They’re explicit in saying how they will use information.
It's not supposed to refer to anything that you have ever or will ever say in perpetuity...
This means that you have to be super careful when speaking to the police at all. And by super careful I meant: don't. Watch professor James Duane's videos on the topic, and Don't Talk to Police. Also, if arrested, you can't just stay quiet: since Salinas v. Texas the defendant must actually invoke their 5th amendment right to keep quiet before actually keeping quiet, otherwise their keeping quiet... can be used against them in a court of law. You'll learn that from watching professor Duane's videos.
He's trying to get you to talk. It's like: "where are you going tonight?" (if the answer is "home", then "where from?", if the answer to that is "a restaurant", then you'll get "did you have anything to drink tonight?", and if you answer "yes", then next up is "please step out of the car").
The way to deal with this is to start by asking the office why they stopped you, and then "am I being detained or am I free to go?". The officer will instantly know that you know not to answer his questions about anything other than your name and address, so now all they get to do is find violations to ticket you for -- and well they might, but it will be harder for them to find something serious.
I really hate selective enforcement. Perhaps our laws would not remain so wrong if they were enforced more routinely.
(1) It offers a check on legislative and judicial power. Consider ~2005-2018 where some states had legalized marijuana but the federal government explicitly had the power to enforce marijuana laws. Selective enforcement allows those agencies to decide to uphold states' choices.
(2) To the extent that human cognition is a necessary component of the legal system, it's cheaper and easier for everyone involved to shift some of those decisions earlier in the process, much like shifting software bugs earlier in the development process. E.g., there was a period of time midway through the 2020 lockdowns in CA where the DMV might have been trying to process your new tags for half a year, where you might have paid for those tags long before they expired, and where you were technically breaking a law by not having new tags available to display on your car just after the extended governor's order halting enforcement expired. You'll get off scot-free if you take that in front of a judge, but it's cheaper for everyone involved for the police to just not write a stupid ticket in the first place.
(3) As a practical matter, not all laws can be enforced, so some level of discretion is necessary. If every CA police officer were working 24/7 then every hour of every day they'd on average have to police 320 car-miles driven on CA roads. Moreover, every ticket they write is a similar burden inflicted on the rest of the system.
So what happened in the example traffic stop? It could be a lot of things, but some combination of (1) and (3) seems likely. The officer might have (1) determined that the >=80mph punishment in that state was excessive given the circumstances and limited the legislature's ability to use that power here and (3) decided that if the speed were slightly dropped there would be a lot less incentive to fight the ticket and use up other government resources.
It's probably also worth noting that having a person on radar still doesn't necessarily suffice. In many states a +/-5mph tolerance is allowed in a speedometer, but speeding is still illegal. I'm not sure if the intersection of those two concepts is well tested in court (e.g., does intent matter in this case?), but in practice many cops, prosecutors, and judges are more than willing to drop 5-10mph off a ticket to accommodate such things.
(1) This does not appear to be a check on power to me. Some legal (to the state) businesses were raided during this time, and they had no recourse.
(2) Is it that difficult to put a temporary law in place to codify this? Isn't that what we pay officials to do? Seems there are a lot of laws made for every single reason, when there's rich lobbyists involved...
(3) This would quickly cause both the police and citizens to lobby for laws that are both reasonable and enforceable. Both of which are good things IMO.
So I understand your points and agree they are relevant, but I don't agree with your conclusion.
The cynic in me says that the real reason for selective enforcement is so any individual can be selected as a criminal when those with the power to apply them deem it necessary.
I believe most laws should have an expiry/review date.
Better than individuals praying that random police will decide not to enforce merciless laws.
Wait, what? ...are they not tax-funded? Forgive me, it's your money, but are underfunded state troopers such a problem that there's nowhere else you'd rather put your charity?
