- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- privacy@lemmy.ml
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I’m sorry if this is a stupid question, but what is the best way to refuse to do this?
Say you’re in xyz situation and a cop demands your phone. You say no. They get angry, maybe make some threats (whether true or not), etc.
What is the best way to say no, you aren’t comfortable, come back with a warrant, without pissing them off royally in such a way that things end up worse for you?
in such a way that things end up worse for you?
IANAL. This is what they want you to think, “just do this and it’ll be better for you”. It might be a short term hassle waiting for the drug dog, or being arrested while they conduct their investigation. But long term it’s the court that matters. And the court will throw out anything obtained illegally or the cops do illegally.
Cops are not there to help you, they just want to find someone to pin a crime on. The only one that will help you is your lawyer. Stfu. Don’t talk to the police.
This. You have rights, but the police will lie, cheat, and steal their way into getting whatever they want, especially when what they want is for you to waive your rights.
When stopped by the police (in America), you say “I invoke my fifth amendment right to not answer questions and I don’t consent to any searches and seizures. Am I being detained or am I free to go?” That question starts a clock for what is a reasonable amount of time to detain you for their investigation because you’ve made it clear that you’d like to leave as soon as you’re legally allowed to.
As for any kind of force, just stay silent and unthreatening. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do, and anything you do can be used as rationalization for escalation, which they really seem to fucking love. Be polite when you do choose to speak. Obey lawful commands and let them arrest you if that’s what they’re gonna do. You don’t fight armed thugs in the street, you fight them in court. File complaints and sue when they violate your rights and cause undue harm. Swinging at them or shouting in their face is how you get shot. Let their ego win the moment and then administratively destroy their career and life later on.
I’m also not a lawyer, but this is what any half decent lawyer would tell you to do. Just shut the fuck up (but invoke your right to shut the fuck up or your silence can actually be used against you) and be as passive as possible so your lawyer has a slam dunk case getting your charges dropped and/or suing the everloving fuck out of them, hopefully nullifying their qualified immunity in the process. Nothing you do or say to the police can help you, but it sure as shit will be used against you. Even things you think are innocuous can corroborate that you’re who they’re looking for, so just shut the fuck up.
But sir, this doesn’t sound like protect and serve at all!
Courts have ruled that the police have absolutely no duty to protect and serve you. That shit is a slogan. The reality is that they exist to protect capital and serve capitalists. Cops are class traitors, punishing anybody who steals or threatens value of capital. Some cops do some good, but that isn’t and never was the real intent.
I have seen a video of police playing basketball with the community, problem solved?
I’m 99% sure that you’re kidding, but a shitload of people actually think like that. Decades of copaganda in TV and movies weren’t for nothing, and now social media is full of it. The 80s was saturated with loose cannon cops who get results and it convinced people that sometimes it’s okay to violate rights. Now it’s cops doing tiktok dances or flipping water bottles to convince people that hey, they’re regular people just like me, and well, golly gee, I’m not a fascist so how can I possibly believe that they’re fascists?
Have one involuntary interaction with a cop and your view will change. The cops primarily target brown and/or poor people, so it’s no wonder that the vast majority of thin blue line dipshits are financially comfortable honkies who’ve never had the cops target them.
Sidenote: I’ve always chuckled at the people who have both a thin blue line bumper sticker and Gadsden flag bumper stick/license plate. Basically a billboard that says “tread on those ones, officers” but they’re always the same people claiming “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!” Okay, but only because bones can’t be racist; it’s your brain that’s racist.
i absolutely am. I’m also just jaded at this point and don’t have the patience to put into words what you said. You’ve been hitting the nail on the head this whole thread.
Humans are top dog because of two things, sweat and communication.
We’re nothing without communicating, and you’re doing a killer job at communicating these issues. Keep being you, homie.
Important addition: don’t just shut the fuck up.
First, in some jurisdictions, failure to identify is an arrestable offense. Full name, date of birth, relevant cards/papers.
Second, if you need to reach for something, say something so they don’t think you’re about to pull a weapon on them. Officer safety is always a concern in the land of handing out guns like candy.
