Re: PDAs are searchable by cops, I expect. Re: Transparency, was re: On January 28th, Criminals No Longer Another Face ...

From: Ross Finlayson (raf@tiki-lounge.com)
Date: Mon Feb 05 2001 - 12:07:53 MST


"Michael M. Butler" wrote:

> I am sure people get into fistfights with cops over their address books,
> too. I'm not advocating giving oneself up, I am merely reporting what
> has so far been held to be legal activity by cops regarding things
> analogous to PDAs as they exist today.
>
> Integrate it with your pacemaker, "organify" it, and I would expect it's
> a different deal. I already said as much.
>
> But today, in the US, once you are under arrest, police powers to search
> you and separate you from your possessions goes way up. I can't speak
> about other countries.
>

I think it is perhaps not that bad.

The police have not that many rights beyond what any other citizien has.

There is the Diallo case, I think those guilty police officers should have been judged
guilty instead of acquitted, if they are guilty, like the Central Park PD.

So, the police can't do anything except ask you questions, and use their actual senses
and judgment.

One time a bouncer at a bar started hassling me and this other guy as we walked by, he
assaulted him and then me as I was there. We were about to defend ourselves when he
declared himself an off-duty police officer, armed with a flashlight. Then he asked us
politely to move along. So, we did not assault him in self-defense and have him sent to
jail.

>
> "Ross A. Finlayson" wrote:
> >
> > The PDA might contain the citizen's life-saving medical device. Any interference
> > with personal electronics that threatens the health of the citizen is not allowed.
> >
> > Almost every single phone has a simple password of at least one letter or number.
> > If you have reason to believe that you would care to use it, then you don't have to
> > give it to anybody without a subpoena.

I see more problems not with physical search abuses, because I do not encounter them,
but rather with information search abuses. I make reasonable attempts to disallow
intruders over the network into my personal computers, for example. It is reasonable to
the point that if anyone is on there otherwise, that then they are intruding in a
probably non-legal way. The only physical search or stop that I have seen, besides
traffic violation stops, was on the highway outside of El Paso, Texas. About 17 miles
past the border is the end of the international visitation zone. So, on the Interstate,
which is one of the roads through there, there is a old weigh station made a turnoff
where each car must stop and the driver is asked if he is a U.S. citizen. The station
was manned by U.S. Border Patrol (Marshals). I said yes and asked if that was all. He
said yes. I then drove away.

So basically, the cops are searchable.

Ross



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