Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 10:06:50 -0600
Reply-To: joseph Trussell <joetruss@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: joseph Trussell <joetruss@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Just cause
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
Outstanding. Give that speech to a southern cop. Then maybe the list will
be nice enough to come up with your bail money.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that it is how it is...You can
talk about personal freedom all you want, but being from the Third World
Republic of Louisiana, I've seen and heard of police doing far worse things
to people than simply search their cars, for far less of an offense than
being profiled.
The freedom to not sit in a crappy little town's jail cell for a night for
backtalk or assault or whatever the hell they decide to pin on you is worth
the time for them to do a simple search.
And while affecting change in the procedures of small-town cops on a
grassroots level by being a smartass (in their views) and "politely
declining" and possibly getting my ass thrown in jail for the greater good
of personal freedoms for all drivers, YOU CAN HAVE IT.
I'd rather be driving out of town.
"A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in
the road." --Alexander Smith
Joe T.
Denver, CO
'85 GL 'bertha'
'66 Westy
----Original Message Follows----
From: DaveC <voicebox@DNAI.COM>
Reply-To: DaveC <voicebox@DNAI.COM>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Just cause
Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 08:35:36 -0700
>I was going cross country a couple of years ago in my last '85 GL, and
>stopped in Dumas, TX to get gas and try to figure out why my clutch wasn't
>engaging all the way...The sherriff and two deputies showed up at the gas
>station where I was parked, probably noticed the "Widespread Panic" sticker
>on the back, and asked politely what I was doing and if they could search
>my
>vehicle.
>
>I obliged, and while they were searching I was busy finding the leak in my
>clutch slave cylinder (they were very accomodating as far as me going about
>my business while they looked,) they did a quick run-through from front to
>back, top to bottom, and told me I was free to go...
>
>Five days later, I was sitting in a beach parking lot in Pensacola Beach,
>FL
>eating a sandwich, and two bicycle cops rode up and asked if they could
>take
>a look; one of them asked me if I was smoking pot (I wasn't.) They looked
>through the whole van, all my stuff, engine bay, etc. and didn't find
>anything either. When they were finished, I asked them one question:
-=-=-=-
Why the *hell* would you consent to a voluntary search? The US
constitution guarantees freedom from search where there is no just
cause (something you're doing that raises their suspicions) to do so.
(Eating a sandwich, and diagnosing a clutch problem, last time I
looked, wasn't a suspicious behavior.) Your *guaranteed* freedoms as
a US citizen does not require surrender of your freedom from
unreasonable search. (Where's the logic in that?)
These morons were practicing "profiling", the practice of legal
prejudice. Don't make this kind of behavior acceptable. Politely and
*firmly* decline the request. Every time. If they have just cause,
they'll tell you so. If they have no just cause, they ask. Say "No".
To consent to these searches makes it more and more likely that the
others of us who don't consider owning a Vanagon just cause will be
seen as "easy" targets by these goons.
Freedom belongs only to those who choose to exercise them. The more
you cave into fear, the fewer freedoms we all will have.
Thanks for nothin'.
Dave
--
Dave Carpenter
Whatever you wish for me,
May you have twice as much.
"Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think
we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering." -- Arthur C.
Clarke
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