Third, explicitly state that you are exercising your fifth amendment rights. Otherwise you might run into an “I want a lawyer, dawg” situation.
Thank you!
what is the best way to refuse to do this?
try to be as white as possible.
They definitely slam white people’s heads into the ground for telling them no, too.
but black people are free practice targets to them
Not always.
If you’re not white, it is ALWAYS.
“what’s a phone?”
“I don’t know why my fingerprint isn’t working” (biometrics are disabled)
“I don’t remember my passcode” (it’s a pattern input field)
“The guy at the phone place changed it for me”
“It’s never really worked right.”
“There’s no Google on it tho.” (What does this even mean?)
“Who do you need to call anyway?”
“Can’t you just use your own phone?”
Just act like the dumbest creature on earth.
And if you’re Black - get shot for “talking back”
input the wrong password like 5 times to lock up the phone then say its muscle memory and you don’t remember the password numbers
iPhone tip to require password to open:
- Hit lock five times
or
- Hold lock & at least one volume button
(Edit: ahh, this tip’s been given several times now, only new info is that either volume down or volume up or both will work)
This is how you go to prison.
you can lie to cops but not feds
Oh man that was fucking hilarious! Thanks for making my night!
Mobile youtube links, gross
Sounds like someone could use some more shut the fuck up Friday in their life 😘
It depends a lot on your location on the planet.
And skin color
Depends on local laws, but if the cops ability to seize your property without warrant isn’t protected by local laws:
Ask if they have a warrant and if they don’t then take your phone oout and power it down, then put it back in your pocket and tell them they can direct complaints to your lawyer because you’re not handing over any devices.
If they seize it without a warrant then you can sue the department, although if they have reasonable suspicion then you won’t have much luck.
In the states, they’ll just accuse the phone of committing a crime and take it anyways
In 2015 they took a black man’s car and he took them for 1.25 Million.
Disable biometrics
Android: look up “lockdown mode”
iOS: hold volume down + power, or press power 5 times fast.
Better: restart the phone. This puts it into the safest state it has, as it has not yet been initially unlocked and will require a non-bio auth. Stronger security, may/should hold if they attempt to attack/hack/compromise it, if it comes to that. Takes like 3 seconds. Do it, not the equal-time-worse-security version of just disabling bio.
Additionally, running GrapheneOS you can set up a duress pin to wipe the phone profiles if things were to escalate.
Being smart, set up the main profile a bit to look real, but have no actual information. That way it’s not obvious tha its been wiped.
Being cheeky, set the duress pin to be something simple like your birthday. So if you are detained/arrested and they try to get into your phone they are the ones to wipe it for you.
I imagine something like “I do not consent to a search nor seizure of any of my property. May I reach into my pocket so I may place my phone in plain view? If my property is going to be seized even against my will, I still want to ensure everyone’s safety.”
Then repeat the no consent line as you place your phone on your dashboard or whatever.
I imagine this means your lawyer will have body cam footage of the double nonconsent and the judge will see you were willing to comply even with potentially unlawful orders so the justice system could sort it out in court instead of someone trying to fight it out on the street.
If you absolutely have to hand over your phone, turn it off completely, like hold the power button and then tap the off icon. That will dump any keys out of RAM, which is why it always requires the full password to unlock when you turn it back on. Both in terms of how your phone works and the leaks we’ve seen, the cracking tools the police have are overall significantly less likely to be successful when used on a phone that’s been turned off and not unlocked since.
Also, IIRC iphones have a feature where they will dump at least some of the system keys from RAM if you push the lock button five times. I’d still trust fully off more but that’s easier to do covertly.
Five times wanted to set off an emergency service call and sound the alarm 🚨 YMMV (Pixel 7)
DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR PHONE
DO NOT TALK TO POLICE
Your ONLY responses should be to identify yourself, and “I will not make any statements without my lawyer present.”
All this makes it sound like police are giving you a bunch of time to respond and addressing you politely.
I mean, I agree on the principle. Don’t just hand your phone over to… anyone, really. But the game becomes very different when a guy with a gun is hassling you over it.
