
Judge says ‘literal but nonsensical’ Google translation isn’t consent for search - jonas21
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/15/judge-says-literal-but-nonsensical-google-translation-isnt-consent-for-police-search/
======
hisnameismanuel
I am bilingual and spend a lot of time interacting with people who are not.

‘Buscar el auto’ Means, literally ‘To look for the car’. The question ‘Puedo
buscar el auto’ means ‘can I look for the car.’

As an English speaker you might see that it’s possible to understand this as
‘search the car’. Wrong. In Spanish, if you ask this question… … (and this is
key) … … the car _cannot_ be present.

If you are to ‘buscar el auto’, it means

a) There is a car that is familiar to you b) It is somewhere, but you don’t
know where it is.

The article’s use of ‘find’ was close but it missed the mark. ‘Look for’ is
the most accurate translation.

A Spanish speaker at this point would have NO idea what the policeman is
trying to say. (‘What is this car you’re talking about? Why are you asking me
if you can look for the car?')

Moreso, a Spanish speaker with no understanding of how English works would
simply not make the link from ‘buscar’ to ‘registrar’ (which is the word the
policeman SHOULD have used) even despite the policeman being present and car
searches being a normal thing.

The two words are just too far off.

The reason he's saying 'Si' is because this is what one does in Spanish to jog
along a conversation where one

a) Is not following b) Doesn't think there is any hope of asking for
clarification without making the conversation even more difficult.

~~~
lostlogin
I regularly interact with people who speak no English in healthcare. It’s
amazing how confused a situation can get and how far a conversation can
apparently progress with someone saying ‘yes’ in answer to a question that
isn’t understood. It’s a trap for the unwary. Getting in the habit of phrasing
questions such that ‘yes’ or ‘no’ are not the answer is a good habit in this
setting, but it’s a slow way of having a conversation.

~~~
splintercell
My maid does not speak any English, only Spanish, using Google translate is
not perfect, but whenever I want her to understand something properly, I ask
her to repeat what she understood, and that works out fine.

~~~
DoreenMichele
When my children were little, my standard was "repeat it _in your own words_ "
to make sure they weren't parroting it back at me without comprehension.

------
mikece
At the very least the cop could have called an interpreter, put them on
speakerphone, and conducted the conversation that way. I'm surprised law
enforcement doesn't have these services, especially for Spanish.

Does raise the question: if a law enforcement office pulls over someone with
whom they are unable to communicate, what is the protocol?

~~~
ubernostrum
It was perhaps a bit sensationally presented, but the other commenter hits on
an unfortunate truth: too often, inability to communicate is treated as
noncompliance, and the standard response to perceived noncompliance is
violence.

For example, in Oklahoma City last year, police shot and killed a deaf man,
despite being told he was deaf, because he wasn't able to hear what they were
yelling to him:

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/09/21/552527929...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/09/21/552527929/oklahoma-city-police-fatally-shoot-deaf-man-despite-
yells-of-he-cant-hear-you)

~~~
allthenews
>because he wasn't able to hear what they were yelling to him

He was advancing toward them with a metal pipe, while their weapons were
drawn. I don't think there was much that needed to be communicated in such a
scenario. Most likely suicide by cop.

~~~
orf
Are the police so poorly trained and terrified that they are unable to subdue
a deaf man carrying a pipe without lethal force? Why is walking towards a cop
with a melee weapon grounds for a death sentence?

~~~
allthenews
How much risk do you expect police to take on? This man threatened them with
lethal force, in the face of drawn weapons. Even if they were to attempt to
subdue, they would be risking severe bodily harm.

At some point I believe a human being momentarily forfeits their right to life
when they show reckless, deliberate disdain for the life of others. Deadly
force was met with deadly force. The power imbalance is irrelevant,
considering how much damage a man can do with a pipe, and the fact that he was
fully aware of the situation.

~~~
eropple
_> How much risk do you expect police to take on?_

All of it. I will trade a hundred dead police officers for one citizen who
would have been unjustly harmed and sleep soundly for it.

Police receive power from the state and significant social plaudits. In
exchange, they place the well-being of every citizen over their own. That's
the deal. It is being abrogated regularly. That needs to change.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _All of it. I will trade a hundred dead police officers for one citizen who
> would have been unjustly harmed and sleep soundly for it._

And where are you going to find people self-sacrificing enough to take that
job?

~~~
eropple
I would rather have trouble finding police officers than find places to bury
the citizens who bad police victimize.

~~~
throwaway080383
Do you actually think there would be fewer dead bodies if there were
significantly fewer police?

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shalmanese
How do the police not have an official Spanish translation of the Miranda
rights not laminated onto a card and stored as a MP3 file on all of their
phones?

~~~
kccqzy
Why would a cop use a recording of Miranda rights when they want to search?
It's not like they are already arresting him.

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sathackr
Can anyone more familiar with the law explain why the good-faith exception[1]
wouldn't apply here?

[1]
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/good_faith_exception_to_excl...](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/good_faith_exception_to_exclusionary_rule)

~~~
rhino369
The ruling addresses that on pages 9-11. The court noted that in a pretty
similar case (the same google translate error), a different did apply the
good-faith exception.

But the court distinguished this case from the other based on several factors.
This cop didn't ask in english or point to the trunk. And the cop admitted he
had other options other than google translate.

It's a close call. I think it probably should apply, but I see the other side.

~~~
crooked-v
I find it pretty horrifying that attempting to use Google Translate for
routine police actions could ever be considered "good faith".

------
ktosobcy
Other curious thing: given the location wouldn't it be prudent to have some
basic Spanish classes for public officials? It's not that hard to get the
basics and it would really help communicating…

~~~
kurthr
It does not seem that understanding is the goal here, misunderstanding is the
goal. Education and compassion are not helpful towards the end of harrassment.

~~~
azborder
Harassment? The guy was a drug dealer with a lot of drugs in his car, and they
tried to ask him if they could search his car. I’d say that’s about as far
from harassment as it gets.

