[neither_color]

I don't see what's so bad about wanting to avoid an area where there's police activity going on. It has nothing to do with whether or not you're doing anything wrong, it's as simple as not wanting to get hassled at a DUI checkpoint or get stuck in traffic because they need 8 squad cars taking up a lane to k-9 search someone. As a more tan law-abiding US citizen, the possibility of some agent asking me for papers and then asking probing questions to "prove myself" anywhere that's not an airport is enough for me to want a heads up not to be in area where that might happen.

[afavour]

There's barely any point examining the app on its merits.

The mere existence of the app shows resistance to the government's attempts at establishing something approaching a police state. They are against the app for that reason. They don't really care about what it does or does not do. It could be an app where you press a button and the phone says "boo ICE" and they'd still happily claim it endangers officers lives.

(the fact that they're also able to attack independent media at the same time just makes it all the more alluring target)

[wslh]

Genuine question: is sharing the location or distribution of information about police presence illegal? I assume this would be treated differently if it involved military positions, but I'm curious about how the law applies in this case.

Waze is another example of an app where users can share information about police presence or roadblocks, while useful to some, could also be seen as having negative implications depending on the context.

[goku12]

While your question is meaningful and well intentioned, let me point out that it may be inconsequential. The legality of an action is moot when the regime ignores and defies the entire basis of those laws - the constitution. It's like trying to evaluate yourself against a standard that is no longer followed.

Instead, evaluate yourself on the basis of your standing with the regime. If they dislike you for any reason including your skin color, they will find some sort of national security threat in your actions. Or they may punish you first and then claim the inability to correct it. On the other hand if they need you, they will completely ignore your actions, including even leaking of extremely sensitive information to unauthorized individuals.

[cyanydeez]

yeah, it's more a question of "has america's justice system been reduced to arbitrary persecution of things the president or his executives deem a threat to America".

Because that's basically what's unfolding under fascism means.

[jacquesm]

That's a rhetorical question at this point.

[Jtsummers]

Only if you knew by virtue of something like access to secret information (the things you'd have a security clearance to access).

If you see the police are gathered around your local 7-Eleven, you're absolutely free to post it.

If you know in advance that the police are going to be performing a raid on a meth house and you got that information by virtue of a security clearance (I assume they do have something of this sort like federal employees have, though I'm not sure the precise mechanisms) then you'd be violating the policies around that access. This could be illegal (just like a fed leaking secret or top secret information).

If you know in advance because the police have loose lips, but you are not personally under any kind of confidentiality policy, you're free to post it. So the loose lipped cops at the bars I used to frequent could have caused real problems for themselves.

[mingus88]

Worth pointing out that the question of legality is besides the point if you are purposefully antagonizing the police state.

It’s not about legality. It’s about compliance.

If you become a target, they will arrest you and drop charges later. They will make you miss work and lose your job. They will set up surveillance on you to catch you doing anything else they want to continue harassment.

You don’t have to look hard to see reporting of officers using official databases to settle personal scores. 404 media just did a big expose on ALPR Flock DB abuses

[techdmn]

Crowd-sourced flock camera locations: https://deflock.me/

[danudey]

Honestly, they'll put you in an ICE detention facility indefinitely. They don't have to drop charges if they don't even have to charge you in the first place, and because they're all hiding behind masks there's no way for them to face any kind of repercussions.

Beyond that, Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of sending "homegrowns" to overseas concentration camps, so it won't be long now before you don't have to do anything wrong to be targetted and you don't have any recourse regardless.

[defrost]

Behold the June 11 Justice Dept Memo on wedge applications for "5. Prioritizing Denaturalization"

https://www.justice.gov/civil/media/1404046/dl

with some discussion at: DOJ Opens Door To Stripping Citizenship Over Politics - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/doj-opens-door-to-strippi...

"We can't let those (accused) commies take over New York (even if elected)"

[godelski]

IANAL

Flashing your headlights to warn others of cops or anything else is generally considered free speech. IIRC, this has been ruled on several times in pretty high courts.

So double check with a lawyer, but I'm like 99% confident there's nothing illegal about these types of Apps. I mean Waze has been doing it for years and even Google maps notifies you about speed traps.

If some new ruling makes it not free speech, we're in danger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlight_flashing

[lupusreal]

In the UK during the early era of cars, the Automobile Association used to send boys out with bicycles to warn drivers about speed traps. This was challenged in court, obstruction of justice or some such, so the AA simply inverted the scheme. The boys were now told to always salute cars to signal that everything was okay, but wouldn't salute if there was a speed trap ahead. It was reasoned that the law couldn't compel the boys to salute. Apparently they kept this up for a few decades, before eventually deciding that speed limits were generally reasonable.

