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Thanks, I missed that link somehow. But I think he's wrong about this: > 5. Politeness Would Make No Difference. That's not true at all in my experience. Afte

• ghshephard 16y ago
  In order to be polite, you have to speak. The instant you start speaking, anything you say can be held against you in a court of law. His primary position is that in speaking, you've instantly jeopardized yourself and set yourself up for criminal charges. He is a lawyer - and shows how even answering the question "Business or Pleasure" - sets you up for a large number of criminal charges - REGARDLESS of whether you tried your best to answer them honestly. It's basically the same position you should always take with a police offer who is trolling (as opposed to performing actual police work) - Always refuse to answer anything but the most basic questions such as your identity, always (always) refuse to consent to a search.
  • houseabsolute 16y ago
    I highly doubt that any speech that's part of a one sentence explanation of your civil rights is going to land up working against you in court. The odds of that are lost in the noise of the odds that the officer will fabricate evidence against you, including spoken declarations you never actually spoke. It's possible, but extremely unlikely.
  • viraptor 16y ago
    > In order to be polite, you have to speak. [...] anything you say can be held against you in a court of law. I think this is going a bit too far. Can you come up with any reasonable way that "Hello, how are you?" and a smile can be used against you? This way you're polite. If this could be used against you in some way, why would you believe that any laws or rules would be obeyed? On the other hand "None of your business" can be used against you. Saying that, you're being unreasonably aggressive in your conversation.
    • ghshephard 16y ago
      The author is a lawyer and states that ""None of your business" is a legally safe response, and does not open you up to criminal charges. Can you walk us through how you believe you might have violated a criminal statute with that specific answer? With that said, "Hello, how are you" sounds fine (to me). But "Business or Pleasure" is a question that is fraught with legal peril.
      • tptacek 16y ago
        It is fraught with theoretical peril in this guy's exposition, but I haven't seen any evidence that it's actually fraught with any practical peril. Many millions of citizens are asked this question every year, but "business or pleasure" does not appear to be a significant vector for criminal convictions the US. This notion that answering "just visiting" to that question is some kind of pernicious legal tripwire seems like a fantasy, especially considering the fact that the border police can search you without provocation or cause if they really want mess with you.
        • thaumaturgy 16y ago
          You are one of a fairly small number of people worldwide who can be considered to be experts in computer security, yet you keep admitting here that this guy's approach is theoretically valid, and you just have a problem with it practically. I really don't understand that. How is that not like my saying, "Well, sure, theoretically I should be hashing the passwords in my database, but practically speaking we can't expect that it's going to matter anyway."?
          • tptacek 16y ago
            (I upvoted you). You are making an allusion to the perennial controversy over "theoretical" vs. "practical" vulnerabilities in my field. That's an interesting point, but unfortunately not a valid one. In security, "theoretical" vs. "practical" is a fig leaf used (mostly) by vendors to avoid facing up to their responsibilities after having shipped flawed products. Calling something "theoretical" shields people from culpability, mostly in public relations, but clearly isn't actually an assessment of the real-world impact of most vulnerabilities. It's spin. But the fact that the words "theoretical" and "practical" can be used as spin doesn't mean the concepts of "theory" and "practice" are inherently spin; the reality is quite the opposite. Outside of computer security, we'd be well advised to use those words more; our adhesion to the notion that all theoretical threats are practical is probably a major component of the "security theater" trend that has us all getting electronically strip searched in airports.
  • wccrawford 16y ago
    Actually, wasn't there a case recently where someone refused to speak, but because he didn't say that he refused to speak, the judge ruled that he had not exercised his right to remain quiet? Yeah, it really was that stupid. Because he had not specifically stated that he was using that right, they kept badgering him. The judge declared it legal since he didn't protest it at the time.
    • thaumaturgy 16y ago
      Yes. "And finally, the court's conservatives used their 5-4 advantage to rule that suspects must break their silence and tell police they are going to remain quiet if they want to invoke their "right to remain silent" and stop an interrogation, just as they must tell police that they want a lawyer." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100802/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_miranda http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100802/ap_on_go_su_co/us_suprem...
      • tptacek 16y ago
        Apropos nothing, how seriously can you take a news story that uses the words "the court's conservatives used their 5-4 advantage to rule..."? Wow, that's bad writing.