I have friends who tell me they always donate because they are afraid of repercussions. Lately the calls are actually bots, and very good ones. I had a short conversation with one and I thought they were human, before I hung up. Next call sounded exactly like the first, so I asked "are you human?" and after asking 2-3 times I got transferred to a human and told them to take me off their list. Haven't been called since.
It should go without saying that it is not normal in a civilized society for the police to harass and intimidate random people over the telephone into giving them money - let alone automating it.
Then there's the fact that some people fear repercussions for not donating. How did they get that impression? An honest misunderstanding, no doubt...
Then there's the repeated robocalling. That would certainly harass me.
This is harassment and intimidation.
It's an open secret that the license plate frames make it much less likely to get pulled over for speeding by California Highway Patrol.
Is there a reason you think I only donate to one charity? I don’t think we need more people telling people they’re donating to the wrong charity. We need more charity.
As for how the State Troopers spend it - I would trust the paperwork.
This sounds like heavy sarcasm. Anyways, I do believe that “more charity” is a false conclusion. Not everything is charity, especially when the organizations are lobbying against others rights.
More so, when your own research shows that they use your money for various purposes, and other investigations show that most of these charities are corrupt.
You can step it back up yourself by turning the question around: by what mechanism, process, or law would your opinion of the police appear on a screen in a police car?
In my book, as far as surveillance or internet comments (etc.) information getting used at traffic stops goes, that's an extraordinary claim begging for extraordinary evidence.
Ancillary links:
Difficulty of retaining a wide spectrum of information:
https://apnews.com/article/us-news-police-lawsuits-maine-law...
Random information comes from in-office access:
https://apnews.com/699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43/ap-acros...
Basis for investigation not at traffic stops:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/when...
Maybe something more detailed can be found here:
https://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123-3493_72291-294063-...
A story about someone getting their mined information from Clearview made the front page of HN[2] last year.
It is entirely possible that such firms are running sentiment analysis on social media posts, or analyzing likes and shares, to profile suspects as "anti-police" or not.
Yes, I addressed that with my investigations link. Investigatory data, problematic or no, does not appear in cop car computers.
take a look at this video if you have a minute. dispatch explicitly warns the officer that the guy has said threatening things about police on social media. unfortunately, the encounter ends in a (very likely) unjustified shooting of an unarmed suspect.
In which case the dispatcher should be charged with murder too, just like the officer has been.
http://www.stanislaus-da.org/pdf/news/2021/press-release-202...
The "warning" was based on an "officer safety bulletin" that was issued in response to Instagram posts, which I'm willing to accept was the result of a complaint (possibly someone namesearching for "MPD," we don't know). The police actually visited and interviewed him before determining that there was no threat. The original notice was rescinded and reissued saying he wasn't a threat. I haven't been able to find more detail, but it would seem the dispatcher took it upon themselves to relay the original bulletin. :shrug: It'll come out in the transcripts.
It seems to me that--unless you have other info--the police weren't tracking people so much as acting on complaints. I think we can conclude this was not information that appeared as part of the car computer, since the dispatcher thought it necessary to add to it.
I have issues with the idea of "officer safety bulletins" based on Constitutionally-protected activities, but that's a different story.
Would be nice to be able to deduce which sources they have to get arbitrary information like that. And especially wrong information in your case.
For all we know you could be subscribed to a newsletter of an org that fights police abuse, your e-mail was leaked and somehow connected to your identity.
Does it really matter? The result of the encounter would be the same either way, whether or not favorable. The best you can do is not provide anything to confirm an unqualified suspicion.
https://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-guide-2004-edition-exemptio...
Nothing that might reveal their investigations among other things. And who decides what is covered? The police themselves...
1.)I have no idea why they think this, especially since I donate to the state troopers every year. I may cancel that subscription…
2.)WTF I live in the U.S. If this profiling doesn’t directly violate laws, it certainly violates the spirit of “All men are created equal”.
I am considering filing FOIA for video and all records pertaining to myself to find out exactly what he meant, and then writing congresscritters.
*edit spelling