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Be aware that private security personnel outnumber police officers in the United States by three to one. As a result, you may be more likely to be confronted by a security guard than by a police officer. You must also be aware of the following places where security personnel (governmental or otherwise) are permitted to search you without a warrant...
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Unfortunately, many people get fooled by some version of this commonly used police officer's line: "Everything will be easier if you just cooperate". That's true to some extent -- it will make things much easier for the police officer who's trying to arrest you! -- but when it comes to you consenting to searches and answering incriminating questions, it couldn't be further from the truth...
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Videotaping or photographing police in public places is usually legal, so long as you don't interfere with their activities. Nonetheless, doing so will often get you arrested...
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Simply put, the number of arrests an officer makes is a major factor used to determine his job performance. Police officers know that the easiest way to make arrests is to find people in possession of illegal drugs, so they want to search everyone they can find...
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College students suffer from an unfortunate lack of privacy rights in many situations. The university owns the dorm, so school officials can often search rooms at their own discretion. College students still have 4th Amendment rights that apply in other situations...
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This is a tricky issue. The simple answer is that citizens who are minding their own business are not obligated to "show their papers" to police. In fact, there is no law requiring citizens to carry identification of any kind. Once you get passed the surface, however, things get much more complicated...
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No. The Supreme Court has never ruled that police must present the warrant when performing a search. The purpose of the warrant is to...
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No. We believe that most police officers are good, hardworking people who are doing a tough job. We need police to safeguard the life, liberty, and property of all people. To do this best, police officers should...
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Traffic stops typically occur as a result of suspected moving violations committed by the driver of the vehicle. Passengers cannot be held responsible for the driver's conduct and are generally free to leave, unless police become suspicious of them during the course of the stop...
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No. We teach people that they have rights, and that these rights are secured by the principal documents that guarantee our civil liberties -- the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. An informed individual who invokes his constitutional protections is doing exactly what our nation's founders intended. They created these documents to...
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No. The courts have made it clear that police officers do not have to tell people that they can refuse to consent to a warrantless search. Also, contrary to the belief perpetuated by popular police television shows, a person will not be read their rights subsequent to being taken into custody. A person only needs to be Mirandized when...
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This is one of those "it depends on the circumstances" questions. Police can obtain consent to search from anyone with control over the property; however any occupant of a residence can refuse consent, even if other occupants agree to a search. Unfortunately, you must be present in order to assert your refusal. The Supreme Court has ruled that...
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Your rights do not disappear if the officer threatens to call in the dogs, so don't let this all-too-common tactic intimidate you into consenting to a search. You have several options...
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No. If a police officer asks your permission to search, you are under no obligation to consent. The main reason why officers ask is because they don't have enough evidence to search without your consent. Don't expect an officer to tell you of your right not to consent. Any time you consent to a search request you are naively waiving your constitutional rights.
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Everyone should be trained to assert their constitutional rights under the 4th Amendment in order to avoid the hassle and humiliation of police misconduct and illegal searches. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report on citizen-police contacts...
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Written by ACLU
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Friday, 01 May 2009 00:00 |
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Last week, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records about the detention and treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody at the Bagram Airfield prison in Afghanistan.
The ACLU is requesting release of basic information, including how many people are imprisoned at Bagram, who they are, how long they've been detained, and where and under what circumstances they were captured. We're also requesting records about the process for prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as "enemy combatants". The request was sent to the Departments of Justice, State, Defense and the CIA.
Many fear that Bagram is (or may soon be) the "next Guantánamo", yet the public knows practically nothing about what's happening there. It's reported that the U.S. is detaining as many as 600 prisoners at Bagram; this includes not only Afghans captured in Afghanistan but also non-Afghans captured thousands of miles away and rendered (or sent) to Bagram. At least two Bagram prisoners have died while in U.S. custody there -- deaths Army investigators concluded were homicides.
Some Bagram prisoners have been held as long as six years without charge or access to counsel. A federal judge recently found that the meager opportunity Bagram prisoners get to challenge their detention is even more inadequate than the process Guantánamo prisoners received -- a process the Supreme Court found unconstitutional last year.
In late February, the Obama administration stunned many human rights advocates when the Justice Department asserted in court that detainees at Bagram have no right to challenge their detention, a holdover policy from the Bush administration. Earlier this month, a federal judge disagreed, ruling that three prisoners being held by the U.S. at Bagram can challenge their detention in U.S. courts. The Justice department is appealing that decision.
As President Obama deliberates about how to close Guantánamo, scrutiny of U.S. detention policies will only intensify. And what the U.S. government is doing (or planning to do) at Bagram is a big piece of that puzzle. We cannot close Guantánamo only to permit ‘other Gitmos' to exist in other places.
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