Because of the Fifth Amendment, no one in the U.S. may legally be forced to testify against himself, and because of the Fourth Amendment, no one’s records or belongings may legally be searched or seized without just cause. However, American police are trained to use methods of deception, intimidation and manipulation to circumvent these restrictions. In other words, cops routinely break the law—in letter and in spirit—in the name of enforcing the law. Several examples of this are widely known, if not widely understood.
1) “Do you know why I stopped you?” Cops ask this, not because they want to have a friendly chat, but because they want you to incriminate yourself. They are hoping you will “voluntarily” confess to having broken the law, whether it was something they had already noticed or not. You may think you are apologizing, or explaining, or even making excuses, but from the cop’s perspective, you are confessing. He is not there to serve you; he is there fishing for an excuse to fine or arrest you. In asking you the familiar question, he is essentially asking you what crime you just committed. And he will do this without giving you any “Miranda” warning, in an effort to trick you into testifying against yourself.
2) “Do you have something to hide?” Police often talk as if you need a good reason for not answering whatever questions they ask, or for not consenting to a warrantless search of your person, your car, or even your home. The ridiculous implication is that if you haven’t committed a crime, you should be happy to be subjected to random interrogations and searches. This turns the concept of due process on its head, as the cop tries to put the burden on you to prove your innocence, while implying that your failure to “cooperate” with random harassment must be evidence of guilt.
3) “Cooperating will make things easier on you.” The logical converse of this statement implies that refusing to answer questions and refusing to consent to a search will make things more difficult for you. In other words, you will be punished if you exercise your rights. Of course, if they coerce you into giving them a reason to fine or arrest you, they will claim that you “voluntarily” answered questions and “consented” to a search, and will pretend there was no veiled threat of what they might do to you if you did not willingly “cooperate.” (Such tactics are also used by prosecutors and judges via the procedure of “plea-bargaining,” whereby someone accused of a crime is essentially told that if he confesses guilt—thus relieving the government of having to present evidence or prove anything—then his suffering will be reduced. In fact, “plea bargaining” is illegal in many countries precisely because it basically constitutes coerced confessions.)
4) “We’ll just get a warrant.” Cops may try to persuade you to “consent” to a search by claiming that they could easily just go get a warrant if you don’t consent. This is just another ploy to intimidate people into surrendering their rights, with the implication again being that whoever inconveniences the police by requiring them to go through the process of getting a warrant will receive worse treatment than one who “cooperates.” But by definition, one who is threatened or intimidated into “consenting” has not truly consented to anything.
5.) We have someone who will testify against you Police “informants” are often individuals whose own legal troubles have put them in a position where they can be used by the police to circumvent and undermine the constitutional rights of others. For example, once the police have something to hold over one individual, they can then bully that individual into giving false, anonymous testimony which can be used to obtain search warrants to use against others. Even if the informant gets caught lying, the police can say they didn’t know, making this tactic cowardly and illegal, but also very effective at getting around constitutional restrictions.
6) “We can hold you for 72 hours without charging you.” Based only on claimed suspicion, even without enough evidence or other probable cause to charge you with a crime, the police can kidnap you—or threaten to kidnap you—and use that to persuade you to confess to some relatively minor offense. Using this tactic, which borders on being torture, police can obtain confessions they know to be false, from people whose only concern, then and there, is to be released.
7) “I’m going to search you for my own safety.” Using so-called “Terry frisks” (named after the Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1), police can carry out certain limited searches, without any warrant or probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, under the guise of checking for weapons. By simply asserting that someone might have a weapon, police can disregard and circumvent the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches.
U.S. courts have gone back and forth in deciding how often, and in what circumstances, tactics like those mentioned above are acceptable. And of course, police continually go far beyond anything the courts have declared to be “legal” anyway. But aside from nitpicking legal technicalities, both coerced confessions and unreasonable searches are still unconstitutional, and therefore “illegal,” regardless of the rationale or excuses used to try to justify them. Yet, all too often, cops show that to them, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments—and any other restrictions on their power—are simply technical inconveniences for them to try to get around. In other words, they will break the law whenever they can get away with it if it serves their own agenda and power, and they will ironically insist that they need to do that in order to catch “law-breakers” (the kind who don’t wear badges).
