As I was telling him, probably the guys that need this most are probably hungover in their hotel rooms or sitting down in the jail, one of the two.
But no, we've probably got a mixed crowd in here, maybe some federal agents.
The other one's frowning, probably, so that might be a good way to pick them out.
And my name is Steve Dunker. I'm a college professor.
I teach criminal justice and paralegal at Northeastern State University in a town called Tahlequah, which is near Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It's Indian country.
And what I'm going to talk about today is something, even though the title is Hacker's Guide,
this is something that everybody, it doesn't matter who you are, it's good information you can use.
And as far as law enforcement agents who are here, don't frown at me too much.
I think you're going to agree with everything I say.
I think even the hackers who are here today are going to agree with everything I say.
Let me start out by saying this.
What this talk is really about is the Constitution of the United States and how important it is in our life every day.
Let me give you a little bit of background about myself.
I used to be a police officer. I was a police detective.
I worked major case squad for a little while.
I've investigated everything from parking tickets to a couple murders.
So I'm not anti-police as long as you're following the Constitution.
I think you have a hard time finding any police officer who's going to say, I'm against the Constitution.
There's only a handful of officers, in my opinion, who make everyone else look bad.
In fact, they really irritate most good officers.
But back to the Constitution.
One thing we need to start right off and know about the Constitution is, in fact,
it's a tool that restrains the federal government and the state governments from doing certain acts against the public.
And that's what it's for.
It doesn't restrain the citizens. It restrains the federal government and the state governments.
So that's what we're going to look at.
So when I say agent or officer or police, keep in mind that's who we're talking about.
We're not talking about the security guards who are riding their bicycles around the hotel today.
We're not talking about any other private agency who's out there, private corporation.
They're not restrained by the Constitution.
Just the government.
I'll get my PowerPoint to work here.
These are four categories that an officer can step in and do what's called a stop.
And we're going to go through these four categories.
The first one has actually been in the news lately.
And that's the voluntary stop.
And those of you who are from New York, you've probably heard of this.
This is where the officers are coming up to people on mass transit and asking to search their bags.
This is what's known as a voluntary stop.
They have the legal right to do that.
An officer can come up to anyone at any time and ask to search.
Now, the key is that you don't have to give them permission.
You have the right to say yes or no.
Now, there is obviously some...
Yeah, I'll get this right yet.
There is some pressure, obviously.
If a police officer comes up to you and asks you to look in your backpack,
I'll tell you right now, 99% of the people in this room are going to say yes.
And you've probably wondered when you watch TV and you hear news reports about...
Actually, I was watching TV last night. I don't know if anyone else saw this.
The news was on.
Maybe I was the only one here who was actually in their motel room for the news at 10 o'clock.
But actually, if you were, if you're an old middle-aged guy like me, I was in my room at 10 o'clock watching the news.
And it came on about a drug dealer.
And what happens is the police, the local police, went to his house and they asked if they could come in.
And he said, yeah, sure.
And once they came in, he voluntarily told them he had a bag of marijuana.
And then they asked, well, you've got this bag of marijuana. Do you think it would be alright if we searched the rest of your house?
And he says, yeah, sure.
And so what happens then? Well, they find five individually packaged packages of methamphetamine.
And then they find the sawed-off shotgun.
Now you're wondering, what was that guy thinking? He must have been high, right?
I mean, why else is he going to give permission?
Well, there is some pressure. A lot of pressure on people.
I went to law school. I am an attorney.
And two of my professors, one of them, she actually used to be a federal prosecutor.
And obviously they're both attorneys.
And just the fact that they are law school professors means that they're pretty smart.
Well, these two professors were on an airplane.
I went to law school in Kansas City. They came back from a seminar.
And they were stopped by two DEA agents in the airport.
And they said, hi.
Basically the DEA agents introduced themselves and said,
would you two mind coming with me to our office?
We'd like to talk to you about your flight.
Now, let's put it this way. Most of us, and they're no exception,
the DEA shows up and says we want to talk to you about your flight,
you feel a lot of pressure, right?
But you think if anyone would know better, these two law professors would,
an ex-federal prosecutor, and they're both members of the ACLU,
they're going to know what their rights are.
But in fact, they felt pressured.
And in fact, they went back to the DEA office there at their airport,
and they consented to a search.
Now, trust me, these two women are no way drug dealers.
