REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Speed Trap Sign - Obstruction of Justice or Free Speech?

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Saturday, June 30, 2012 05:34
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VIEWED: 2313
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Thursday, June 28, 2012 4:46 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t2#/video/us/2012/06/27/woman-arreste
d-for-speed-trap-sign.ktrk


Hello,

A woman held up a 'Speed Trap' sign warning motorists that police were pulling over speedsters in the road ahead. She was arrested for it, in what I believe is a violation of her rights.

This woman did nothing to prevent police officers from performing their duty. They were not being prevented from ticketing speeders. Drivers were rather being advised to drive within the speed limit. This is speech, not obstruction.

The fact that she was ultimately not booked on obstruction proves that even the arresting officer knew the weakness of his case. I am appalled that the department defends this action. This is an organization more interested in collecting fines than in seeing laws followed. If their solitary goal was in seeing laws followed, they would be glad to see drivers slow down without having to be ticketed.

--Anthony



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Thursday, June 28, 2012 4:53 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Goodness, this again?

This exact same case already happened nearly a hundred years ago. Free speech won the day that time.

I'm busy at work, so I'll have to hunt it up later, but the gist of it is, a guy was warning people - by sign, no less - of a "speed trap" ahead. I believe he was even warning people on horseback!

He was arrested, went to trial, and eventually was acquitted, if memory serves. I want to say it was Connecticut, but it's been quite a long while, so it could have been elsewhere...



"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero


"I've not watched the video either, or am incapable of intellectually dealing with the substance of this thread, so I'll instead act like a juvenile and claim victory..." - Rappy

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Thursday, June 28, 2012 5:25 AM

MAL4PREZ


A friend of mine got pulled over and lectured for flashing his lights to warn of a speed trap. Ridiculous.

Speed traps in general are a lot of BS. There are places where low speed really is a safety issue, but most tickets are just to make money. Take the highways in NY and MA. Speed limits of 55 but everyone, including cops, goes at least 70. 70 is perfectly safe and normal. But they leave the limit at 55 so they can make $$ off the tickets.

Anyhow, good for this woman and her sign. More people should do that!

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Thursday, June 28, 2012 5:40 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Good for her!

Speed traps are akin to illegal search and seizure....

10 years ago, I was caught in a speed trap over a large hill that I didn't see until it was too late.

I wore a "trench-coat" back then, but it was a classy cloth Bill Blass trench over my shirt and tie, which cops weren't mentally equipped to know the difference.

These assholes made me step out of my car and spread for them to check for weapons. They also asked me to open my trunk. I did't have shit in there so I did, but I said "this is really embarassing Officer". He said "Why is that?"

I said "Because I'm not a criminal and the only time I've ever touched my trunk before was to open or close it".

When they had me on NOTHING, the dick cop gave me a 25 dollar seatbelt ticket. (Which I NEVER paid, no matter the 10 year consequences preceding it!)

I said "Oh..... you had to get me on something after all these man hours, huh?", to which he replied "you're lucky the chief doesn't haul you down to the station!"

"FOR WHAT!!!!!!"


I blew a 0.02 on the Breathalyzer. I'd been illegally coralled into a random check, they searched my entire car illegally, and yet, I'm the guy who got his credit score fucked with for nearly a decade for not paying that bill.......

Aftermath.... that 25 dollar ticket ballooned into 250 bucks before going to a credit agency. There it remained on my Trans Union score for almost 10 years (3 years illegally) to bring my TU score down to 645. Today, two years after it was finally expunged, I've got that 790 score.....


Fuck The Police.... ~NWA

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Thursday, June 28, 2012 11:29 AM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


I agree with Anthony.

I have Kathy Bates on speed dial, mwa ha ha ha (in exaggeratedly evil voice)

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Thursday, June 28, 2012 5:04 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Courts have ruled that flashing lights is NOT illegal. Courts have also ruled that warning of speed traps is not a crime.