Of course, if the above tactics fail, police can simply bully people into confessing—falsely or truthfully—and/or carry out unconstitutional searches, knowing that the likelihood of cops having to face any punishment for doing so is extremely low. Usually all that happens, even when a search was unquestionably and obviously illegal, or when a confession was clearly coerced, is that any evidence obtained from the illegal search or forced confession is excluded from being allowed at trial. Of course, if there is no trial—either because the person plea-bargains or because there was no evidence and no crime—the “exclusionary rule” creates no deterrent at all. The police can, and do, routinely break the law and violate individual rights, knowing that there will be no adverse repercussions for them having done so.
Likewise, the police can lie under oath, plant evidence, falsely charge people with “resisting arrest” or “assaulting an officer,” and commit other blatantly illegal acts, knowing full well that their fellow gang members—officers, prosecutors and judges—will almost never hold them accountable for their crimes. Even much of the general public still presumes innocence when it comes to cops accused of wrong-doing, while presuming guilt when the cops accuse someone else of wrong-doing. But this is gradually changing, as the amount of video evidence showing the true nature of the “Street Gang in Blue” becomes too much even for many police-apologists to ignore.
One of the biggest realizations with dealing with cops for me was the fact that they CAN lie, they are 100% legally entitled to lie, and they WILL whether you’re a victim of crime, accused of committing a crime or anything else
Everyone needs to reblog this, it could save a life.
FACT CHECK: Are People Adopting Pit Bull Terriers for the Sole Purpose of Euthanizing Them?
The #PitbullDropOff hashtag and related claims of mass dog killing stem from a sophomoric troll attempt with origins in 4chan.
CLAIM:
People are adopting pit bulls with the express goal of euthanizing them,
and then bragging about it on the Internet with the hashtag
#PitbullDropOff.
RATING:
ORIGIN:
In mid-May 2018, the hashtag #PitbullDropOff began to gain traction on
social media. A typical post involves a picture of cute pit bull
terrier-type puppies, and a message that the person who took the picture
adopted them for the express purpose of euthanizing them to get them
off the streets. This post from “muffs-o-matic” is representative of most:
These posts are fabricated; they are part of a juvenile attempt to
provoke anger and outrage on the internet, and are specifically directed
at “naive pitmommies and various other low IQ individuals.” They have
their origins not in reality, but in the callow minds of the festering
racist, misogynistic, and nihilistic world that is 4chan — an anonymous
message board that unites trolls, “incels,” and neo-Nazis together in
their shared contempt for human decency.
A 13 May 2018 anonymous post
found in that website’s most infamous board (/pol/) presents an update
on their campaign, and also how you — assuming, of course, that you are a
troll — can get involved in the game:
Indeed, as many have pointed out on Reddit,
most of the photos shared on Twitter and Facebook with the
#PitBullDropOff hashtag include images that can easily be found on
reverse image search as having nothing to do with #PitbullDropOff, and
which predate the hashtag by years. The image that appears in the post
by “muffs-o-matic,” for example, can be found in a February 2017 list of
cute puppies on The Chive.
This tweet, from a burner account clearly created solely for the #PitbullDropOff troll, contains a picture of a sad dog that is at least as old as December 2011:
Outside the smug satisfaction of feeling smarter than the people they
have trolled, the underlying motivations for the hashtag fall clearly
into the political ideology
of the /pol/ message board, which has coagulated over time into a
simple philosophy: Women, liberals, and minorities are destroying
America. Here’s a sampling of some of the comments in the thread:
The anonymous trolls also suggest that pit bull-type dogs are almost
always owned by ethnic minorities, and are thus aggressive and
unfriendly — a racial stereotype that has long motivated anti-pit bull movements:
While we cannot speak to the broader claim that some terrible human
beings have adopted dogs for the purpose of putting them down, we can
say with confidence that the current viral #PitbullDropOff trend on
social media is a hoax orchestrated by anonymous hoaxsters using
unrelated photographs, fake context, and a characteristic reliance on
racism and misogyny. Don’t feed the trolls.
#GrowingUpUgly
When guys in middle school would get dared by their friends to ask you out and see if you say yes as a joke
How about growingupugly and then turning out sort of okay looking but you don’t know for sure because your self esteem is shot and you’re convinced you look awful?
