From: Ross A. Finlayson (raf@tiki-lounge.com)
Date: Mon Feb 05 2001 - 16:46:45 MST
Well, if there was a recording of the police actions from the time they sighted
the car throughout the course of their duty, then there might be less profiling,
because anyone pulled over could later legally request the record.
I've heard that before, from newspaper articles and stuff like that. I don't
have any stories of my black friends getting harrassed. I might have heard
some.
Generally, the police have enough to keep them busy. If there are things like
"arrest quotas" then those are bad. If they don't have enough things to keep
them busy, then we don't need so many.
The presence of police is kind of like insurance.
Another problem with law enforcement is that it involves dealing with the people
that break the law. Sometimes that is good if a kid is scared straight, but it
is bad sometimes and there is corruption.
Ross
Terry Donaghe wrote:
> Most all of my black friends (or African Americans if you prefer) live with
> being pulled over quite often. I think it even gets to the point where they
> feel that it's just something you have to deal with and they expect it. One
> such friend was astonished when I told him I'd only ever been pulled over
> once. He get's pulled over quite a lot, as does his parents, friends, etc.
> And these are all middle to upper class people. They just happen to have
> the wrong skin color.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> > [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of raf
> > Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 3:22 PM
> > To: extropians@extropy.org
> > Subject: Re: PDAs are searchable by cops, I expect. Re: Transparency,
> > wasre: On January 28th, Criminals No Longer Another Face ...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> >
> > > At 12:16 PM -0600 2/5/01, Ross Finlayson wrote:
> > > >I think as long as we don't commit any crimes, we don't
> > have so much
> > > >to concern
> > > >us.
> > >
> > > This is not true. When I was 20, I used to teach computer seminars
> > > at my company's Ft. Lauderdale division every weekend for a
> > while. I
> > > looked younger for my age. I was driving a Trans Am,
> > wearing a suit,
> > > with a briefcase in the passenger seat, and kept under the speed
> > > limit driving down I-95 on weekends. I fit many of the profiling
> > > attributes of a young drug dealer. As such, I was stopped and
> > > searched on most trips. They would go through my checkbook, my
> > > briefcase, my cell-phone, everything. I tried giving them
> > > permission to search, I tried denying them permission to search, but
> > > nothing worked. You might think that they might learn to recognize
> > > me, but this made it even worse, when one of the cops would remember
> > > having stopped me on suspicion on previous occasions. I have even
> > > had guns drawn on me once when I said that I would not consent to a
> > > search. Being law abiding offers no protection from the police.
> > > --
> > > Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com>
> >
> > That sounds surprising, unless you were carrying drugs or contraband.
> >
> > Ross
> >
> >
-- Ross Andrew Finlayson Finlayson Consulting Ross at Tiki-Lounge: http://www.tiki-lounge.com/~raf/ Confucious says, "My name is Confucious."
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