        • sdp 16y ago
          How so?
        • thaumaturgy 16y ago
          Yeah, I agree there. That was seriously out-of-place and unnecessary.
          • sdp 16y ago
            If you agree, would you care to point out what is badly written about that quote?
      • jacoblyles 16y ago
  • tptacek 16y ago
    This is one of those libertarian "25 laws you break in the process of squeezing your own orange juice in the morning" principles that is fun to argue about but not very useful in the real world. The reality is that while personality flaws and broken power dynamics may (but almost certainly won't) cause border police to charge you with some crime if you misstate "business or pleasure", absent any demonstrable intent of comitting a crime, you're unlikely to see the inside of a courtroom on such a charge, let alone be convicted. For instance, in the original post: saying you were in Antwerp for pleasure isn't going to get you a "Bureau of Prisons Number" without the satchel of smuggled diamonds. I don't want to be misconstrued here; I'm glad we have crazy douchebags like this guy to stand up for our rights to refuse to answer questions, especially dragnet-style questions explicitly intended to trip criminals (and whatever collateral innocents come with them) up at the border. But having said that, there's an element of the social contract at play here. The exact same logic this guy is using suggests that he also shouldn't answer the questions of police investigating crimes in his neighborhood. "Have you seen this man? We think he just shot up your neighbor's car." Our society doesn't work if the police get absolute authority over us, and our protections against authoritarianism will degrade if people like this guy don't occasionally stand up for them. But society also won't work if everyone routinely refuses to cooperate with the police, who are dependent on our support to get the important stuff in their charter done. I highly recommend "Cop in the Hood", a sociologist's writeup of a year spent as a Baltimore East Side patrol cop, for insight into all the crazy dynamics at play here.
    • alexyim 16y ago
      > But having said that, there's an element of the social contract at play here. The exact same logic this guy is using suggests that he also shouldn't answer the questions of police investigating crimes in his neighborhood. "Have you seen this man? We think he just shot up your neighbor's car." I believe this is different. In this case, true, you have no legal obligation to answer a cop's questions when he is investigating a crime. But I do think you may possibly have a moral obligation and answering his questions is part of your civic duty. However, I don't really see any such obligation here when they are treating you as the suspect. There is no concrete reason for them to suspect you in the first place, other than their blind, blanket suspicion of everyone.
  • bmelton 16y ago
    A friend of mine, who I will not name, used to get pulled over a lot, for a variety of reasons (often deserved). This happened often enough, and his lawyer always advised him to not say a word, but especially when he'd been drinking, the act of getting him to talk long enough to say that he was invoking his right to silence would usually reveal that he'd been drinking. To mitigate it, he printed a laminate card, that he kept in his wallet, which very respectfully and politely invoked his right to silence. When pulled over, he would simply remove the card from his wallet and hand it to the officer. I don't know that it ever got him into or out of any trouble, but at least he had a routine, and it prevented him from talking unnecessarily. Perhaps the author could have made use of something like this?
    • ars 16y ago
      Considering he'd been drinking, I would have preferred that he'd be caught. In the real world behavior like that causes police to treat "refusal to talk" as "guilty". Stories like this post are very far from the norm.
      • bmelton 16y ago
        If I'm being perfectly honest, it wouldn't have surprised anyone if at any time he had to spend the rest of his life in jail. He's not someone I was ever particularly proud of knowing, and in fact, the only impressive thing about him, ever, was that he carried that card around.
• houseabsolute 16y ago
  The point is that politeness reminds the officer that you're a human being, like them, not the statistic that the author speaks of. On the other hand, if someone was rude to me and I were a cbp officer, I would certainly go the extra mile to stick it to them.
  • thaumaturgy 16y ago
    > ...if someone was rude to me and I were a cbp officer, I would certainly go the extra mile to stick it to them. Precisely why you -- and most people -- shouldn't hold positions of authority over others.
