LOL

That's actually not true. Once you're lawfully under arrest, they can search you and/or your vehicle without your permission

yes, but you say arrest, as though that's what happened. The OP was far more likely to have been detained (cuffed) because that is procedure. The cop can then have a drug dog search the outside of the car/ the op themself/ the op ' s home, and can look through the windows of the car/house and can look and the visible parts of op to find probable cause, ie open beer bottles in the car cupholders, drug paraphernalia, a weapon, or anything else that's illegal. Then the cop can search without ops consent. Until the cop has probable cause, they can't search without a warrant, and suspicious is not probable cause or an excuse to arrest someone, end of story.

That is because when anyone uses the word terrorist a majority of the people in the U.S. go into good little German mode and support/believe everything the government says/does.

Are you racist against Germans or something?

is it not possible that the types of people who come to a site like FML are the same types of people who WOULD get upset over guantanamo bay? i've never liked that place and i'm glad it's being shut down.

And what otaku? You don't make a majority.

well the majority of AMERICANS don't post here, do they? that's no reason to believe that a majority of FMLers are fine with gitmo.

82 - It's fair to assume the statistics would be similar. What reason do you have for thinking they would differ largely?

because different sites draw different interests. you're not gonna see a lot of constitution-quoting liberals on republicanclub.com and you're not gonna see many gitmo-backing conservatives on a site based on the phrase "**** my life" that is rife with stories of sex and debauchery.

This isn't a political site though... And most of the responses to FMLs about sex are incredibly conservative.

your gay

@mobius8 Actually no I am not racist against Germans it is an actual phrase that loosely means a person that blindly follows what an authority figures tells them.

An actual racist phrase maybe.

detainees in Guantanamo are not U.S. citizens, therefore lack the Constitutional protections guaranteed to this country's citizens

It's not stupid, it's the protection of our rights. I'm not saying a cop should let a guy with a bomb strapped to his chest go because he refused the search, but if there's no probable cause to assume he has a bomb strapped to his chest, yes, the police should let him go. They're called checks and balances. Sure, it may let a few criminals slip through the cracks, but it preserves liberty as a whole. I don't have anything to hide, but I sure as Hell do have a lot to protect... my liberties. Just because I'm not doing anything wrong doesn't mean I shouldn't be entitled to my privacy.

Refusal to consent to a search is not grounds for probable cause.

you're right, civil liberties are for losers.

It has nothing to do with civil liberties. At that time, he had no protection against search and seizure. The officer clearly had probably cause to arrest/detain the subject, and for the officer's safety, the arrestee can be searched. Deal with it or move to Canada where they have basically the same rules. Hmm... move to... wait... America actually has very lenient law enforcement compared to the rest of the world. Maybe you better stay here.

Yes, authorities NEVER abuse power, so CLEARLY the cop acted within his rights. Perhaps he did in reality, but the way the FML paints the picture, the cop restrained the OP without probable cause. Refusing to consent to a search is not probable cause.

The cop acted within his rights regardless of whether or not the OP was suspicious. Of course the OP wouldn't paint the picture as to him doing anything illegal or suspicious, or he wouldn't have been able to have it on FML. I think it's a lot more telling that he gave no more of the story than what he did.

it has everything to do with civil liberties, especially when you refer to the OP as "an ACLU hippie." i love how people act like the ACLU is a bunch of tree-******* when all they're doing is standing up for YOUR individual rights.

Okay mobius for the most part I've agree with everything you say. BUT the cop was NOT within his rights regardless of whether or not the OP was suspicious. Suspicious is not probable cause, smelling drugs/alcohol or being able to see something illegal through the window of the car is the only probable cause there is. There are certain traffic violations that constitute immediately arrestable offenses as well but those are rare. There must be probable cause as demonstrated in the examples above. So "regardless of whether or not OP was suspicious" is a ridiculous argument for saying the cop was right because probable cause is the ONLY thing that matters and probable cause is NOT the cop thinking maybe he looks suspicious. Like I said, probable cause has its limits and there is a chance the cop overstepped his boundaries. There's also a chance the cop pulled OP over and smelled weed or alcohol in the car in which case he did have probable cause. We can NOT judge this by a vague FML post. That's why there are judges and lawyers who spend years studying the law. Because they are complicated and sometimes hard to understand.

138 - No where does the OP say he was in a car. If he refuses a search, the officer can then legally arrest him. If it was found later he had walked up to someone random person on the street and asked to search them for no reason, he would probably be reprimanded, and it would be immoral, and the person released immediately. But the arrest would still be legal. Not appropriate, but it would be legal. That's not really my main point though. My point though, it would be very unlikely that this happened without probable cause, and the OP isn't even claiming there was no probable cause.

Okay, the burden of proof is on you now. I've tried to beat it into your head that without probable cause, the cop cannot detain the person. You continually suggest otherwise. Prove it. Link me to ANY state's law (and if you're feeling frisky, federal law) that states a cop can detain someone for refusing to consent. Under the suspicion of drunken driving, a cop can detain someone who refuses a breathalyzer test, but a cop cannot detain someone for refusing to consent to a search.