And I'm just kind of suspicious of why they were even stopped.
I was half wondering if they were stopped just so the federal agents could get their ratios down.
In other words, they need two white women to add to their tally as far as who they've been stopping.
If you stop too many people of one race, you can get yourself in trouble.
But I don't know if that's what was going on. I have no way of knowing.
But the fact is, these two women, who should have known better, did everything that DEA agents asked them to.
So one thing we need to just remember, it's okay to say no.
And no means no.
Our next category is investigative stops.
Investigative stops are probably what you guys are most used to.
You're driving down the road and you get stopped by the police.
An investigative stop requires that there's some type of reasonable suspicion.
And this can be anything.
I would say, when I was a police officer, I've made thousands of stops.
And out of those, I'd say 95% were probably just plain old investigative stops.
Something was going on that piqued my interest in that car.
The one thing I noticed over in the room, they're selling the little license plate borders.
The one that says, I love war driving.
If you put that on your car and you're waving a Pringle can out the window,
that is a reasonable suspicion to a police officer who has knowledge.
Think about it.
If you do that, you're just asking for trouble.
Police officers, that's what they do. They drive around. It's their job.
They answer calls.
And if they see anything suspicious, it's their job to stop you.
So you've got to have a little bit of...
I guess if the vendor's here, he's going to get mad at me.
But I'm not sure you should buy a war driving license plate cover if you're actually a war driver.
Let's talk about roadblocks for a second.
And I actually, as a police officer, I was really...
I hate roadblocks.
I think it probably has to do with the fact that when I was younger, back in my time,
they had all the war movies involving Nazis.
And the Nazis, the bad guys, always had the roadblock, right?
Papers, please.
And even when I was a police officer, I refused to participate in roadblocks.
I mean, they still went on.
It's not like, oh, Dunker's not going to do it.
Let's shut down the roadblock.
But they're out there.
And I'm going to cover some of the more common ones that you need to be aware of.
Probably the most common one is DWI roadblock.
DWI roadblocks or DUI roadblocks.
Drunk driving roadblocks in all kinds of terminologies being used.
They are valid as long as a procedure is followed.
And that is set down by the United States Supreme Court.
And for you, as you come up to the roadblock,
that procedure at that point in time doesn't really matter to you.
What matters to you is if you get arrested.
And then you can have your attorney examine the procedures and make sure they're followed.
And just a little side note, what are those procedures?
Well, they have to publish it in the newspaper.
There's a good reason.
Those of you who are drunks, if you're not so smart drunk and you try to drive,
you better read the newspaper because they'll tell you about them.
DWI roadblocks are probably the one that most people support
because there are a lot of people injured and killed by drunks.
And that is probably something that needs to be cut down or is something that needs to be cut down.
But we have other types of roadblocks.
Driver's license registration and insurance checkpoints.
Have you ever been through one of those?
Fleeing felon checkpoints.
Crime witness checkpoints.
These are the type of checkpoints that we saw with the D.C. snipers.
The guys were shooting up the place and one of the responses law enforcement had was to put up roadblocks.
Now, none of us are snipers here today, but you can still get yourself in trouble with a roadblock.
Let's say they have a felon roadblock up and you pull up and you're drinking a can of beer.
What's going to happen to you? Do they let you go?
Now, if you pull up to a roadblock that's for some reason, let's say you're a game warden roadblock
and they're looking for poachers and you pull up there and you have some other violation,
smoking grass or whatever, they're going to take you in.
So be aware that most roadblocks are valid. There's not a whole lot you can say or do about them.
And you can't depend on getting out of trouble by pleading some sort of unconstitutional issue with a roadblock
because most of them are illegal and you're going to have to bite the bullet.
Alright, what can an officer illegally arrest an individual?
Well, you have to have what's called probable cause. Probable cause, as you can read there,
exists when there's enough facts and circumstances to lead police officers in the light of their experience
to the reasonable belief that a person has committed or is committing or is about to commit a crime.
Now, if we go back to our war driving example, you got the license plate, you got some contraption
that actually looks like a Pringle can, and you're waving it out the window and there is a laptop in your possession.
Now, I'll tell you right now, in my experience, most police officers actually won't even know what you're doing.
But if you run into one who actually realizes what's going on, is that probable cause?
Well, when you read this statement, it sure is. They're going to be able to at least search your car.