[belorn]

If you drive around in EU then be aware that the law is different depending on the country. Schweiz for example do not allow to use or sell databases that has the location of speed cameras. In Germany you are not allowed to use apps that warn you of it. You are also not allowed to use your car lights to warn other drivers, but you can use hand signals. They are however allowed in other places like Belgium, Neitherlands and Spain.

Here is a list (but I can't say how accurate it is): https://lizhiguos.com/driving-aids-and-speed-camera-warnings...

[pjmlp]

As someone that lives and works on the DACH region, you just have to listen to German and Swiss radios, they do tend to point out radar spots, regardless of those laws, so dunno how they get their permissions to do so.

[notahacker]

Now you get the warning on your satnav...

[ndriscoll]

I use OsmAnd and it alerts me to pedestrian crosswalks. My wife uses google and it alerts her to speed enforcement. Interesting difference in priorities.

[bluecalm]

Idk about danger. There are countries with better functioning democracy and personal freedom than US that make it illegal to use an app that warns about speed traps. For example Switzerland. In multiple other countries you also can't flash your headlights to warn about police presence on the road.

You can have a reasonable system one way or another. I would take Swiss regulation over US one any day personally.

[account42]

Flashing headlights gets people to drive more carefully and within the speed limit, thus you are not helping someone commit a crime. However if you help someone avoid being lawfully detained this might make you complicit in their actions and the courts could very well decide differently. Intent very much matters here.

[haswell]

Using this line of reasoning, let’s imagine for a moment that a car speeding 20mph over the limit sees someone on the other side of the road flashing their lights and slows down in time to avoid a ticket.

Hasn’t the light flasher helped someone who was breaking the law avoid detection?

And isn’t the intent of the flasher to ensure that people who were breaking the law have enough time to stop doing that long enough to avoid detection?

> However if you help someone avoid being lawfully detained

Obligatory “I am not a lawyer” disclaimer, but the people who make posts on this app have no contact with the people the app ostensibly benefits. If the app helped targets of ice find willing drivers in the area to help them escape to somewhere else, that’d be one thing since there is now a direct relationship with a person and the accused and direct action on the part of the app user. But I don’t see how this app is materially different from posting speed traps or DUI checkpoints on Waze, an action that has absolutely helped people avoid lawful intervention by police.

[ndsipa_pomu]

The light flasher has merely persuaded someone to stop breaking the law. Whether or not the lights flashed, the police would not have been able to detect prior speeding, but merely detected speeding near them.

An analogy might be to have a sign in a shop warning thieves of CCTV - the purpose is to prevent theft and is not considered to be helping someone avoid detection, although it does also do that.

[account42]

Speech that indirectly results in someone committing more crime is not the same as speech that directly incites someone to commit more crime.

[cmiles74]

We’re saying that “intent very much matters here” but when we are talking about people flashing headlights to warn others of a police-manned speed trap, we focus on the effects of the action. Isn’t the intention of the person flashing their headlights (in many cases) to help people break the law? That is, people see the signal and slow down while passing the speed trap only to increase speed once past, evading detection.

This looks much the same to me as people warning those around them of ICE activity.

[zdragnar]

Nobody flashes their headlights with the intent that someone will speed up. Driving at night, you're not even able to determine whether oncoming traffic is speeding.

It is literally telling someone to obey the law, because the law is watching.

[koverstreet]

Fondly remember 20 years ago when I was doing over 100 on a highway in northern Alaska and all the _cop_ did was flash his lights at me to tell me to slow down.

Times sure are changing

[Brendinooo]

In Pennsylvania the court ruled that flashing your lights to signal isn’t illegal but it is dangerous at night. So presumably it’s fine during the day, or perhaps one could signal by turning headlights off and on instead.

[throw4565e3]

Since Waze still has their speed trap reporting feature, I’m guessing it’s still legal.

[mrbombastic]

This is now built into google maps

[dzhiurgis]

Waze in NZ removed this feature after threats from police.

If you post to local social media groups about DUI checkpoints or mobile speed cameras you’ll be scolded by about 30% of people.

[phatfish]

Pretty depressing it is only 30%.

[ghssds]

Why?

[jhy]

Because folks don't want to enable drink-drivers and speeders? Maybe they want to use their roads with some basic level of safety?

[zem]

the whole idea behind a police state is that legality doesn't matter when it conflicts with "the state wants to employ machinery to keep you in line"

[idontwantthis]

Absolutely not illegal.

[zaptheimpaler]

They literally did detain travelers who have funny meme images of the VP on their phones.

[buzzerbetrayed]

This is a perfect example of the problem with media reporting bullshit and then later correcting it. Everyone hears the bullshit, very few people hear the actual reason.

[more_corn]

Or, and hear me out on this, maybe he was ejected for funny memes and they made up the other excuse after the fact.

[thedrbrian]

they detained him for his drug use

https://x.com/CBP/status/1937651325354795444

[aigen001]

"He told the Norwegian newspaper Nordlys that he was questioned at the airport about illegal drug use.

