Police Tactics and Your Legal Rights
Investigators' Dirty Tricks
(Editor’s note: This article appears in the Student Insurgent, and is reprinted here complete. Footnotes by James Bauhaus, author of “The Innocent’s Guide to Avoiding False Conviction.”)
This article will show you the tricks that federal, state and local investigators use to encourage you to give up your right to remain silent. It is intended to prepare you for their underhanded ways while stressing the importance of not talking or trying to deceive them.
Do not communicate with any agents. To begin with, it is a federal crime to make a false statement to an FBI agent or other federal investigator. By talking, you may be digging your own grave as a violation could be charged on the basis of two inconsistent statements spoken out of fear or forgetfulness. (1)
It is also very dangerous to try and outsmart them. They are trained on how to extract information out of people, and in tripping people up who are lying to them, They have learned how to get people to talk by making them feel scared, guilty or impolite. They exploit our trust, honesty and sensitive nature to get information and further harass us. They would prefer you lied to them than not talk, so stay strong and stay silent!
Below is a list of the arsenal of dirty tricks investigators use against activists to get them to talk:
Your friends have told us everything; why don't you just come clean." They will act as if your friends have already snitched on you, making you want to will act on them in return. It's generally a lie -- besides, even if that did happen, ;how does it benefit you to be a witness against yourself? (2)
"If you don't talk now, we will come back with a subpoena? Most of thetime this is an empty threat. They approach you without a subpoena because they don't have enough evidence against you to justify getting a subpoena from the courts. If you talk, they might get that needed evidence, so its best to 'stay quiet. Make them get a subpoena. At least ninety percent of the time, they simply won't do it. But if they do, there are legal and political ways to challenge the subpoena. (3)
"If you talk, we will go easy on you." Agents will promise you the world to :get you to talk. However, when they have people sign statements of guilt, notice they never sign anything saying they will stay true to their promises. They lie. Don't believe their promises. (4)
"We know everything you've done and have all the evidence we need to convict you." If this was the case, they would go ahead and charge you with a :crime and convict you. Most of the time it's a lie, but sometimes they will show ,or tell you the "evidence" they have against you. This "evidence" will often have :been obtained illegally -- meaning it cannot be used in court -- or be lies like ","we found your prints on the glass" that they hope are correct enough to scare you. They show and tell you about this "evidence" in the hopes that you will
break down and confess everything. Because - although their lies and illegally obtained "evidence" cannot be used in court -- your confession can. And they will use that as the main evidence to convict you. The moral of the story is say nothing. (5)
"You seem to be an intelligent kid with a promising future. You don't want to destroy your life over this, do you?" They act as if they are really concerned about your welfare and are just trying to help. But, for some reason, they can't help you unless you help them by talking. The truth is, they don't care. This is just another way to manipulate you to talk.
“These extremists hurt your movement. They alienate people and make them angry. Help your cause by telling us who they are.” These “extremists” are winning so many victories that the repressive, status-quo loving government can’t handle it and have sent their agents in to crush the “extremists” – be they illegal or legal. They are trying to use your own desire to help the cause against your fellow comrades. This line rarely works among grassroots militants who know how effective we are, but it is another trick we should be aware of. (6)
"I support your goals, just not your (friends) tactics" or "my daughter's a left-winger." Again, they will try to act as if they support your cause, but that they have to uphold the law -- and can't you help a fellow traveler? If they really supported us, they wouldn't harass those activists who work legally to change the system. Turning in fellow warriors helps no one.
If you are not guilty, then why don't you talk?" This is one of their most used tactics. We all have the desire to defend ourselves, especially when we know we are innocent. However, they will attack and dissect everything you say, continually prying to get more and more information -- and if you stop answering their questions because they get out of line, they will say, "A ha! So now you don't want to talk? It seems we have found the flaw in your story!" and again try to make you feel guilty and rekindle your desire to vindicate yourself. But even if you are innocent, don't talk! An activist's innocence has never stopped the authorities from convicting or jailing them. Furthermore, the more you talk, the more likely you are to mention other people's names, leading the police to more people who they can harass and question. (7)
"Your supposed friends are laughing at you. They manipulated you into doing these things and now you're taking the fall for it while they get off scott free. They used you and now they are laughing at you." Investigators will try to pit you against the real or imagined "others" who they think you conspired with. They will say your alleged "coconspirators" used you, manipulated you, and deserted you. And then they will ask you why you are willing to protect such worthless people who have been so abusive to youand don't care that you were caught and face years of prison. They are trying to create doubts in your mind about the other members of your affinity group while giving you reasons to justify informing on them. Again, this
is pure manipulation, so don't talk. However, it is good to make sure your affinity group is made up of people who you fully trust and respect, so that you could never believe such lies by the authorities.