158 -Firstly, you just admitted above that the cop probably did have probable cause and the OP didn't even say the cop didn't. Secondly, you can say they can't without probable cause all you want. Asides from it being entirely irrelevant to this FML and original argument, legally, they can. You just keep changing what you're trying to argue with when you can't prove your point.

"Firstly, you just admitted above that the cop probably did have probable cause and the OP didn't even say the cop didn't." Yes, but "probably" is not a guarantee, nor is it in the story to make such a claim. "Secondly, you can say they can't without probable cause all you want. Asides from it being entirely irrelevant to this FML and original argument, legally, they can." Again, prove it. The burden of proof ison you. If you want to suggest that it's legal for a cop to detain you without attempting to obtain a warrant (which you need probably cause to obtain), you need to show us that law. "You just keep changing what you're trying to argue with when you can't prove your point." I have yet to change my argument. If there's no probable cause, there's no legal way to detain the person.

And "entirely improbable" isn't a guarantee either... shockingly enough... It is legal to arrest someone without a warrant. It is so mind blowingly ******* retarded that you think otherwise I am almost lost for words. I've given you three examples now of why that is. Put it into ******* google if you want "proof" of your laws which you seem completely unable to comprehend. Or, here's a novel idea. Go look in your library. I don't think linking some random webpage is proof of anything. If I really wanted, I would take the time it took me to make this post, I could make my own webpage, copy paste someone elses bullshit webpage, change the words I wanted, and link it to you as what you apparently consider "solid proof". So sad the ignorance the internet builds in some people.

Let's see mobius, so far you have told people to shut the hell up, called people ******* losers, used a heck of a lot of profanity and refuse to listen to any valid rebuttals except to hedge and change the subject. Are you a narcissist, I already know that you are an extreme liberal and a loser.

probanly a cop trying to justify incorrect use of power by trolling fml when he knows hes wrong and trying to prove otherwise, you know. the whole im a co, im better than you. do as . say or ill just shoot you thing.

You're assuming just as much as we are. You're assuming the cop is being honest, and you assume he put himself in the position to be legally searched/restrained. The majority of interaction with police has to deal with being pulled over. At least, this is the case from my experiences and those I know around me. This is why we're making the assumption he was in his car.

Honest about what? Refusing search is grounds for arrest. I'm assuming the officer had a reason because that's what his job is. What possible reason do you have for assuming he was acting illegally? Nothing. It doesn't really matter if the majority of police interaction has to do with being pulled over, although I'd be interested in knowing where you got that statistic from. You still have idea where he was. Majority doesn't mean anything. You're making up, based on absolutely nothing, that he was in his car(where, by the way, he could still be arrested fro refusing a search and the officer would be following correct procedure according to law) and the officer had no reason to be suspicious. ******* retarded.

Defending my right is grounds for arrest? That may be a standard society has been setting, but it certainly isn't justifiable in a free society. Perhaps in a society where the people are lined up like cattle, I suppose. I said from my experience. I never claimed this to be universal.

"It doesn't really matter if the majority of police interaction has to do with being pulled over, although I'd be interested in knowing where you got that statistic from." uh, life? for the average person, the majority of police contact comes from being pulled over for some traffic violation or other. the average person does not have police kicking in the door of their home or office, or accosting them on the street, nor does the average person have to go to the station to report a crime. and when those things do happen, they most likely do not happen with more frequency than being pulled over for speeding or whatever.

You know, a lot of Americans don't drive. And even for the ones that do, it's entirely likely, depending on demographics and lifestyle, that they have more interactions with the police in other situations. "I think I'm an average American and all other Americans are like me and live similar lives to me so what I've noticed most often makes this a solid statistical conclusion" doesn't really cut it.

Mobius, as an expat Brit in the USA, let me just add that you won't win this one. Once you use freedom,cop,mistreatment in a sentence,everyone is ready to lynch said cop without actually trying to face the possibility that the "victim" OP in this case may have done something stupid to warrant cuffs. Given my bad driving record, I somehow have had a run in with most of the cops where I live. Some either don't have the time to pull me over like the one who pulled up alongside me in traffic and screamed at me to slow down( at 2am). If they had quotas as some idiot said,believe me at the speed I was going, he would've made $300 easy from the ticket but he didn't bother. I ramble but mobius, you have to understand the word freedom is a flash word for these people. Some will tell you they're in Iraq to protect their freedom,others will say Gitmo is there to hold "terrorists" who want to destroy their freedom and yet most will say a cop searching you/your car/whatever belonging is taking away your freedom. They love to pull out that constitution yet most can't tell you how many articles,amendments or the exact wording in the document YET with no understanding of probable cause, they scream "PIG" at the police and want him fired. I weep for the USA society because its complacency is breeding a generation of smug and arrogant ignoramuses

Duly noted hollywood. =)

Sorry. I'm female but my boyfriend may be interested :p he "swings both ways" so to speak

Mobius - refusing a search is not immediate grounds for arrest, at least not in Florida, where I was pulled over and requested by the officer several times to search the vehicle, which I denied each time. Neither I nor my brother were arrested. The officer asked if he could run his dog around the vehicle. Since I have no rights protecting against that, I told him to go ahead. He ran him twice. After 15 minutes of that and talking, we were free to go with a warning to slow down (was doing 80 in a 70). But this is just me talking from actual experience. Have you ever refused a search when you were pulled over?