Deleted
For Android:
- Open Settings
- Search for “Lockdown”
- Select “Show Lockdown option” from the results, or the result that most resembles that.
- Enter your pin if required.
- Tap the associated slider to enable Show lockdown option
Now when you hold your power button, you get a “lockdown” option that disables biometrics and forces you to enter your passcode for the next unlock.
Particularly useful for me, as I have my phone set up to always be unlocked if my watch is close enough (maybe stupid of me), but I can force lock it at any time.
On iOS 18 there is a power button in the top right of control center (you have to hold it)
Reminder: If you are in a situation where you’re presenting a digital ID to a digital ID reader, do not unlock your phone first. Tap your locked phone on the ID reader, then authenticate the document share.
Duh.
Seems like the cops should now be worried about civilian phones exploding and now might consider shooting anyone that tries to hand them a phone /s
*especially if you’ve got nothing to hide.
No shit
I’m a cop and I can tell you that, at least in my country, you’d have no reason to not unlock your phone if you haven’t done anything.
I can understand that in some countries cops can be seen as criminals (and are behaving like criminals), but I don’t think a generality should be made. Just like a generality shouldn’t be made about people from an origin all doing the same bad thing.
Also don’t take advices from what you see on Lemmy as every user comes from a different country with different laws.
In my country, we can take your phone but we aren’t allowed to unlock it without your consent or without a prosecutor saying so.
Man, fuck that.
It’s none of your business what’s on our phones, period.
You want access? Go through due process.
The very fact that you led off with “you’re fine if you have nothing to hide” makes you the problem, you personally, not anyone else around you, you.
Doesn’t matter what country you’re in at all. Doesn’t even matter what the law says in this case, because crappy laws exist.
That kind of thinking is exactly why people don’t trust cops.
Cops are garbage
I can understand that in some countries cops can be seen as criminals (and are behaving like criminals), but I don’t think a generality should be made. Just like a generality shouldn’t be made about people from an origin all doing the same bad thing.
ACAB, and you don’t get to compare your chosen profession to where people were born or the colour of their skin, nor try to claim victim points by pretending you are systemically oppressed and discriminated against in the same way we are (though your trying to does go to strengthen my first point).
Fuck you, pig.
I don’t know why your getting downvoted and have replies with ACAB…
Keep in mind I come at this from an American perspective.
I do have to disagree with the first paragraph. You do not need to access to or to search my phone to perform your job. If the phone becomes part of a criminal investigation then ideally a warrant would be put out by a judge and a Computer Forensics team would take it from there.
At least in the USA, the bad perception of cops is not just because of their apparent lack of accountability and ability to get away with murder, but also how expansive the scope of their duties are. So much authority intrusted in one person clearly seems to go to their heads more often than not here.
I understand in many European countries the scope of a cops duties is much more restricted. I know Britian doesn’t even provide their law enforcement with firearms.
I’m going to preface this by saying the whole Americanised ACAB stuff is silly. Not everywhere has a shitty, militarised police force like theirs. Where I am, my experience with the police has been pretty positive, even with me being an immigrant with darker skin.
But man, no.
If police want your data, they can ask you politely, and if you say no, then that should be it. End of discussion. People have the right to privacy.
Maybe the officer wouldn’t do anything nefarious. But then again, maybe they will. You have no way of knowing what type of person that officer is. Even good police forces have plenty of shitty employees, so police powers should be limited to avoid them just doing whatever they want.
If there’s a genuine reason to have your data, say you’re implicated in some criminal investigation, then they can go through the proper channels and get a warrant.
Police absolutely should not have the power to just do whatever they like. If you let them, have that, it leads to shitty police forces like they have in the US and elsewhere.
I totally agree with you and that’s what we have in my country.
At least someone on Lemmy is not jumping on the ACAB stuff train.
People are the first one to criticize us (sometimes with good reasons) but they are the first one to call us when they are in deep shit.
🐽🐽🐽🐽🐽🐽🐽🐽🐽🐽🐽
Fuck you
“It’s rude to not let me invade your privacy. If you have nothing to hide just let me see your phone!” Fuck off, pig