He admitted to having used cannabis on two occasions — in Germany and in New Mexico.

- It’s legal in both places, so in my mind it was irrelevant, he said." - Nordlys

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/25/norwegian-tourist-jd-... https://www.nordlys.no/denied-entry-to-the-us-admitted-to-le...

[rsingel]

Sadly, if that were actually true that would be even f*** worse.

Oh we're not going to let tourists into our country because we asked them whether or not they'd ever smoked pot and they said yes.

We have no idea whether that's actually true or not, but if it is, that's the dumbest thing I've ever f*** heard, especially given the marijuana's legal in most states in the United States that anyone outside the US would actually want to visit

[grafmax]

> “Verbally they said it was because of extremist propaganda and narcotic paraphernalia," with "extremist propaganda" referring to the alleged meme

With the “narcotic paraphernalia” referring to “a photo of the traveler with a homemade wooden pipe” according to Mikkelson.

The official document for his rejection stated this reason:

> it appears you are attempting to engage in unauthorized employment without authorization and proper documentation

With all these conflicting accounts in mind, perhaps it is plausible that he was denied entry because of his admitted legal cannabis use on two prior occasions. Or perhaps Homeland Security indeed retaliated against a someone for possessing a JD Vance meme, then decided to lie about it.

[ashleyn]

It's not legal federally. Not that I agree with giving him shit about it, but the federal government basically considers it the same thing as fentanyl. Don't admit it on any federal application.

[cmurf]

If the existence of the app is evidence of nascent police state, what does increasing the budget of ICE by 13x suggest?

[amarcheschi]

That reinforces the idea of police state

[analognoise]

Civil war, obviously.

[Whoppertime]

We saw the government establishing something approaching a police state under COVID

[zzzeek]

> It could be an app where you press a button and the phone says "boo ICE"

oh great, stealing my idea?

[marssaxman]

Navigation apps have long been reporting police activity along with other aspects of traffic you might want to avoid.

Interacting with cops will never make your day better, so it's only sensible to avoid them if you can.

[frontfor]

> Interacting with cops will never make your day better, so it's only sensible to avoid them if you can.

This is a very nice way to put it. In investing terms, the benefits are limited but the risks are severe. With enough interactions you’re more likely to have experienced the downside.

[chrisjj]

>> will never make your day better

> the benefits are limited

So, which is it?

[jdiff]

This is a really weak gotcha. One person is stating an absolute, the other is adding nuance but largely agreeing that the nuance doesn't affect the takeaways.

[datpuz]

Consider yourself lucky that you've never had to call the cops as a victim. People forget that cops also save lives.

[acdha]

Nobody forgets that, it’s just that abuse and misconduct sour that. In many communities, people have to weigh the odds that reporting a crime will lead to more problems for them than it will help, with consequences ranging from lack of help to theft to rape or even being shot by mistake. American police departments have largely set themselves above the law, so the average person doesn’t know whether they’re getting a good cop who is genuinely trying to help them or the bad cop whose behavior has been covered up by their fellow officers for years. Anyone concerned about public opinion of police should be focused on accountability and oversight to rebuild public trust.

[AlexandrB]

Let's be real. For all their flaws, US cops are some of the least corrupt in the world. There are places where you better be ready to fork over cash every time you encounter the police.

[afavour]

> US cops are some of the least corrupt in the world

I don't think that's a good metric to judge them by (I also don't think it's true if you compare to first world countries).

Sure, third world countries have police forces that are more corrupt. But US cops are corrupt in a wide variety of ways and we should be very clear about how unacceptable that is. It doesn't matter if someone somewhere else in the world is worse.

[jvergeldedios]

I've never understood the "be happy you're not in authoritarian Russia" type of argument for papering over the shortcomings of circumstances here in the US. Like, ok? Why are we comparing ourselves to places that are worse? Shouldn't we be striving to make things better relative to our own ideals and standards?

[AlexandrB]

I can't speak for other first world countries, but Canada has its share of police misconduct. The most recent example is the mishandling of the 22-person killing spree in Nova Scotia[1], and the Toronto police are so famously bad at investigating sex crimes and protecting victims that an entire book was written on the subject[2].

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/canada-police-mistakes-novia...

[2] https://www.amazon.ca/Story-Jane-Doe-Book-About/dp/067931275...

[acdha]

If you define “corrupt” as not asking for bribes on duty, perhaps. If you use the common definition of the term to include things like being bound by the law the same as the average person, however, that’s tragically untrue. Officers routinely cover up the misconduct of their fellows and force rehiring of the few officers who are held accountable even for serious crimes.

[indymike]

We do have good police in the US.

But I'd prefer not to interact in their official capacity with them if possible because there is a non-zero chance that the specific officer I'm talking to is not one of the good ones.