#GrowingUpUgly Being so wholly convinced of your hideousness that as an adult you now literally cannot even imagine that someone would pay you a compliment and mean it; the only conceivable thing that could be happening is that they’re either a) taking the piss like the boys in school used to or b) so repulsed by you that they feel sorry for you and are telling you you’re pretty because they think you need to hear it.
Hurts how true this is though
I don’t know if this helps, but I’d like to say it anyway just in case it does.
None of you were ugly.
The other day I found a class picture from fourth grade and I looked everyone in it, and then I saw the “ugly girl” – the one people constantly harassed, whose desk kids would pretend was contaminated, the one kids would invent complex songs about just to voice their disgust toward her.
And she looked like a normal little girl.
She looked no different than the rest of the class.
She was never ugly. And I know that you may be thinking to yourself “but I WAS ugly” – I just want you to consider for a moment that maybe you weren’t.
Maybe you were tormented by your peers for no reason except that they were experimenting with and learning the rules of callous human cruelty that would define the rest of their lives – and recognizing this, the adults who should have protected you, let it happen. Cruelty and social shaming – the foundations of how human beings police their society is learned and it is practiced.
Since I’ve become an adult, I don’t recall ever seeing an “ugly” kid. Kids are all just strange-looking works in progress that the artist seems to have abandoned intending to finish them later.
I want you to think about our racist and unhealthy “standards of beauty”. Are any of the things that society fixates on as “ugly” truly ugly? No. We take things that are beautiful and we associate them with ugliness and badness and coarseness – to control them – to batter the will of the already oppressed down to the point where they think the abuse they receive is justified.
The children who demeaned you were learning to crush the human spirit to the point where the target internalizes all that hate and keeps hating themselves even when the bullies are no longer there. Those children were learning the sadism that defines our social hierarchy – we live in a culture where success is achieved through exploiting others.
No one deserves to be treated that way. LGBT children shouldn’t grow up ashamed of themselves. Black children shouldn’t grow up thinking white children are inherently prettier.
You were not ugly. You were told you were ugly so that people could have an “excuse” to target you, to ostracize you, to other you, and to abuse you.
An “ugly child” wouldn’t know they were ugly until someone TOLD them they were. They don’t grow up ugly, they grow up emotionally abused.
And still if you feel that you were the exception and you were objectively and unquestionably so ugly as a child that everyone noticed – even if you feel you are still that ugly now…
That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve love. It doesn’t mean you won’t find love, and trust and happiness.
You are worthy of respect. You have worth. You have value.
And if the rest of the world doesn’t seem to notice your worth – look at the evil and vile things the world does value and count yourself lucky not to be among that number.
There are people who will see your worth. There are people who will look at you and not see “ugliness” – they will see a friend, a mentor, a hero and even, yes, a lover.
If no one else says it today, and even if you can’t say it yourself, I would like to tell you that you are not ugly. That you were not ugly. That you did nothing wrong. That you did not deserve to be treated the way that you have been and that you deserve happiness and love and respect. And you will find it.
I was about to reblog this and add at the end that I thought I was the ugly kid but I looked back at pictures of myself and was like “I was never ugly????” And also kids suck. Thanks for the addition, poster before me.
This is one of those things that I already knew was true, but seeing it so blatantly displayed makes me feel like like I am finding out about it for the first time.
CIA is getting lazy
O.o
It is really creepy how they all have the same freaking script
What the fuck
Bless who ever put this together
this is extremely dangerous to our democracy
sinclair broadcast group is a danger to journalism and to our democracy
For anyone curious:
Sinclair Broadcasting is a parent corporation that owns a multitude of local news stations in markets across the United States. They’ve been on people’s radar since about 2004 (http://archive.pressthink.org/2004/11/16/snclr_vision.html), but became part of the wider social conversation following a John Oliver piece in summer 2017 (https://youtu.be/GvtNyOzGogc) and subsequent coverage. Then, in spring 2018, the above video went viral.
While it’s important for people to understand that this is happening and why it’s bad (which I believe the above video makes pretty clear), a lot of people are taking it out on the reporters and news directors, not Sinclair or the FCC.
