What are the rules of engagement when it comes to interacting with the police? If you want to play it safe, comply and do whatever a police officer tells you to do. Keep in mind, however, that this is not a fail-safe plan, especially not in an age where police officers tend to shoot first and ask questions later. If compliance isn’t quite your cup of tea—and we’d be far better off as a nation if we were far less compliant—then you’ve got a few more options ranging from legal-but-sure-to-annoy-an-officer to legal-but-it-could-get-you-arrested all the way to legal-but-it-could-get-you-shot. To begin with, Americans need to know their rights when it comes to interactions with the police, bearing in mind that many law enforcement officials are largely ignorant of the law themselves: You have the right under the First Amendment to ask questions and express yourself. You have the right under the Fourth Amendment to not have your person or your property searched by police or any government agent unless they have a search warrant authorizing them to do so. You have the right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent and not incriminate yourself. You have the right under the Sixth Amendment to request an attorney. Depending on which state you live in and whether your encounter with police is consensual, you may have the right to refuse to identify yourself. You should always clarify whether or not you are being detained, i.e., whether you have the right to walk away. If you feel like you can’t walk away from a police encounter of your own volition—and more often than not you can’t, especially when you’re being confronted by someone armed to the hilt with all manner of militarized weaponry and gear—then for all intents and purposes, you’re essentially under arrest from the moment a cop stops you. Knowing your rights is only part of the battle, unfortunately. The hard part comes in when you have to exercise those rights in order to hold government officials accountable to respecting those rights. Clearly, the language of freedom is no longer the common tongue spoken by the citizenry and their government. With the government having shifted into a language of force, “we the people” have been reduced to suspects in a surveillance state, criminals in a police state, and enemy combatants in a military empire. In such an environment, there is always a price to be paid for challenging the status quo. Then again, the price for not challenging the status quo is even worse: outright tyranny, the loss of our freedoms, and a totalitarian regime the likes of which the world has never seen before.—John W. Whitehead, author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 23:10:17 +0000
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