Repeatedly asking the same question. Agents will ask the same question in different ways numerous times. This is how they can usually trip up those people who are trying to outsmart them. It also helps them weed out more information from those who are telling the truth, but being stingy with their answers. And sometimes it just simply wears down those people who are not telling the truth, so that finally they come clean. Don't ever think that investigators are going to just ask you a few questions and let you go. The more you give, the more they take, and once you start talking they will do whatever it takes to keep you talking. (8)
Good cop/bad cop. This is their oldest trick in the book. It allows one officer to use all of the above listed plays that are negative (like threats), while the other one uses the positive scams (like promises). It allows them to use their full arsenal on you. Sometimes the Bad Cop acts so angry and unstable that you fear they will use physical violence against you. The Good Cop then ushers the Bad Cop out of the room to "cool off." Then the Good Cop warms up to you, and promises you a light sentence if you talk, however if you don't talk, the Good Cop fears that the Bad Cop will come back and make good on her/his threats of violence -- so just admit your guilt so you can avoid that. Again these are usually empty threats, but just be prepared for the Good Cop/Bad Cop ruse. (9)
REMEMBER: ALWAYS ASSERT YOUR RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT http://aia.mahost.org/
FOOTNOTES
1. (The best legal action that you can take when inquisitive cops demand your attention is to make your own demands for a lawyer, which the state is required to provide. They will immediately try to use your demand as a grapple with which to drag more statements from you. Cops are taught to make inflammatory inferences and accusations among themselves about you, and to you, such as, "Why do you need a lawyer if you're not guilty?" This tactic is to get you, their target, used to talking so that you will talk even more and more freely. Cops are taught to switch-around and improve-on anything you say so that it benefits them and their goals, just as prosecutors do to witnesses in court. You are not required to explain your need :or a lawyer, but it is this: police suffer no real oversight at all, and thus frequently violate the law to expedite their agenda of convicting SOME BODY for the crime they've been sent to 'solve'. Cops commonly invent probable cause by merely declaring themselves 'suspicious' of you_ Having no one to answer to, they often simply decide amongst themselves to declare that you lied to them. The only . 'proof' they need to convict you of lying, and so steal five or more years of your life, is the word of one, at most two, cops. Jurors believe cops so readily that it is a national pathology. This outrageous phenomenon occurs because almost no one reads caselaw books, but everyone watches the deluge of pro-cop/prosecutor/judge propaganda shows on television. Cops also routinely plant evidence for other cops to 'find'. Few citizens ever notice
the wholesale evidence chicanery that occurs with virtually every case until it is themselves who are victimized by the complete lack of real scientific standards applied to cops' antics. (NO double-blind procedures, no certification of evidence, no oversight from outside, no quality control from outside, little standardization of techniques, almost no objectivity, rampant subjectivity and very little scientific basis for most forensic fields of study, many of which have now been disproved. The National Academy of Science finally released its 2005 study of police forensic 'science' and found them all lacking except DNA. Also see the 8-09 article in Popular Mechanics on forensics.)
(Merely demanding a lawyer brings to you ALL your rights, even the ones you may not know you have. Demanding a lawyer helps prevent cops in their secondary quest, which is to make you unknowlingly waive your rights. The third benefit of demanding a lawyer is, if you have witnesses to this, it can diminish any further rights thefts that the cops attempt. For these, and other reasons too numerous to account here, it is always best to demand a lawyer as soon as cops attempt interrogation. Cops are simply too dangerous to treat as normal persons. They are programmed to passionately hate you and are above the law. They do not suffer any real punishment or backlash for perpetrating any type of testimonial or evidentiary fraud against you. In fact, they are often rewarded for this with paid vacations and awards at their numerous parties, junkets and seminars.)
2. (It is not just generally a lie, it is a standard procedure. You will be punished
if you lie to the cops to protect yourself from them invading your privacy, yet cops can and do routinely use lies to convict their targets. Judge/prosecutor teams let them employ any type of skullduggery for their convictive purposes.)
3. (A subpoena is how the state forces citizens to testify or give up records. More common and dangerous than any subpoena is the search warrant. The cops' standard practice is to run off all non-cop witnesses and plant crimes for use as crowbars to beat out 'solution' to larger crimes. See "How to survive a Traffic Stop", an essay of mine on my site, and a book by famous civil rights attorney F. Lee Bailey.)