Now, the big question some of you have right away, how do they know I'm war driving?
Just because I have a laptop and a Pringle contraption, right?
Is this officer going to start rummaging around on my laptop trying to figure out if I broke into a network?
The answer is no. Unless they're inexperienced, someone who doesn't know what they're doing might try to get in your laptop.
But the chances are, you're at least going to be searched. You're at least going to be stopped.
Are you going to be arrested? Maybe. Depends. Depends on the expertise of the officer.
But if we transfer it to something else, let's say you're with your friends, you're driving down the road,
and one of the four in the car is drinking a beer.
You get pulled over for speeding.
The officer comes up, wants to see the driver's license and insurance,
and notices a can of beer, which someone threw underneath the seat and is now leaking all over the floor mat.
I don't know if you've been there.
You know, the old hide the beer, hide the beer. It's the cops.
Does the officer even have to see the can? The answer is no.
All they have to do is smell and take a look. Yep, that looks like beer to me. Smells like beer.
And we have a whole new game. That officer has enough reasonable suspicion at least, probably on the way to probable cause,
to get everyone out of the car.
And it is constitutional to get everyone out of the car.
You line them up on the side of the road, and you start questioning it.
And they dig the can of beer out from the car, and they find out everybody in the car is a minor.
Who can they arrest? There's only one can of beer.
They can arrest everybody, believe it or not.
Minor in possession.
Now, there's no warrant required, unless usually you're in your home.
If you're in your home, the general rule is you're going to have to have a warrant to arrest that person,
unless there's some kind of circumstances that negates that.
If we talk about searches real quick.
Consent search is what we started off this talk about.
And we're going to go through some ones that you may have some questions about.
The consent search of a person is nothing more than asking somebody, you're the police officer,
can I search you?
And if you say yes, then that's a consent search.
Now, what if you're a minor?
What if you're 16 years old, and the police want to search you?
Well, believe it or not, in some states, your parents can give them the right to search you.
Search property, an auto or building.
Well, you have to have legal control over that property or building to search it.
Well, what does that mean?
Well, that means that you legally control that property.
Well, can your landlord give consent to search your house?
And the answer is no.
The landlord cannot give the police the authority to search your house.
Now, the same thing for the hotel manager, which may make a couple of you here feel better today,
because the hotel room is safe and secure.
Even if the hotel manager shows up with the police outside your room,
if they don't have a warrant, that hotel manager cannot let them in.
The maid cannot let anybody in.
But what if you've got a roommate?
Some of you may be sharing your hotel room with 12 other people.
Anyone who has a legal right to be in that room could actually give the consent for the police to come in and search your room.
So, hopefully you know your friends.
Alright.
Your parents.
Some of you are young enough, you may be still living at home.
Can they give consent to search the home?
Well, the answer is, generally, yes.
They can search anywhere in your home that your parents have control over.
Now, every once in a while you see a younger person who takes extreme examples.
They'll put padlocks out on their door to their bedroom, as if they're exerting control over that room.
Now, I haven't yet seen a case on that, but that is certainly one way to establish that you alone have domain over your bedroom.
So, if you're going to be out there and want to exert domain, I guess we'll say, over your own particular room,
you better make sure that no one else in that house has the ability to get in there.
And that includes, you know, if you're living at home and you have a maid service mom, and she comes in and cleans your room every day,
you do not have sole possession of that bedroom.
Roommates. Keep an eye on your roommates. That includes husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends.
They can give consent, even if you're not there, right?
If law enforcement has a warrant, you've got to let them in.
It's even a line out of an old song, I think.
If they show up outside your house with a warrant, you better let them in.
They will not wait while you call your attorney.
If you answer the door and say, I'm going to call my attorney and slam the door in their face,
their next move is to kick the door in.
Let's talk about warrants just for a second, because we see this portrayed in the media.
The typical way to serve a warrant, believe it or not, is they show up at your house and they knock on your door,
they answer your door and they say, hi, we're from X police agency.
We got a warrant, we want to search your house.
None of this SWAT team stuff we see on TV.
We don't have any type of flashbang grenades going off unless you're really a big desperado.
Usually it's very benign and boring.
They just knock on your door, hand you a copy of the warrant.
One guy talks to you while everyone else does the search.
And if you ever run into the position where they're going to search your house, that's probably what's going to happen to you.