I recently had a run in where I was photographing a duck on the roof of a house. A cop literally ran up to me and asked what I was doing with his hand on his gun, holster released. I was fortunate that he realized how nuts his behavior was when I pointed out that I was taking a picture of a crazy duck sitting on a chimney. I also realized that I probably would have been shot had I not been calm and polite.

[chasd00]

i'm not a cop super fan or anything but i did make it a point to wave at and get to know the officers that patrol my neighborhood. I've had them stop by when walking my dogs to let me know that they got a call about a suspicious person and to keep an eye out. Maybe it comes from working in consulting but that level of relationship with police officers is very useful to me as an individual.

[jimt1234]

This has been down-voted a lot, but I actually kinda agree, at least with the second assertion. I've been going down to Baja, Mexico frequently for years, and, as an American (white dude), you quickly learn that you're a target for local police - you're basically their ATM. And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. You just do your best to avoid them, like agents in The Matrix.

[WarOnPrivacy]

>> For all their flaws, US cops are some of the least corrupt

> I actually kinda agree,

It is my long and consistent experience (MI spouse) that the quality of police officers depends on the quality of the police chief.

We had good, experienced officers here a generation ago. A funding-addicted sheriff was elected. He fired cops w/ decades of exp and replaced them with just-graduated kids. The remaining cops were subject to some kind of dept environment that left them half-unhinged.

Addicted sheriff quit after a few terms and his replacement was pretty good for a while. Now he's average, so kind of crappy.

[watwut]

Germany, Finland, France, Sweden, Canada ... when you compare them to most corrupt states, you are not proving they are best. You are peoving they are not absolute bottom.

That being said, America is unique in officially allowing cops to kill people just because of how they feel, with no objective reason for it.

[potato3732842]

It's not that they're corrupt in the literal sense. It's that they have discretion of enforcement of laws so expansive with so many precedents in their favor that they basically have de-facto power to arrest anyone and that when they do want to do something stupid they're not "corrupt" so you can't just pay them off to be reasonable.

[9283409232]

LA Police are a literal gang. There are places with police that are corrupt in more obvious ways such as places in Africa but to say US cops are some of the least corrupt is ridiculous.

[AlexandrB]

This is a very sheltered take. Go south of the border to Mexico (you don't need to go anywhere as far as Africa) and you can experience getting pulled over for no reason by a cop looking for a payout. That's not to mention that cartels are allowed to run rampant and collect "protection" in Mexican cities because the cops either don't care, are in the cartel themselves, or are being paid off.

As I said to another commenter, "some of the least corrupt" != "not corrupt". I'm sure some countries are better, but there are not that many.

[Whoppertime]

I remember the Dorner controversy. I hoped it would force a spotlight on the LAPD and their bad behaviour. I thought wrong

[lupusreal]

Credit where credit is due, American cops are considerably less corrupt than American politicians. Most people in America would never even dream of trying to pay off a cop to get out of a speeding ticket, that sort of thing just doesn't work and everybody knows it. On the other hand, bribing local politicians to get some land rezoned for your business, or some other similar crap? That's just standard operating procedure in small towns everywhere.

[mlinhares]

Dude, I paid to have stickers and "sheriff cards" to make it less likely cops are going to stop me cos i'm a "friend of the police".

Its wild to read cops in the US are not corrupt, did people just not read modern US history? Prohibition? Civil rights? Union busting? The Pinkertons?

[korse]

Funny story about the Pinkertons if you don't already know... if you skateboard or do similar shenanigans involving parking structures or industrial wasteland, you've probably been chased by their direct descendants.

[1] https://www.securitas.com/en/newsroom/press-releases_list/se...

[FireBeyond]

> Dude, I paid to have stickers and "sheriff cards" to make it less likely cops are going to stop me cos i'm a "friend of the police".

In many states the FOP stickers and cards are almost like "registration". You get the sticker to put on your card and just like vehicle registration, a year to show you're current. The FOP will say that's just to "show your ongoing support", but it's rather hard not to see it as "are you paid up? you don't get to get a sticker ten years ago...".

Various FOPs have also sued or done eBay take downs of people selling the "year sticker".

[potato3732842]

They're not literally corrupt. There's just a huge amount of conflict of interests, bad incentives and bad behavior.

People play fast and loose with the word "corrupt" the same way they do with "conspiracy".

[AlexandrB]

"least corrupt" != "not corrupt"

What you're describing is bad but also pretty mild by international standards.

[michael1999]

If you are comparing to northern Mexico, sure. If you are comparing to northern Europe, LMAO.

With FOP stickers, "courtesy cards", placard abuse, and violent impunity, there's lots of corruption going around.

https://apnews.com/article/nypd-courtesy-card-police-miscond...