Understand this: these people either don’t have a choice, or have a very complicated one, to which there is no right answer.
If there is an option, it’s to refuse/quit, meaning they lose the ability to reach their audience with GOOD stories, ones that aren’t scripted by Sinclair. If they refuse or leave, they lose their position to fight back from the inside.
Beyond that, though, a lot of people don’t reasonably have the choice to leave. As a reporter for the LA Times discovered (https://twitter.com/mattdpearce/status/980800914423406592?s=19), a lot of reporters employed by a Sinclair station are financially stuck.
Additionally, Sinclair is working to acquire Tribune Media. From the FCC website:
“The Applicants claim that under the proposed transaction, the combined company would reach 72 percent of U.S. television households and would own and operate the largest number of broadcast television stations of any station group.
The Applicants state that in twelve Nielsen Designated Market Areas (“DMAs”) Sinclair and Tribune each own a full-power broadcast television station; that in ten of those markets, current FCC regulations do not allow Sinclair to hold both licenses. The Applicants also state that the combined company would have a national audience reach in excess of the FCC’s current regulations but that they intend to take such actions as are necessary to comply with the Commission’s rules to obtain FCC approval of the applications.“
Under the Trump administration and an FCC headed the man who killed net neutrality, the Sinclair-Tribune merger is extremely likely to happen.
Don’t let it.
Journalism is vital to democracy. I don’t care how fun it is to shit on mainstream media and journalists, you need them. Journalists are the Fourth Estate, the Watchdog.
Journalists broke Watergate. Journalists broke the that Big Tobacco had on society. Journalists are keeping Russia relevant, while calling Trump on his bullshit.
Journalists are the last line defense in a broken democracy.
That’s why dictators always go after them. That’s why Russia and North Korea have state television. That’s why Erdogan went after journalists after the failed “coup” attempt in 2016 that paved the way for his total takeover. That’s why Trump constantly tries to undermine the media.
They all know the power of journalists. Journalists can’t be controlled by regular means, like Congress and the courts, which is why they’re such a threat.
So I dunno how many people know this but if you go to burgerking and order anything at all off the menu, even just a drink, you get two little surveys on the back of the receipt
Each survey can get you a free whopper burger or a chicken sandwich with the purchase of any drink (even the $1 drink)
Just fill out the survey and get the code and write it on the back.
If you are short on money and really need a substantial meal, you can keep doing this cycle of getting receipts and free sandwiches for as long as you like
Idk I thought this might help people who are hard up for cash. This works in the US.
reblog 2 save a hungry tummy maybe?
these surveys actually saved me as a child growing up with a neglectful, mentally ill mother. shout out 2 every hood burger king
IF YOU NEED TO CALL 911 BUT ARE SCARED TO BECAUSE OF SOMEONE IN THE ROOM, dial and ask for a pepperoni pizza. They will ask if you know you’re calling 911. Say yes, and continue pretending you’re making an order. They’ll ask if there’s someone in the room.
You can ask how long it will take for the pizza to get to you, and they will tell you how far away a dispatcher is.
My flat-mate’s date for the night was almost as drunk as her. She had passed out in her room and locked the door. He refused to leave because he wanted to have sex. He also demanded food because he was dealing with “whiskey dick”. He didn’t like the lack of food in the fridge. I called 911, did the stuff stated above, and he was getting PISSED about how long the “order” was taking. He took my phone, demanded they “hurry the fuck up”. Police arrived two minutes later, arrested him, and helped me file a police report. Pressing charges wasn’t necessary because he had warrants on him from THREE different states for the very thing he planned to do to me. Several months after this happened one of the officers informed me he was charged with two felonies because he crossed stay lines, and will be serving no less than 35 years in prison. The officer ripped into my flat-mate about her bringing home complete strangers, while drunk, knowing full well this shit could happen.
This was 14 years ago.
Do the pizza order, do it as calmly as you can. The dispatcher I spoke to said things like this:
“If he’s drunk say you want mushrooms.” I said I want extra mushrooms.
“If he’s threatening you with sexual assault say you want onions.” I said I want onions.
She went like this with different toppings and sauces for a description of him, like pineapple if he’s blonde, black olives if he’s tall, extra large if he’s tall, etc.
