap to spoof a cell phone tower with the intent of discovering a person's location or other personal information from a person's private electronic devices. It's held to be the case that a wiretap cannot be placed without a warrant. It is reasonable to extend that logic to the automatic/unintentional/"unconscious" communication a person's cell phone does with the cellular network, to say nothing about using that stingray to capture actual explicit communications made by the person over that network. I do get where you're coming from; I just don't agree that the argument you've laid out is sufficient to subjugate a constitutionally dictated right. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the federal courts and in congress.
- merpnderp 11y ago