

My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird - arielm
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/hey-denver-police-harrass-riding-uber/

======
jemfinch
The story would have been a lot shorter if the author knew not to answer
police questions.

"The officer then opened the backseat door where I was sitting and asked if I
was paying for the ride."

Just don't answer. You don't have to. Even if you knew the law had passed in
Denver, why would you answer? It cannot help you.

~~~
blazespin
Right. Piss off a cop. Brilliant! The balanced and calculated reactions of
these individuals was very impressive, I only wish I had their fortitude and
thoughtfulness in such situations.

~~~
jemfinch
There's no need to be an rude about it.

"Sorry, officer, I don't understand your question."

"Are you paying to be a passenger in this vehicle?"

"I'm sorry, officer, I want to help you, but I just don't understand how this
involves me. I'm just a passenger here."

Most cops will just give up asking the question there. If the officer pushes
the issue, he's being an asshole, but you can still very politely invoke your
fifth amendment rights: "Sorry, officer, I should have an attorney present to
help me with these questions."

At that point, answers to _any_ further questions (if any: standard police
policy everywhere is to cease questioning immediately) are completely
inadmissable (Edwards v. Arizona, 1981).

You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride: that's true. With that
said, the cops who will bring you downtown for asserting your rights are
_exactly_ the cops that you _really_ shouldn't be talking to.

(IANAL, FWIW; I'm just an occasionally rude anti-authoritarian citizen who has
to mentally practice polite assertion of my rights so I don't accidentally
piss off cops who, in their view, are just doing their jobs.)

~~~
jcromartie
The correct way to politely decline a question is "I'm sorry officer, I can't
discuss this without my attorney present."

You're not dodging the question, but offering a well-understood reason, and
the reason involves something real but external to both yourself and the LEO.

------
mullingitover
This brings up an interesting point about what exactly the law is and how
everyone's supposed to be aware of it.

It's 2014. Why can't officers carry a tablet that stores the entirety of the
law, and show you exactly to the letter which law you're violating? Likewise,
every citizen should have trivial access to the extant laws, with notes
explaining them in a way that's comprehensible to anyone with a high school
education.

If ignorance of the law isn't a valid excuse for breaking it, everyone should
have simple access to it.

~~~
M2Ys4U
The law isn't just what's on the statute book, it has to be read in the
context of case law (at least in jurisdictions that use a common law system),
which evolves over time and can vary based on the individual facts of the
case.

That said, things like that do exist - the UK's entire statute book (well,
almost) is available online,[0] free of charge and via a RESFTful API in
machine-readable formats.[1]

Likewise, the German federal government publishes the law in XML, and there's
even a markdown representation available on github.[2]

[0] [http://legisltion.gov.uk/](http://legisltion.gov.uk/)

[1]
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/developer/formats](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/developer/formats)

[2]
[https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze](https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze)

------
gklitt
It appears that this HN post links to itself instead of the article (as of
11:12pm ET). What's going on here?

Perhaps a server bug, or a mod mistake..?

~~~
dang
The submitter didn't include a url. We'll add it. But this is not a good HN
story: high controversy, low information.

~~~
robinson-wall
It also just dropped from 2nd or 3rd position to 31st, pushing it off the
front page, in a matter of minutes with little or no change to the ranking of
anything else.

~~~
dang
Sure; users are flagging it and we just penalized it. The story is not a good
fit for HN, as anyone who has read the HN guidelines should know. It is
deplorable that a police officer handled an Uber situation inappropriately,
and stories with a high indignation-to-information ratio are not appropriate
here.

~~~
arielm
I didn't submit this story because of the way the police office handled this
person but rather because I (and most likely a good number of other readers)
take uber x and should know that this could happen to them as well.

I was talking about the "legality" of uber x with a friend yesterday and
figured other reader may have a similar question.

------
yuubi
Link should probably be [http://www.geekwire.com/2014/hey-denver-police-
harrass-ridin...](http://www.geekwire.com/2014/hey-denver-police-harrass-
riding-uber/)

------
droopyEyelids
A confused police officer made a bad call. Do we have to up vote every single
article about Uber?

~~~
themartorana
Good thing he didn't admit he was wrong. That would have shifted the entire
balance of power in the nation, and anarchy would have ensued.

Edit: gonna leave my initial snark for context, but this isn't about Uber to
me. It's further information about how completely out of bounds the power
structure is in the US, and how accountability for police action is
continuously declining.

"Uber" gives the article some sex appeal, admittedly, but I prefer to have
articles about abuses of power up-voted. The more you know, and whatnot.

Apologies for the snark, but I'd rather read this article than not. You give
the officer an out - he was "confused" and whatnot - but when you hold power
over the general population, "bad calls" aren't as easily forgivable, because
they cause real world harm - and every time they aren't held to account,
police feel a bit more invincible.

~~~
blazespin
No it's about the accelerating evolution of technology and disruption and the
social chaos it's generating. Not saying it's bad, just that this is all
happening.