The question is, how are warrants given out?
Well, basically it works like this.
They have to have someone come testify before a judge as for the reasons for the warrant.
Well, what do you need to get a warrant?
Well, you have to establish probable cause that some kind of crime is going on.
So you get someone in there saying, yes, in our particular case, let's use drugs as an example.
We have, and this is a very typical way it happens, we have someone who gets mad at somebody else.
And they go to the police and they say, you know what?
Bob has a pound of marijuana in the house right now.
So what's the police, what's their first move?
Well, they have to establish if that witness is credible.
And they do that a variety of ways, which would bore you if I told you.
The next move is to give them a sign of affidavit and they go over in front of a judge with the prosecutor and they raise their right hand.
They swear to the facts they told the police.
It's obviously better if you have two witnesses as opposed to one.
And the judge will decide if in fact there is probable cause.
And if there is a probable cause, the judge will issue a warrant.
Now the problem that you may see right away is, let's say the girlfriend is the one who got mad and turned in her boyfriend and selling marijuana.
Marijuana moves rather quickly around the marketplace.
And there's a problem with that marijuana.
They might be gone even as a warrant is being signed.
And the courts recognize this.
And so we have to have a fresh warrant.
You can't hang on to that warrant for a week and serve it.
Once you get a warrant issued by a judge, law enforcement is going to move pretty quick.
Because there is a defense that they didn't move quick enough and the warrant got stale.
And so law enforcement will move pretty quick.
They'll go over to the house.
If there's any type of dangerous activity involved, you know, there's supposedly guns, they might bring the SWAT team.
But usually it's just simple knock.
Knock on the door, which is a requirement.
Now sometimes it is like you see in the movies.
They knock and then they kick the door.
But most of the time they'll wait for someone to answer.
Or in my experience, it's more often they'll wait for someone to come home.
And as that person is approaching the front door, the cops will swoop in and say,
Oh, by the way, we got a warrant. We'll go in with you.
Got another question?
The question is, how did the Patriot Act change the process of acquiring and serving a warrant?
The EFF is coming on after me and I don't want to steal any of their thunder.
And I'm going to let you ask them that question because they're up to date on all this new stuff.
Not that I am not, it's just I don't want them mad at me.
Alright, let's talk about different types of search.
And that's plain view, plain smell, and plain hear.
This is one that gets a lot of you in trouble.
This is the one that we may see in our life.
If you are involved in some type of activity that you're not supposed to be, and a police officer sees it, hears it, or smells it,
that gives them probable cause to go in and do a search.
And the most common one, when I was a police officer, the most common one I searched on was just marijuana.
There's a problem with people who smoke marijuana.
One of those is, I think their sense of smell diminishes.
And a lot of people don't realize that you just reek of marijuana.
And so when a police officer stops you and you're reeking of marijuana, it's kind of like the Pringle can out the window.
I mean, it's kind of obvious to everybody, except for the person who stopped, that marijuana use is going on.
Well, if the police officer notices that, that gives them the right to do a search.
And that's something to take into consideration.
Emergency circumstances.
Usually when we go to search a house, we don't see a house search unless there's some kind of warrant.
Now, the one exception to that is going to be emergency circumstances.
And that's where the police can establish that if they don't go in right then and there, something's going to happen.
There's some type of danger. The suspect is going to get away.
Use your imagination.
And in those areas, the house can be searched as required to secure the evidence, or to secure the suspect.
I think one of the last emergency searches I did, and this is along the lines of the most common,
I remember going to an apartment complex and I heard some screaming inside a house.
And there's obviously a big fight going on inside the apartment.
Just a knock down, drag out fight.
And I actually knocked on the door a little bit and for some reason they didn't answer.
I think they're too busy beating the crap out of each other.
And I kicked the door in and went in and I ended up arresting one person.
He's a man beating his wife.
Well, the fact that I kicked the door and went into their apartment falls under this category of emergency search.
If I didn't do it, there's no way for me to go get a warrant.
It was something that had to be done right then and there.
And that falls under the category of emergency circumstances.
This is a frisk. This is probably something that you're going to see a lot on television.
You know, the old frisk-em-dannel type thing.
If we go back to how this frisk, when it first showed up, the frisk is nothing more than a pat down for weapons.
And once again, the police officer just can't do this.