[SpicyLemonZest]

Corruption just doesn't have much to do with the kind of misconduct that comes up in the US. It's true, yes, that an American officer who's decided to mistreat you won't usually accept a bribe to stop.

[KingMob]

As someone who lives in a SEA country, I'm 100x safer with a local cop who wants a few bucks at a traffic stop than with any American cop.

[ang_cire]

If we're limiting 'corruption' to just be about bribes, then sure. Of course, in reality it also encompasses racism, nepotism, etc (i.e. anything that is a "corruption" of the impartial execution of their jobs).

I suspect many Black people would prefer paying a bribe to being killed by police at an outsize ratio, or paying a bribe to being charged more aggressively and sentenced more harshly.

Police brutality and incarceration is worse than bribes, my dude.

[chrisjj]

> Nobody forgets that

Disproven already: "Interacting with cops will never make your day better"

[dpkirchner]

First, words like always and never should be to mean nearly always and nearly never. That's just colloquial English.

Second, I doubt many victims feel like their days are better after talking with the police. Just look at the abysmal solve rates.

[chrisjj]

> First, words like always and never should be to mean nearly always and nearly never.

Good luck petitioning the dictionary! :)

[heavyset_go]

> Consider yourself lucky that you've never had to call the cops as a victim.

I have, multiple times. They don't give a shit. In my case, the only reason to reach out to them is to get documentation for insurance or to start the legal process for obtaining restraining orders through courts.

[danudey]

People forget that calling the cops as a victim also costs lives. There have been more than enough cases of someone calling in a wellness check on someone who ends up getting murdered by police instead of helped, or victims who call the police and end up getting shot or arrested by them.

The police as they are now in North America are not a good option, they're just the least worst option. You call them and they show up and you hope that they cause more problems for the offender than the victim, but that's never guaranteed.

[Rebelgecko]

I've only had to call the cops a few times, but they usually put me on hold. 50/50 if they actually do anything or just give me the law enforcement equivalent of this meme- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-aint-reading-all-that (aka "please don't file a report because it makes our metrics look bad)

[ubermonkey]

Sometimes, maybe, and increasingly rarely. I live in Texas. Ask me about Uvalde.

[marssaxman]

I have not been unusually lucky in that way, though. I can think of half a dozen occasions when the kind of people who call the cops would have done so, but I didn't, because I expected they would do no good - if they bothered to show up at all - and might well have caused a lot of harm.

[cess11]

Yeah, it's great that someone shows up three hours late and writes a worse report than you would.

[nobody9999]

>Consider yourself lucky that you've never had to call the cops as a victim. People forget that cops also save lives.

I have. Several times. In the latter two cases (burglaries at my home and my brother's home -- one in NYC and the other in the Bay Area), the police were spectacularly inept and completely useless.

In the first case, the police arrested the perpetrators more by happenstance than design, despite the fact that these kids (all except the 22 year-old ringleader were 16 or younger) had been committing similar crimes for months.

As the old saw goes, "I don't hate the police, I just feel better when they're not around."

[immibis]

I called the cops as a victim of a violent crime. They put me in handcuffs because I was the person on the scene who best fit the profile of a perpetrator, despite the actual perpetrators standing there next to me. I gave them a video and audio recording of the crime being committed. I did not get my cellphone back. Later, I went to court with the perpetrators, and their only penalty was paying me a fine which was slightly less than what I paid in legal costs.

Cops are not your friends, even as a victim; neither are lawyers or judges. Treat the whole justice system more like a Linux server with an SQL injection: amoral, and can be made to do anything you want, if you're evil and happen to know how which levers to pull and how to not get caught.

Since it's relevant here, I am a white man.

[dmkolobov]

Consider yourself lucky that you've never called the cops as a victim and then been further victimized by the police.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

I have. They showed up late and didn't do anything useful

[9283409232]

I've called cops as a victim. They were less than helpful to say the least. If anything, they were annoyed that I even bothered to ask for help.

[mindslight]

I've dealt with the cops a handful of times, with responses anywhere from unhelpful to helpful. It helps to have the right expectations - can a given situation be improved by adding some readily-aggressive dudes, who at the very least will be a little annoyed at having to be there? Sometimes, that answer is yes. Police perform a necessary function in society, and I wouldn't want to have to do that role myself (despite DIYing most other things).

But that does not justify supporting unaccountability as if its some kind of team sport! In fact, if you respect the role of the police then you must support accountability - a cop breaking the law is just a criminal acting under the color of state authority.

[scottyah]

Since we're throwing in personal experiences to shape skimmer's overall emotions on police- I had a great interaction with police after someone called a wellness check on elderly neighbors. They tried hard to assure they were safe without being invasive or annoying.

[bryanrasmussen]

I have had positive experiences with American police, but not as many as the negative experiences, and the negative where great enough to sour me on authority. In fact whenever I had a positive experience it was just so weird to have a cop not ruining your day because they had the power to do so, that it seemed surreal.