~~~
Doxin
> a lot of drugs in his car

Isn't that something you'd only discover _after_ searching the car? Car
searches need to be valid _before_ executing them, not after.

> they tried to ask him if they could search his car.

They tried, failed, and then searched his car regardless.

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kiallmacinnes
I would be very curious to know exactly what the English sentence was. I've
found that, unless you use perfect English (assuming the source language is
English) and no slang, Google translate will fail miserably.

Is this a case of really bad translation, or really bad English? The article
doesn't give enough info to know!

~~~
dontreact
As a bilingual speaker who grew up speaking Spanish, I would perfectly well
understand “puedo buscar el auto” in that context, and myself would be
extremely unlikely to interpret it as anything else. Im not sure I would
myself translate t any differently.

~~~
tantalor
But you are bilingual; the person in the article was not.

~~~
dontreact
My point is that even a bilingual police officer (if I was in their place)
could have said the same thing thing.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, a bilingual police officer (or other bilingual listener) would likely
understand the intended meaning if someone else made this error (because they
would know English and Spanish both well enough to see the likely translation-
from-English error), but they would not be likely to _make_ the error.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I fear that Machine Learning/AI is falling into the uncanny valley, where you
can depend on it most of the time, but it will let you down at very critical
times and you have no way of knowing when that is. Here is a case with machine
translation. The Tesla autopilot death is another example.

Machine learning has been hyped so much recently, that I fear that with more
cases like this, the public will become disillusioned and we will have another
AI winter.

~~~
lostlogin
That implies there has been a summer. I’d be happy with an ok spring at this
point.

------
magissima
Even if the translation were perfect, the cops absolutely should not have used
it without being able to verify it.

------
fareesh
I didn't understand the bit about being fortunate to live in a multilingual
society

Here in India we have so many languages, I don't consider myself to be more
fortunate than people in other societies because of this fact. If anything, I
see it as a potentially massive inconvenience. It has been the root of so much
conflict between communities. Entire states have been split into two because
of language issues.

Feels like diversity has an exaggerated sense of value in the west. Probably
not a politically correct thing to say given the obsession with race.

~~~
cirgue
I don’t think that most people would take issue with the idea that diversity
with no basis for common experience/understanding is a bad thing. The point of
diversity as a social value in the West is the belief that by explicitly
incentivizing more interaction between people of different backgrounds,
barriers to communication erode and eventually disappear, or at least are
minimal enough that everyone can participate in a society as equals.

Edit: more succinctly, the emphasis on diversity in the West is intended to
eventually solve the very real problem that you identify.

------
_emacsomancer_
Wasn't there also some counter-terrorism case involving Google translation of
something posted on Facebook?

~~~
DerekL
“Facebook Apologizes After Translation of 'Good Morning' Post Sees Palestinian
Arrested by Israeli Police”

[http://www.newsweek.com/palestinian-arrested-israel-
police-a...](http://www.newsweek.com/palestinian-arrested-israel-police-after-
facebook-mistranslation-692464)

~~~
cobbzilla
Wow, how terrifying. Is this English-speaking privilege rearing its ugly head
again? Re the Terry Gilliam film Brazil: yes indeed, we have arrived.

But somehow it's much more than that - we are becoming a mashup of Brazil +
Brave New World. We've created colossal world bureaucracies (both government
and corporate) writing and enforcing _countless_ rules. But simultaneously,
because of of perceived individual benefits offered by these bureaucracies, we
have eagerly embraced a misplaced complacent acceptance of all these new
rules. Boggles the mind.

In our brave new world, maybe ignorance truly is bliss.

------
test6554
When they searched his car, __with his consent __, they found quite a stash of
meth and cocaine.

I get that they might have to let him go due to the 4th amendment violation,
but I also think that he should be given probation or rehab or something. Just
because the criminal portion has ended doesn't mean the public health/safety
angle needs to be ignored.

~~~
larkeith
Setting such a precedent would make an utter mockery of the 4th amendment.

~~~
scotty79
Ignoring solid evidence just because it was acquired illegally is mockery of
justice, logic and common sense. If it was collected illegally then punish the
person that did the illegal thing but do not discard the evidence.

~~~
chatmasta
> mockery of justice

The “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree” doctrine [0] would disagree with you.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree)

~~~
scotty79
I know it's how things are in US. Some stupid thing someone came up with in
1920 stuck there. Not sure if any other country on the planet has such a silly
rule.

If evidence is false or tampered with then by all means ignore it, but if it's
solid it doesn't matter if it came out just because someone committed some
additional crime.

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8bitsrule
Google translates about as well as self-driving cars drive.

~~~
tempestn
Except maybe the Google self-driving cars.

~~~
8bitsrule
I've _never_ seen one involved in an accident in the news. Must be better
coffee for the drivers?!

------
childintime
Well, any time I need something from a gov and it isn't in the language it
wants to see, it just closes shop on me. Even if the language is english and
everybody understands it, except the official, who is "just following the
law". So we have to go to an official translator, pay through the nose to get
something trivial done. Or forget it.

Is the court suggesting, with this verdict, the cops do the same? Seems like a
reversal of the usual gov policy to me.

Furthermore, in this situation non-verbal communications take over and should
be considered. If the defendant knew the law he would have signalled "no"
(while saying "no"), or positioned himself as to block access (if possible).

------
magoghm
Relevant:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao)
(My hovercraft is full of eels)