The police officer just can't show up and say, you know what, I'm going to search you for weapons.
They have to have what's called reasonable suspicion.
And in the very first case where the Supreme Court decided that this was legal is a really good example of how this is done.
And what happened in that example was there was a guy who was hanging around outside a jewelry store.
And it was summertime and he's wearing a coat.
Not that anyone at this convention would do that.
There's no one here who wears a trench coat or a leather coat even though it's 104 degrees out.
That person, by the way, if that's you, you're begging to be searched by the next cop that sees you.
But it's hot out, the guy's wearing a coat, and he's just kind of fidgeting outside a jewelry store.
Well, the police officer, an undercover police officer, saw that and he went over with the idea that that man is about to rob the jewelry store.
And in fact, he was. When he went over and patted down that suspect, he found a weapon in the man's pocket.
And he retrieved the weapon and arrested him.
And that can happen to you.
If there's any type of reasonable suspicion that you're giving off that you may have a weapon, it can happen to you.
You say to yourself, well, what kind of reasonable suspicion would that be?
Anyway, how can it happen to you?
Well, I already mentioned our trench coat friends here today.
If you're walking around Vegas in a trench coat, it's obviously going to happen to you.
If we go to the case in Britain that we saw about, what, 10 days ago?
The guy's wearing a heavy sweater or coat, he's on the subway, obviously had bombings, did not respond to the police.
He ends up getting shot over a very same scenario, right?
He runs onto the train, the British police fire five rounds into his body, and he dies.
Turns out he's innocent.
Now, what he was doing, wearing a heavy sweater and coat in the middle of summer,
why he wouldn't respond to the police, I guess we'll never know.
But I venture that 99% of you probably did the same thing.
They just thought he was a bomber. They thought he had explosives on underneath.
And like I said, we'll never know why he did that.
What we're looking for is a weapon.
And we're not usually allowed to pull out other things out of the pocket of the coat.
If we frisk them and we don't find an obvious weapon, a gun or knife,
then what do we do if we have something else that we believe is contraband?
What if we frisk this guy and sure, it's not a gun or knife, but it feels like a bag of marijuana?
Well, that's a good question.
Most of you probably answer, we'll just take the bag of marijuana.
In fact, that's what most police officers do.
If they can feel it and they have reasonable belief that it's marijuana, they'll end up confiscating it.
How do they get that reasonable belief?
I mean, what do they do?
How do they get it?
Well, oftentimes, put yourself in this position, you're being frisked.
You don't have a gun on you, but you do have that baggie of marijuana.
And the cop feels it in your pocket.
What's the next question out of that cop's mouth?
What is this in your pocket?
Believe it or not, most people say, yeah, you got me, that's marijuana.
That is a confession.
Search incident to arrest.
Anytime you're arrested, the police have the right to search your surroundings.
They can search you.
They can search your car, if you're in your car.
They can search your house, if you're in your house.
Now, what are they looking for?
Well, case law says that they're looking for weapons.
You say, well, this is a protective ruling.
In other words, the police are issued this ruling by the Supreme Court.
It's the idea that it's for their protection.
And it's for the protection of the suspect.
And one interesting factor is this.
You can even handcuff the suspect.
Have him handcuffed.
You can have him down on their knees.
They are in total control.
They could be surrounded by five great big huge police officers.
There's no way for that guy to get away or to cause any type of damage.
And the police still have a right to search the immediate surrounding area.
On this idea that it's for protection.
You also may perform what's called protective sweep.
If you're arrested in the living room of your friend's house,
the police have a right to walk through the rest of the house for their own protection.
And that means that they can search anywhere that a human can be hiding.
So if you arrest someone in the living room, the cop can walk through the back bedrooms
and search underneath the bed, can open the closet,
anywhere that a police officer can reasonably believe a suspect might be hiding.
I even remember searching the attic crawl space one time
because we had a reasonable belief that someone...
there's marks on the wall and the trap door was over the side.
We searched a crawl space.
This is some of you guys' greatest fear and that's body searches.
When can they search intimate places of your body?
Well, the answer varies depending on your location.
If you're in prison, I mean just forget about it.
I mean you're kind of... as long as they get probable cause,
they're going to search all over.
What if you've got something in your mouth?
Can they force you to open your mouth?
You're out on the street.
The answer is, you know, you watch a TV show like The Shield.