"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero


"I've not watched the video either, or am incapable of intellectually dealing with the substance of this thread, so I'll instead act like a juvenile and claim victory..." - Rappy

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Thursday, June 28, 2012 6:24 PM

FREMDFIRMA



If it really WAS about safety they'd have a marked crusier with it's lights all a-flashing right there in plain sight.
No, it's about MONEY, and what with the abuse of forfeiture provisions, misuse of (now about to go the way of other junk science) dog "searches" to get around the fourth amendment and so many other abuses, the term "Highway Robbery" is very much apt - skulking about like thieves in the night, pouncing upon the unwary to take from them under some mala prohibita bullshit excuse, just another mafia, official sanction or no.

Free Speech it is.

Ponder the difference between Crime Prevention, and Law Enforcement.

-F

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Friday, June 29, 2012 6:41 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

If it really WAS about safety they'd have a marked crusier with it's lights all a-flashing right there in plain sight.
No, it's about MONEY, and what with the abuse of forfeiture provisions, misuse of (now about to go the way of other junk science) dog "searches" to get around the fourth amendment and so many other abuses, the term "Highway Robbery" is very much apt - skulking about like thieves in the night, pouncing upon the unwary to take from them under some mala prohibita bullshit excuse, just another mafia, official sanction or no.

Free Speech it is.

Ponder the difference between Crime Prevention, and Law Enforcement.

-F



Exactly Frem....

Good to see you around.

Hope you're feeling better. Heard you had a rough patch there...


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Friday, June 29, 2012 12:18 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Back in college, a fraternity house once had a large painted sign out in the front yard, warning drivers of a speed trap up ahead.

Here, this chick, her sign was pretty small. I mean, I can see how folks would likely have to slow down and take their eyes of the road to read it. If she was simply standing at a corner, a stop light or some such, that's one thing, but if she was walking up and down the sidewalk, I can see how the cop would have more of an excuse to haul her in. Not that the cops were right to do so, but she just leaves herself open to that sort of treatment.

Govt does what it wants. This is just another example of that reality.




" We're all just folk. " - Mal

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, June 29, 2012 2:36 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

..abuse of forfeiture provisions, misuse of (now about to go the way of other junk science) dog "searches" to get around the fourth amendment and so many other abuses...


NHP Troopers Sue Department Over K-9 Program
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/18886948/2012/06/26/nhp-troopers-sue-dep
artment-over-k-9-program

Quote:

The complaint alleges that the drug-sniffing dogs used by troopers in the program were intentionally being trained to operate as so-called trick ponies, or dogs that provide officers false alerts for the presence of drugs.

The dogs were being trained to alert their handlers by cues, instead of by picking up a drug's scent by sniffing, the complaint said. When a dog gives a false alert, this resulted in illegal searches and seizures, including money and property, the complaint said.

The 103-page complaint alleges that Perry, along with others, used the K-9s to undermine the program to systematically conduct illegal searches and seizures for financial benefit.


I. Told. You. So.
Bonus points for this being a RICO Act complaint, given how often I point out that it applies to this behavior.

I have always maintained that police dogs are more a "clever hans" workaround to violate the Fourth Amendment, and the evidence that this is true has been piling up lately.
http://www.erowid.org/freedom/police/police_article1.shtml
http://reason.com/blog/2009/11/04/the-myth-of-the-infallible-pol
http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/21/the-mind-of-a-police-dog
Quote:

The results? Dog/handler teams correctly completed a search with no alerts in just 21 of the 144 walk-throughs. The other 123 searches produced an astounding 225 alerts, every one of them false. Even more interesting, the search points designed to trick the handlers (marked by the red slips of paper) were about twice as likely to trigger false alerts as the search points designed to trick the dogs (by luring them with sausages). This phenomenon is known as the "Clever Hans effect," after a horse that won fame in the early 1900s by stomping out the answers to simply arithmetic questions with his hoof. Hans was indeed clever, but he couldn't do math. Instead he was reading subtle, unintentional cues from the audience and his trainer, who would tense up as Hans began to click his hoof, then relax once Hans hit the answer.