They’ve heard this sort of coded call before. They’re trained for it. They will understand what you’re saying. Order the pizza.
Really though. I’m in training for dispatch and this was one of the first things they taught us. Pretend you’re talking to a friend or relative, pretend you’re ordering pizza, we’ll figure it out. We’ll word questions so you can answer in an easy, casual way. Please, just make the call and we will do everything we can to help you.
Sometimes I just ignore anon hate because theres a proverb I learnt in a Nigerian movie that said.
‘You cannot run naked after a mad man in the street after he has taken your clothes away from you because the public will not know who is the mad person between the two of you’
I feel like this proverb was based on firsthand experience.
we americans have a similar proverb: “don’t mud wrestle a pig. you both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
“Don’t try to play chess with a pigeon. It’ll knock the pieces everywhere, shit on the board, and act like it’s won.”
Korean proverb: “Walk around poop because it’s dirty, not because it’s to be afraid of.”
In German: “When you’re up to your chin in shit is the worst time to hang your head”
alternatively titled, “how to be a decent human being to people who are suffering enough as it is to help your supposedly entitled ass”
1.get off your cell phone. – cashiers ( not to mention the people patiently waiting in line ) don’t need to hear about how little Kelsey’s doing on the soccer team, or how your mother-in-law is coming into town for her birthday and you’re just SO INCONVENIENCED by having to purchase paper plates and cheap napkins before her arrival. just tell them you’ll call them back when you’re done. – if you can’t be assed to think about other people, at least acknowledge the cashier with a smile or a wave. if they speak to you or ask you a question, don’t shush them. tell your BFF Tanisha to hold on for what might be a total of four seconds.
2. when an item doesn’t immediately scan, please say anything but “oh, it must be free!” please, dear god, anything but that. you’re not being funny. or clever. or original. they hear this at least ten times a day.
3. the number of items listed on the express lane is not a suggestion. if you know that you have more items, don’t go there. it’s that simple. the express lanes have to be kept open for people who have small orders, so they’re not stuck behind someone with a cart piled high with what’s maybe a week’s worth of food and clothes you’ll inevitably be returning.
4. while unloading your cart, put the big items ( i.e., packages of toilet paper, crates of water bottles ) last. there’s very little room for the cashiers to work with. when you’re done unloading your cart, pull it up to the loading space and start putting the bags and other items into your cart instead of standing there and staring off into space or fiddling with your phone.
5. when you ask a cashier a store-related question ( i.e., how many coupons are allowed per order, whether or not you’re getting the right BOGO deal, etc. ), and they answer you politely and confidently, don’t challenge them. they work there. you don’t. they know the way the store works. you don’t. if they’ve forgotten something or made a mistake, by all means, ask them about it – but do it politely. we all make mistakes.
6. do not – i repeat, do not – put your money down on the counter or conveyor belt, especially if the cashier is visibly ready to take it. hand it over to them. if you need to count out some change, tell themso they can wait. oh, and if they’ve already cashed you out, don’t hand over some random amount of change after the drawer’s open.
7. if your card’s declined, it’s not their fault. don’t ask them why it wasn’t accepted. they don’t know. and don’t get angry or impatient with them, or insist you have money because you just deposited a check – they do not care. they cannot help you with problems that are clearly on your end.
8. do not yell at a cashier. once again, for the people in the back: do not yell at a cashier, especially someone who’s clearly new to the job. would you appreciate being yelled at for something beyond your control, or a simple, fixable mistake? no. so don’t do it to them.
9. if you get an answer you don’t like from a cashier and ask to speak to a manager, guess what? you’re most likely gonna get the same answer from them. here’s a news flash: the customer is not always right, the company will not always pander to your temper tantrums, and making a scene in front of a line of people with quickly-diminishing patience will not change their minds.
10. overall, please just be polite. these people are working their asses off to help their customers, most of which don’t appreciate their efforts at all. they’re constantly ignored, mistreated, questioned and degraded, and over time, it really does a number on their emotional state. just be kind and courteous. they’re human beings, not mindless drones. smiles and nice conversations go a long way.
if anyone else has anything to add, feel free. floor associates, back room / production workers – go crazy. share your woes and pet peeves.
CaptainBubblebath 