I mean, let's face it, Vic Mackey is just going to pry your mouth open
and probably take a few teeth with it.
Some of you guys, who the hell is Vic Mackey?
Great TV show.
Side note, real police work is 50% The Shield and 50% Reno 911.
That is the honest truth.
Ask any cop and if they're truthful, they'll tell you.
Cross between Mackey and Dangle.
Now, we see this on TV shows because it does make good drama.
What happens if they want to perform surgery on you?
They want to dig the bullet out of your arm.
The answer is, we're going to have to get a court order.
We're going to have to go to the judge and say,
Judge, we need a court order.
And the judge is going to look at various things.
Not only probable cause, but this is a person's life at risk
and the extent of the crime, that type of stuff.
Abandoned property.
This is something that gets a lot of people in trouble.
As a police officer, I stole lots of trash.
As soon as you put your trash out to the curb,
the police can show up, pick your trash up, and go through it.
Now, I know some of you guys have probably heard of this technique.
Not that you guys would ever do it yourself.
A little side note.
I'm an attorney and I actually had a client call me up one time.
And he says, what's the rule about me stealing my competitor's trash?
And I had to think about it for a second.
The first question is, why would you want to steal their trash?
Well, he was in the business of selling computers.
And that was back in the day when you could actually make some money doing that.
And he was... I had a local competitor.
Actually, I had two or three of them.
And every couple... well, you do it twice a week
because trash pickup was twice a week.
And what he did is he'd go over to their dumpster
and he'd go in and steal their trash.
And his competitors did not shred.
And so, for about two years, he knew when the time came up
to put in bids on big projects like at the college
or the city's buying 150 new computers,
he'd go over and he'd steal the trash.
And he'd see the rough drafts for their bids.
And he always came in.
He never lost one contract because he stole their trash.
And needless to say, his competitors went out of business
and before the computer sales crashed,
he sold his business for a million dollars.
Now, unfortunately, he didn't give his attorney any,
but a good example why you need to shred your trash
because there's not just the police,
but a business competitor is going to steal your trash.
And it's legal.
Student searches, most of you guys are probably
pretty familiar with this yourself.
The police are going to be able to come in
and run a dog through the hallways.
They can sniff your locker.
They can open your locker.
Now, some schools have actually banned backpacks
just for the reason that if there's a backpack in that locker,
it makes it a lot more difficult for the police
to do a thorough search because you can't open the backpack.
And so we see some schools saying, you know what,
no more backpacks.
And that way when they open their locker,
there's nothing to impede the search
by school officials or by the police.
College, a warrant is required.
If you're living on a dorm room,
a warrant is required before they can enter your dorm room
and do a search.
Unless they come up with some sort of safety or health reason.
Got some questions?
Yeah, the question was, back in high school,
they're running a dog through the hallways
and the dog alerts on a locker for drugs.
Yes, that gives them probable cause to open that locker.
And even if there's a backpack in there,
they can go ahead and open that.
And, you know, we're going to do dog searches here in a minute.
Go ahead.
The question was, do the searches at the high school level
apply to both public and private?
The answer is yes.
And the reason is this.
We're looking at who is doing the searches.
It is the police department coming in,
which is the government.
So we're looking at constitutional issues.
Now the fact that a private school, I assume,
is the main reason for the question.
If a private school asks the police department to come in,
you know, that's all that's needed.
A good invitation.
Now police just can't show up at a private school
and start doing searches.
I mean, they've got to have permission,
just like everyone else.
Okay, he wants to steal his competitor's trash
that is not on the curb,
but is close up by the building, I assume.
Okay.
I'll put it this way.
Government agencies cannot go up next to a house
and steal the trash.
Private individuals?
Can you go up to your competitor and steal their trash
that's sitting up against the wall of their house?
The answer is,
I wouldn't do it.
I assume they never put it out by the curb.
I mean, the idea is, what we're talking about
is abandoned property.
They have to abandon their property.
Now, I guess you could get a, you know,
if you paid, if you stopped the trash truck
and said, look, man, I'll give you 20 bucks
to give me the bags of trash that come out of that business.
And the trash man says, yeah, that sounds like a great idea.
That's totally legal, okay, in my opinion.
But once again, I, you know, I'm an attorney in one state,
and there's 49 more out there,
so I, you know, operate on your own.