4. (Also, cops have zero authority to make or keep any 'bargains' they promise to you.
All cops are nothing more than lackeys to their boss, the prosecutor, who has sole authority to make 'deals'. Prosecutors then must obtain approval from THEIR boss, the judge. This being so, you can safely bet your freedom that any promises that the cops make to you are absolute frauds that will be promptly forgotten soon as you give the cops what they demand.)
5. (The author is wrong here. Illegally obtained evidence is used in courts every day. Fifty years ago, cops sometimes had to use cunning ruses to sneak illegally obtained evidence past defense lawyers to jurors. (See: "Valachi Papers Minus Cop/Media BS and "Henry Lee Lucas Minus Cop/Media BS".) Now judges approve illegal evidence by using numerous semantic tricks that only the richest victims can defend against. Targets do not even notice it is illegal. Cops don't get punished when they get caught at it. Public Defenders stall their legal and political careers if they fight it. Appeals judges refuse to rule against it. Thus new 'law' has been created that allows it, by simply sneaking it in as caselaw precedent. Legal precedent overthrows the constitution one case at a time, then expands and grows to cover all future cases. Jurors help throw away our rights by voting for conviction despite its illegality. Citizens wink and approve, having no idea that by doing so they steer America inevitably to fascism and a police state where no one has any real rights. They grin and happily assume, idiotically, that they have merely helped their cops nail their 'bad guy' instead of shot every citizen in the foot, including themselves. This process converts stand up and deliver rights into grovel-for-privilege serfdom.)
6. (Gov't has always been about servicing merchants and harvesting citizens of our taxes and labor. Destruction of property is not 'victory', it is a desperation move against a system armored against logic and long term survival of an optimum population. See:"Humans Extinct by 2200 AD". 'Militants' and 'warriors' should take a lesson from the master propagandists who score victory after victory against them. The winner is who controls the media, (the public mind), which is how the forces of Gluttony and Privilege will kill off our species very soon.)
7. (Think like a cop: when cops are given profiles to attack, be they of eco-warriors or mere hubcap bandits, they strive to cage everyone who comes close to fitting their target class. Guilty persons are elusive; cops are lazy. They and their bosses, all the way up to politician, all secretly believe that efficient use of their time and resources involves scooping up everyone near crime; culprit, sympathizer and even innocent. They have laws against everything. Everyone is some type of 'criminal'. Random roadblock crime searches are bad enough. Targeted 'profile' crimesearches are much worse. The fact that the American constitution outlaws both makes no difference. The cops' tunnel-vision goal is to stop the crime-of-the-day by any means, hang the costs to individual citizens. Cops multiply culprits and expand crimes to cover sympathizers and innocents all the time. This is a common, yet little known practice. See: "Cop Culture and Training".)
8. (This is another reason to immediately demand a lawyer the moment cops attack. You
are abducted by police as soon as they decide to harass you. They will not let you go until they get either what they want or are forced to quit by your accessing your rights. Often the fastest way to get loose from pestering cops is to access your right to a lawyer.)
9. These are NOT empty threats. Cops WILL beat, torture and sometimes even murder citizens when they wish, which is often, since their 'punishment' for getting caught at it is a paid vacation while awaiting exoneration for these crimes from their pals and employers at the courthouse. You watched Obama let all the Bush/Cheney culprits escape into anonymity with their crimes. Today they are committing more, probably worse, atrocities elsewhere. Additionally, the goodcop/badcop routine also is played on jurors by the judge/prosecutor team. Prosecutors play the good guy seeking justice as they sabotage the defense and play a thousand testimonial and evidentiary tricks to obtain conviction, no matter what. If Jurors notice the flagrant slant against the defense and toward the prosecutor, the judge steps in and explains with jargon how this is somehow perfectly legal and just, often for secret reasons that jurors must not know, else 'justice' will somehow be thwarted. Judges help prosecutors exclude defense evidence and insert illegal or fanciful 'evidence' of their own.
Asserting your right to a lawyer is better than asserting your right to remain silent because jurors are programmed to infer that silence equals guilt. Ignorant citizens (the majority), believe that cops are benign merely from what they are fed by the media, and due to their lack of experience in dealing with cops. A fairly comprehensive study of authority is in "Innocent's Guide To Avoiding False Conviction". The lawlessness of authority makes it imperative for citizens to study authority for our own protection. Legislation now has little to do with justice, and much to do with special interests and society's Gluttons Of Privilege and Power. Protect your life and freedom by maintaining a healthy skepticism of these far-too-powerful and privileged, immune-to-the-law elites of society:)