[9283409232]

You are missing the point if you think it is about shaping someones' emotions towards police. The point is that there are plenty of valid reasons to just want to avoid interactions with or areas with police.

[kevin_thibedeau]

I've been nearly killed with significant injuries caused by a repeat offender while in full compliance with the law myself and the police conspired to hide body camera evidence of a witness interview and took the side of the person who broke the law.

[cmurf]

[flagged]

[dang]

Could you please stop using HN primarily for political battle? This is not a valid use of HN, and you're well on the wrong side of the line. I had to go back a good two months before seeing anything else in your posts.

(This is not a comment on your politics. The moderation call here would be the same if you had the opposite politics, or any others.)

Edit: This has been a problem for a long time. I don't believe it's your intention to abuse HN, so I don't want to ban you, but if you don't fix this, we'll end up doing so.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43121542 (Feb 2025)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22436733 (Feb 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19972399 (May 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19715736 (April 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16758558 (April 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16749749 (April 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16457684 (Feb 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16234007 (Jan 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15849007 (Dec 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15773271 (Nov 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15484503 (Oct 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14672661 (June 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14233383 (April 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13517054 (Jan 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13515750 (Jan 2017)

[siliconc0w]

They've abducted US citizens, it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid them.

[kstrauser]

You're so right. I'm not afraid of the cops, especially not ICE flunkies, but interactions with law enforcement has never made my day more convenient and pleasant. It's not that I'd hide anything from them, as much as for me it's a bureaucratic hassle I'd just as soon not have to deal with.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know, officially, how much a multi-generation born-in-America person is actually obligated to cooperate with or answer to ICE?

[hayst4ck]

> how much a multi-generation born-in-America person is actually obligated to cooperate with or answer to ICE?

This is the wrong question. The right question is "who will hold them accountable if they violate your rights or try to punish you for lack of obedience?"

[potato3732842]

>"who will hold them accountable

Politicians looking to score brownie points with either the public or the state itself.

So basically you're SOL if you're not a more equal animal or connected to them (Skip Gates), a public persona (Whistlin Diesel), attractive woman (Karen Read, though you can argue that nobody has held the cops accountable on this one, yet) or highly sympathetic individual.

There is some argument to be made that the truth comes out eventually in these sorts of matters but that's not gonna make Breonna Taylor any less dead or the Phonesavanh's kid from being any less disabled.

I think the Floyd factor also prevents cops who are alone or in a pair from escalating stuff unnecessarily as much as they used to which is where a lot of these abuses historically come from.

[danudey]

Most elected politicians at this point are happy to repeat the same lies of "this person was arrested because they were being violent/interfering/were acting suspiciously/refused to identify themselves" even if there is multiple sources of video evidence to the contrary. Republicans in particular have no interest in the truth where it conflicts with the claims they want to make to advance their agenda, and most Democrats are too toothless to call out this misbehavior with the force and passion it deserves.

And when they do call it out, people will be told by Fox News and others that "this senator is opposed to the work ICE is doing to solve the problem of illegal immigrants", and other news agencies will say "such-and-such official says this senator is opposed to..." and the propaganda will spread and people will believe it.

[jahewson]

So there’s this thing called the judiciary…

[netsharc]

In this thread: you slowly realizing that you live in an increasingly corrupt despotic police state...

Sure you might be fine (they just harass the brown and black people), but it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.

[jkestner]

Oh yeah, those guys who came up with qualified immunity.

[hayst4ck]

OK, I don't disagree, but there is nothing that guarantees the judiciary will act constitutionally or protect people's rights, so "who will hold the judiciary accountable if they violate your rights, try to punish you for lack of obedience, or fail to hold those who violate peoples rights accountable?""

[watwut]

Pretty much all layers say judiciary is deferential to cops and prosecution to the point of absurdity.

[shermantanktop]

North Korea has a judiciary. So does Iran. So does China. They all have the rough equivalent of a Supreme Court too.

A judiciary can only function as a check on other types of power when it is allowed to do so. Merely being called by that name is not enough.

[potato3732842]

>Out of curiosity, does anyone know, officially, how much a multi-generation born-in-America person is actually obligated to cooperate with or answer to ICE?

You don't have to say anything to them without a court order but obviously they're still cops so they can screw you if you make a jerk of yourself doing it.

[bbor]

Legally speaking, they need signed arrest warrants. Being "multi-generation" (aka "clearly white"?) doesn't factor into it -- all residents are owed this protection, AFAIK. In this way, they have much less power than local PD or Sheriffs.

Practically speaking, of course, there's news stories every week about them arresting citizens, even when they're saying stuff like "please, check my wallet, my ID is in there!". I haven't followed up, but I'd be shocked if any of these incidents resulted in any sort of reparations for the victim.