What about the dumpsters?
The dumpsters?
The thing about dumpsters is they're usually located
at the edge of the property anyway,
so you could, you know, once again,
you know, it's hard to say.
It's one of those things you have to see
to make a determination.
But if it's obviously on the edge of the property,
I mean, you're going to be able to do it.
The big question, once again, is, is it abandoned?
Okay?
Once you throw out trash, it's abandoned.
But if you regain control over it,
that's why you actually see some businesses
with locks on their dumpsters.
Not that you guys would ever go dumpster diving,
but if you're out there, you see people,
you know, some of the high-tech companies
will put locks on their dumpsters,
that type of stuff.
So if they have a lock on their dumpster
and you cut the lock off, yeah, that'd be illegal.
Another question?
The question is, if you're on their property,
the edge of the property, dumpster diving,
private security shows up,
are you obligated to leave?
Um...
You know, there's no reason for a confrontation
because they can't be everywhere all the time, right?
I mean, I'm not telling you to go dumpster diving.
I'm just saying...
It's best not to have a confrontation.
I mean, leave.
And, you know, if you really want what's in that dumpster,
come back later, you know.
Anything else? Yes.
You guys are really into this trash, aren't you?
I'm just going to give a talk next year just on trash.
The question was,
if the dumpster is on public property,
let's say the city of Las Vegas has a dumpster,
you know, outside City Hall,
is it legal to go onto that property
and get in the dumpster?
Okay.
I guess the main thing that you need to understand is,
when you're going out there dumpster diving,
okay,
Sorry, I just didn't think I'd spend 10 minutes on dumpster diving.
If you're out there dumpster diving,
the big question you have to ask yourself,
has this been abandoned?
Would a reasonable person say,
the contents of this dumpster is abandoned?
Okay.
And that's going to have all the stuff we've talked about.
Is it on the edge of the property?
Is it clear that it's been thrown away?
You know, there's no locks on the dumpster.
And so the answer to your question is,
you know, you're going to have to answer that yourself.
I mean, you know, if it's up under the loading dock,
you know, of City Hall, I'd stay away from it.
But, you know, if it's out the curb,
you know, it's free game.
Okay.
Any other questions?
Yes, sir.
I can't hear you.
Well, you're at the library,
and you happen to find various files.
Okay.
Once again, I'm going to defer to the EFF.
I mean, they're electronic experts.
I'm more of the, I don't know,
if the EFF is here, don't get mad.
I'm more of the real life.
If you're walking down the road and get stopped by the police,
I can help you there.
But, you know, when you get into the electronic arena,
I'm not going to touch that,
because they're the experts.
I'm not.
Okay.
What happens if you get frisked and there's a bottle on you?
And in that bottle,
we're assuming beer or something, right?
Oh, a medicine bottle.
Oh, a pill bottle.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
What happens if they find a pill bottle in your pocket?
Can they pull that out?
And the answer is no.
I mean, just because they felt that prescription bottle in your pocket
doesn't give them the right.
If all they're doing is frisking for weapons,
a pill bottle is not a weapon.
Okay.
Now, the next question out of their mouth is,
what's in the pill bottle?
Okay.
And we'll take it from there.
I mean, what happens from that point forward?
You know, it's going to be anyone's guess,
but, you know...
All right.
They tell me I've got five minutes left,
so let's talk about dogs real quick.
A dog has a right to be anywhere a police officer does.
So just because they have a dog doesn't mean that there's a special rule.
Usually a rule is just tied in.
Does the officer have the right to be there or not?
Let's talk about cordless phones for a second,
because I saw this happen.
My office, when I was on the anti-crime unit,
they didn't have any place to put us,
so they stuck us in with the drug officers.
And probably the neatest thing I saw,
at least from a police standpoint,
was they had a big drug dealer in town.
The drug dealer was using a cordless phone.
Okay.
And basically the officers rented the house across the street
and got a scanner and listened in on all the cordless phone conversations.
Well, what happened is the bad guy's cordless phone went out.
It broke.
And how they realized was they stopped hearing the phone conversations.
And when they stole the trash, they found the broken cordless phone in the trash.
And so they were in a dilemma,
because this was really good intelligence they were gathering,
and they didn't know what to do.
And so they had the local printer print up a little brochure,
and they sent it to them in the mail.