Way it works, and think about this - cop pulls you over on some bullshit pretext, and asks to search your car (or even cellphone, see note after) and if/when you refuse, then uses that very refusal as "probable cause" to get the dog on site, who then fakes a "hit" on command, and they get to do the search anyway - and even if they find nothing, IF they think they can get away with it, they WILL seize your car, which then gets auctioned often as not at a private little cops-only gathering "for security reasons" for as little as a dollar...
I turned that against a cop from my former township who'd been looting the evidence room of drugs, mind you, who got pyschotic about it and threatened to fry me to death with his taser, thankfully that confrontation was averted by the intervention of an officer from another agency, but still - point is that a *LOT* of this outright theft via forfeiture, the goodies wind up the property of the bastards who shovelled the false accusation, much like the inquisition of yore.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3458.asp
http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,1607,7-123-1586-254783--,00.html
And of course, "consent" is not necessarily having the same meaning when some asshat with a badge and a gun has you at his mercy and will continue to harrass you until they get it, that ain't "consent", that's "under duress" and the courts allowing this to slide is a major part of the problem too.

Oh, and FYI, it ain't just dogs neither - y'all remember the shampoo incident, which shows how unreliable field drug tests are, and my assertion that cops KNOW how to conjure a false positive and if they're testing your shampoo they're lookin for one on purpose, yes ?
http://www.drbronner.com/punk_rock_soap_opera.html

Well apparently social services has tripped to abuse of that trick, enough that it drew notice, finally.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47814187/ns/health-health_care/t/strange-r
eason-newborns-positive-pot-test-found
/
Which dovetails with other so-called drug tests and false positives...
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/07/21/mother-eats-poppy-seed-seasoning-
has-newborn-taken
/

Mind you, I've held a grudge against *THAT* one since a pre-employment drug test (I was younger and more tolerant of such bullshit) damn near got me arrested, got my place trashed, and wound up blackballing me from employment for a bit cause of having poppyseed muffins with breakfast - it really illustrated to me what a sham such testing really is, and by extension related searches and whatnot, which solidified my already forming opinion of the War on (some) Drugs as naught more than a scam itself.

Anyhows, one should consider a police car in EXACTLY the same fashion as a car full of gangbangers - dangerous, to be discretely avoided if at all possible, and if not minimize interaction and get the hell AWAY from them as fast as possible.
It's not even about speeding even, although the money is nice, sure - as much as it is to get their foot in the door to potentially commit worse abuses and robberies - and speaking of such malice and premeditation, this as well.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/opinion/ann-arbor-needs-to-get-up-to-spee
d-on-its-speed-limits-along-main-roads
/
Quote:

Yet, right up to today, the illegal posted limits on Huron Parkway and Nixon Road remain unchanged. The city continues to issue speeding tickets in these and other speed traps, secure in the knowledge that most people do not understand how to legally object in court. Most improperly ticketed drivers continue to pay fines they could have dismissed if they knew how to object legally to the arbitrarily low posted limits that do not conform to state law or proper engineering practices.

Some 5 1/2 years after the adoption of Public Law 85 of 2006, the city has done nothing to change any of its main road posted speed limits to reflect maximum safety, accepted engineering practices or to comply with state law. This total lack of action does not inspire confidence in the City Council or the Project Management Department regarding this traffic management issue.


Yeaaah, that's not a set-up, noooo *snark!*

-Frem

PS. No actually, I've never gotten a speeding ticket around here, the local PD contents themselves with seeking easier prey, and seems to avoid my car like the plague cause it is reputedly loaded with surveillence equipment.

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Saturday, June 30, 2012 2:35 AM

WHOZIT


Years ago my Grandfather got a ticket from a douchebag cop for doing 57 in a 55 speed zone...no joke. FIGHT THE POWER!!

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Saturday, June 30, 2012 5:34 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Quote:

it is reputedly loaded with surveillence equipment.


Hello,

What a vicious rumor.

--Anthony






Note to Self:
Raptor - woman testifying about birth control is a slut (the term fits.)
Six - Wow, isn't Niki quite the CUNT? And, yes, I spell that in all caps....
Wulf - Niki is a stupid fucking bitch who should hurry up and die.

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” -Thomas Szasz

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