As a side note, I'd be way more afraid of "flunkies" than any other type of law enforcement. Getting arrested is bad, but getting shot by someone with terrible trigger discipline and no training is worse... At best, they're especially aggressive, masked cops with absolutely zero accountability.

[kstrauser]

> Being "multi-generation" (aka "clearly white"?) doesn't factor into it -- all residents are owed this protection, AFAIK.

That's my understanding, too. I do happen to be white, but by multi-generation, I mean that I'm not a recent immigrant, nor are my parents, or theirs, so ICE doesn't have any clear power over me that I'm aware of. Similarly, the vast majority of my Black neighbors have been here for many, many years; same deal for them.

> As a side note, I'd be way more afraid of "flunkies" than any other type of law enforcement.

Same here. Being arrested for a BS reason would be quite the hassle, but it sure beats getting shot by a masked try-hard.

[davidw]

> ICE doesn't have any clear power over me that I'm aware of

They have a bunch of guys with guns. Maybe no warrants or id's or anything legal like that, but guns are probably enough.

With this latest bill, they are going to be one of the largest armed forces in the world. They'll get more money than the US Marines.

[hayst4ck]

Citizenship comes from law. Enforcers and the judiciary choose which law to enact and how to enact them. If enforcers of the "law" are more loyal to the administration than the constitution, then the law and all it's implications, such as citizenship, are up to the arbitrary whims of our new king coronated by the supreme court.

That's the problem with not defending Rule of Law. If law is arbitrary and only serves the interests of one person and isn't grounded in some greater objective truth, then it doesn't matter what is officially allowed or not. If judges and enforcers are loyalists then they get to make the call whether your lack of cooperation is obstruction of justice or not. Who is going to punish them for violating your rights? Other ICE agents? The DOJ? You might not even be given standing to fight for your rights in court.

An ICE agent may choose not to believe you are a US citizen and call your documents fake, and put you in a concentration camp or deport you to El Salvador.

As with Kilmar we saw that ICE can act without due process, and due process is what determines your citizenship status.

Trump is also openly talking about revoking the citizenship of citizens.

It's worth a reading about de-naturalization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denaturalization#Human_rights

[SpicyLemonZest]

In many states you’re required to identify yourself, but cooperation with law enforcement is otherwise never required. My sense is that ICE generally still releases citizens swiftly, and if they don’t think you’re a citizen for some reason you’re not going to win an argument about it on the spot no matter how much you cooperate.

[ljf]

And I grew up believing that America was 'land of the free'.

I've never had to prove my ID to a police-person here in the UK - once or twice they've asked me who I was, but they didn't check the answer I gave them and no ID was shown. I never carry photo ID unless I'm flying, so I wouldn't have been able to prove who I was anyway.

[netsharc]

The UK has a complicated relationship with IDs anyway, they don't have a national ID, no one's mandated to have a passport, and a driving license is also optional (only if you want to drive). The US is almost like that except that not having a driving license is an oddity there.

[ljf]

Indeed - but even if you have a license, there is no expectations to carry it when you drive. If the police request they can give you a 'Producer' which historically was where you had to attend a police station with your license and insurance documents - but they can check insurance online via ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) before they've even stopped you.

Getting into clubs as a teenager was comical - as there is no standard ID most people had 'work ID' that was just a laminated bit of paper. Or would carry a paper drivers license with no photo on it.

[knubie]

Please don't believe everything crazy leftists say online.

[immibis]

The more the government has to tell you how free you are, the less free you are.

There are zero known exceptions to this principle.

[hartator]

> anywhere that's not an airport

Why are we accepting this even at airport?

Locking the doors of the cockpit made another 9/11 close to impossible.

[wvenable]

Murdering all the passengers made another 9/11 impossible -- nobody is going to sit quietly while their plane is hijacked anymore.

[hayst4ck]

History is filled with people who dug their own graves while a person with a gun pointed at them told them to do it.

It takes an exceptional person to act before their fate is sealed and the majority of passengers, if not all of them, will be in a state of denial or shock at the situation they are in preventing them from action. Others who might want to act, but not having been in the situation before, will think about what to do or when the right moment to act is, and the right moment will never come, especially if the hijackers can guarantee the first person who acts dies.

[wvenable]

Prior to 9/11, hijackings occurred with mild frequency and the official policy was appeasement: get the plane safely landed and then negotiate with the hijackers. In any ways, 9/11 was possible due to exploiting that particular policy.

Since 9/11 there have been attempts to disrupt planes and no shortage of people willing to tackle the person responsible.

[mh-]

As a frequent flyer who has thought about this scenario a bit, I agree with this. And I actually think that as long as the FAs kept making their inane announcements about credit cards and so forth, most pax wouldn't even notice a takeover at the front of the plane.