And this is one of those brochures you may have seen.
It says, you have won either a trip, you know, to Hawaii,
a cordless phone, or $50.
Well, and they said on this brochure,
and you will receive notification of your prize next week.
And next week, what'd they do?
They sent them a cordless phone.
Now, the drug dealer...
Now, the drug dealer's real happy.
He cooperated.
He plugged in the phone,
and for a few more months they gathered intelligence.
And this was back in the day when crack was...
I mean, these were crack dealers, you know.
And, you know, I guess if you're dealing crack,
you're probably not very smart anyway.
So they took the cordless phone.
I'm going to leave email communications to EFF.
Wiretapping...
I'm going to leave most of that to them.
I will say this.
Roving wiretaps has made a lot of people real nervous.
And just understand that a roving wiretap
doesn't mean there's a...
well, hopefully...
doesn't mean there's the FBI van driving down your street
just kind of tapping into various people's phone calls.
That's not what it's talking about.
A roving wiretap is more along the lines of
they have a suspect who uses several different phones
and this warrant covers the federal government
or the state government going around
and moving from phone to phone.
Okay.
Use of bugs by law enforcement.
When can they bug your house?
The answer is not very often.
You really don't have anything to worry about
bugging your house unless you're a real big criminal.
Let's talk about this real quick.
I probably got like two minutes left.
What happens if a police officer does do something wrong?
What happens if they violate your constitutional rights?
Once again, I want to say this.
Most officers, 98% of them, are not going to do anything
intentionally to violate your constitutional rights.
There's a couple reasons for that.
First of all, it's usually really easy to get a search
or it's really easy to get arrest on somebody.
Probably the best training officer I ever had,
he made a statement that has stuck with me forever
and that's real simple.
He says, look, there's no reason to go out there
and violate anyone's constitutional rights.
If they are a criminal, if they're someone up to no good,
they will continue to do that.
And eventually, you're going to catch them.
So there's no reason, no reason at all,
to violate the constitutional right.
That hurts you.
It hurts your honor more than anything else.
And that's the only thing you have as a police officer.
You have to do the right thing.
You have to uphold the constitution.
That's what you're here for.
And most officers understand that.
I mean, it's a job.
I don't care if you guys are writing code or making tacos.
It's the same thing as a police officer job.
In other words, they go to work every day
and they do their job.
And they realize if they don't get the criminal today,
they're probably going to get them tomorrow.
So most officers won't do anything that violates your constitution.
But unfortunately, there's the other 2% that do.
They're just bad people.
Just like there's bad doctors,
think about who you work with right now.
There's someone you hate at work.
And cops are the same way.
You go to a police station and you say,
if you could actually get their confidence and say,
which cop here is the biggest idiot?
And everyone would say, Bob or Frank or Mary.
It doesn't matter where you work.
If you're making tacos or you're the cop,
there's someone that you know that just can't make tacos
or shouldn't be a cop.
And they're no different.
Well, what happens?
Well, first of all, if they do violate your constitutional rights,
what you can do is sue them.
Or if you're under criminal indictment,
you can do what's called the exclusionary rule.
It makes them throw out all the evidence they have against you.
Civil law, 1983, some of you may be familiar with that.
That allows you to sue the police or any other government official
that has violated your constitutional rights.
That person, if they violate your rights,
you can file a lawsuit against them.
That's what we see Rodney King.
Now, Rodney King, what happened there is,
I can't remember how much he walked away.
I think it was like $1.43 million.
I don't know if I'd take that beating for one point.
But, you know, he walked away under Section 1983 for that.
And the officers in that case, at least two of them,
went to prison under that same section.
So it has both a civil action and a criminal action
you can take under 1983.
And something that's often overlooked is what's called internal affairs.
And that's where you go to the police station
and you make a complaint against that particular officer
and they do an investigation.
Now, some larger departments
have their own separate investigation agency.
And it can result in time off and reduction in rank and fire
and that type of stuff.
I see him in his eyes. He's making the cutthroat sign.
I think it's time for me to get off.
If you have any questions, they want us to clear the tent
for the next speakers.
I guess that's... I'm looking at the goon.
He's not doing anything.
We don't have to clear the tent.
Okay, we don't have to clear the tent.
But if you have a question, you're welcome to come up and ask me.
Remember to use the first word out of your mouth.
It's hypothetically.