Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by SuperNinKenDo 792 days ago
I disagree with this idea myself. I believe that any compelled action that leads to your incrimination should be considered being a witness against yourself. I realise this isn't the established caselaw, and I already have some obvious potential reasons bubbling up in my mind as to why. For instance how can you give someone a breathalyser test if they refuse? It defnitely creates problems.

That said, I think bigger problems with this standard are coming down the line eventually.

1 comments

"any compelled action" would also preclude giving ID at a traffic stop. Maybe even stopping for police at all. A line needs to be drawn somewhere, and I think it must be a balancing of the various interests rather than a hard and fast rule. For example privacy vs successfully convicting wrongdoers vs preventing convicting the innocent vs preventing abuse of power vs public safety etc etc.