    • houseabsolute 16y ago
      Undoubtedly this is true, but it's also undoubtedly impractical. Check this out, it's even worse than you think: I'm not someone who really hungers for authority. I don't seek it out. Some people do, and I'd guess from my interactions with them that they have even more of this unfortunate trait than I do. Even without that, I doubt there are enough qualified people in the world who are completely lacking in vindictiveness to fill the positions of authority that have formed as a result of the grand accumulation of human interaction. So, bearing that in mind, it's typically best to be polite to people who can hurt you.
      • thwarted 16y ago
        Someone who wants to hurt you is going to do it independent of if you are polite it not.
        • rntz 16y ago
          True, but someone who just wants to hurt someone is going to pick on whoever stands out.
          • houseabsolute 16y ago
• maxharris 16y ago
  > would be more pragmatic Pragmatism holds that no facts can be known with certainty in advance, and anything may be tried by rule-of-thumb (and that we can expect this method to lead us to make good decisions, learn things about the world, etc.) So when I see phrases like this, I literally think "this is what I would do if I were shooting in the dark, trying random things without any principle or reason to guide my actions".
  • maxharris 16y ago
    Instead of just voting me down, please say why you disagree with my opinion of pragmatism.
    • ars 16y ago
      Because that's not what the dictionary says? (As a side note, I did not vote you down.)
    • euccastro 16y ago
      Disagreeing with your opinion of pragmatism would be the wrong reason to vote your comment down. I voted it down because it only tries to derail the discussion to the topic of language. I would understand a clarification on the lines of "ah, but I was actually meaning this" to clarify a misunderstanding.
• furyg3 16y ago
  I like responding with questions (or completely off topic statements) in a polite manner. This way police think that you're being cooperative and chatty, as well as bowing to their authority, when you're really not. "Was your trip business or pleasure?": "Is there a difference?" (with a smile, or a sarcastic sigh). "Do you know why I pulled you over?": "My friend was once pulled over and thanked for properly signaling!" (big "i'm clearly joking" smile). "Do you have anything you'd like to tell me?": "My mom always used to ask that a lot... usually when I was in trouble. Am I in trouble?" (smiling! always smiling!) This usually gets them talking back in a joking manner... or get straight to the point. Either way, you've established that you're smart and friendly, not a smart-ass. When they do get to the point, you can usually clearly state (with a smile!) "I'm afraid a lawyer friend once told me not to answer these questions when pulled over." You might get some special attention, but you probably won't be put in the naughty corner and told to "cool down".
  • jarek 16y ago
    If I was an officer and you gave me those answers (with the possible exception of the business or pleasure question), I'd be more annoyed than if you just said "no". Smart-ass is exactly the vibe I'm getting from them. I'm probably not like most police officers, though.
    • lzw 16y ago
      Only that you're probably less likely to pull him out of the car and beat him within an inch of his life, than most "officers" would to someone being sarcastic or joking.
  • AnonyFool 16y ago
    "Do you have anything you'd like to tell me? /me activates qik on Android /me tagging qik stream with #copwatch /me looking both ways, leaning forward, stage whisper I could use a blowjob
• timbre 16y ago
  That may be optimum if your goal is to get through immigration quickly and easily. Clearly that's not the authors primary goal, as he says his behavior gets him hassled, but "that’s a small price to pay to remind these thugs that their powers are limited and restricted."
• gizmomagico 16y ago
  It's true that choosing some other words besides "none of your business" would probably have helped him a little. Your point is that being perhaps even particularly polite in situations like this would reduce the potential for trouble for yourself, but the author's aim was just to make a stand. It's actually a pretty noble goal, to do that on behalf of pretty much everyone else, who would just meekly comply. I think something like "Good afternoon officer, how are you?" is even a bit excessive, although maybe it's become more like necessary when traveling in the US, which seems to be quite a police state nowadays. What was it like at airports before 9/11? Exactly what benefit does the TSA actually provide? Why can't I bring a freaking bottle of water with me at pretty much any airport in the world anymore? -Why doesn't it matter if I volunteer to take a sip of my explosive liquids in front of the guards?
  • wjy 16y ago
    All good questions, I think, except the last one. It doesn't matter if you volunteer to sip your explosive liquids because your intent is to die in the upcoming explosion anyway. Sipping them doesn't prove anything.
    • gizmomagico 16y ago
      Well, in that case they should just tackle me to the ground the instant they see me touch a water bottle. Why don't they do that? :)