[crote]

You do what the person with the gun says, because you believe they'll shoot if you don't. If you believe that they will shoot and kill you regardless, following their orders is (at best) going to give you a few more agonizing minutes to live. The threat becomes meaningless.

Don't try to overpower the hijackers? You die. Try to overpower the hijackers and fail? You die. Try to overpower the hijackers and succeed? You live. It only takes one person to do the math and realize they are basically in a no-loss scenario.

[hayst4ck]

Yes, the math is the easy part, doing is the hard part. The difference between understanding and doing is large and denial, shock, rumination, and rationalization all fuel inaction and there is often a moment in which it becomes too late.

People on death marches, in concentration camps, or other similar scenarios have the same math, and yet they get gassed or forced to dig their own graves after which they are shot and buried in them.

So yes, rationally that all makes sense and we should celebrate anyone putting themselves at risk to fight for the benefit of a larger group, but reality is different, especially if the hijackers can guarantee at least one death.

To say a hijack could never happen again is wrong. The doors are a much more reasonable explanation than the courage of men.

History also gets forgotten, such as the history of secret police or mass deportation efforts as is quite clear in this thread.

[wvenable]

Airport security has rendered passengers equal. There is no imbalance of power that exists in all the examples that you provided.

[jollyllama]

I'm not arguing against anything you've said, but this isn't as popular of a sentiment as you think it is. For example, people who post information about DUI checkpoints in local social media forums are typically pilloried in comments sections.

[mariodiana]

Unless I'm mistaken, I remember some years ago the Apple Store blocked a DUI Checkpoint app. Has that changed?

[nashashmi]

ICE has quota requirements to meet. And this makes it difficult for them to meet it. They don’t want to work so hard. It is a big problem.

[insane_dreamer]

In essence it's no different from users being able to report a speed check on Apple/Google Maps

[amy214]

Speaking as a resident of the United States who does not happen to possess paperwork related to my residency, I think this ICE stuff is terrible. I do want to stay here in the US, I do have needs that require welfare for myself and my children. Food, housing, medicine, these are human rights, we all deserve them it's as simple as that. I thought the US supported human rights so that I could stay here and raise a family on the taxpayer dime because someone threatened me one time in my home country. Sadly, that is not the case, for shame.

[mschuster91]

> As a more tan law-abiding US citizen, the possibility of some agent asking me for papers and then asking probing questions to "prove myself" anywhere that's not an airport is enough for me to want a heads up not to be in area where that might happen.

No matter if you are a law-abiding citizen, the cops have too many rights to annoy people. At least in Western nations, anyone should have the right to not answer the police or any other agent of the state about what one is doing or has done without repercussions. Always remember "three felonies a day"!

In practice, we all know that if you do not do what the cop wants (or, frankly, if you have the wrong skin color), the cop finds a way to make your life difficult - from submitting one to the litany of shit they can legally do (like a full roadworthiness check of your vehicle or, if near a border, a full inspection for contraband) down to stuff that should be outright illegal (like civil forfeiture) or is actually illegal (like a lot of the current actions of ICE).

[dzhiurgis]

> not wanting to get hassled at a DUI checkpoint

We don’t get this in NZ. Waze has removed this feature after threats. I don’t like cops either, but it is super fair and logical to me.

[account42]

Reporting traffic cameras/stops is illegal in many countries but not the US. That however does not mean that reporting police activity is automatically always legal there. Similar to how taking along a hitchhiker is legal but driving a getaway car for a crime is not.

[goopypoop]

> As a more tan law-abiding US citizen

At first I misread this and thought you must be a vigilante

[account42]

Intent matters.

[bryanrasmussen]

I've considered making a similar app for Denmark's train and bus ticket checkers, but I expect it would get rule illegal and blocked.

https://www.thelocal.dk/20240529/what-happens-if-you-board-a...

[ericmay]

This is anti-social behavior and it leads to lawlessness and society sometimes having rather overbearing response to the increase (see ICE in the United States).

Paying for public services is a duty of the public. Otherwise you won’t have public services anymore. It’s morally equivalent to being a tax cheat, in my view.

[bryanrasmussen]

Yeah, sometimes people develop an antipathy to certain social structures, and then that antipathy is defined as anti-social I guess, but there's probably no amount of Jantelov you can lay on that will make them change their minds.

[soderfoo]

I went as a biljettkontrollant (Swedish ticket inspector) for Halloween—thought it’d be funny as a Yank expat.

Entering a room, I could feel the anxiety as some people instinctively grabbed their phones to buy a ticket.

[potato3732842]

That's in poor taste, but only because it cost them money.

[account42]

They should have really had a ticket in the first place though, otherwise they are stealing from all other riders who have to make up the missed cost in increased ticket prices (or from all taxpayers since public transport costs are almost always already heavily subsidized).