There is a reprise, too. In 2014 the SCOTUS weakened 5A rights significantly, so now you are best off asserting your 6A rights (i.e., say you won't talk without your lawyer present, and then really don't talk).
Lawyers will damn you no matter what you do. AT one point I was accused of kidnapping my own child as a result of racial discrimination where a caller called in that the child was a different race so I must have kidnapped them.
I later contacted a civil rights attorney to see if there was any case for racial profiling, but instead they took the opportunity to eviscerate me for not talking my way out of detention. Truth is lawyer will say whatever you did is wrong because the premise of client fucking things up is often just a more convenient explanation.
James Duane, the lawyer from the famous video about never talking to the police, wrote a book called You Have the Right to Remain Innocent. It’s a great read if you want to feel very sad.
It is more complex and it’s shaped by your experiences but as someone I would consider a normal American I have found across states that police tend to be fairly adversarial and unless I am reporting a crime the best policy is usually low contact.
I live in a country where you can now consider police to be "on your side": in other words, policing. It used not to be the case, so I can appreciate this.
In light of this, I find the comments of the police officer invited to the youtube talk about how lucky the listeners are to be in the US (because police in other countries is so terrible) somewhat amusing.
In the US one should generally be terrified of the police, especially if one's skin color doesn't happen to be white. Plus everything that was said in the talk.
>that means one of two things: 1) You are a suspect; 2) You are a possible suspect.
While I suppose this is strictly true, the far more likely option for 2 is that you're a witness to the crime and you can therefore help that crime be solved.
So, in a situation where I am approached by the police to answer questions about something I know I didn't do:
1. I talk, and it helps the police solve a case
2. I talk, and it screws me
3. I don't talk, and it contributes to a case not being solved
4. I don't talk, and it screws me
I read stuff like this article and it tells you about 2, but it doesn't really put that into a broader context about the likelihood that 2 is the outcome. And there is a real decision to be made here!
It’s really important to know your rights. A lot of people think they know, but often times they don’t. And it gets those people in trouble.
For example, you are required to provide identification when operating a vehicle at a traffic stop. No exceptions. Don’t get hung up on the reason for the stop, it doesn’t matter. Additionally, police can articulate in virtually any situation that they fear for officer safety, which is reason enough in many states to order you out of the vehicle. At this point they have a foundation to frisk you for a weapon.
Resisting at any point of this is very risky.
Understanding when and where an officer doesn’t have the legal authority to do the above gets very nuanced. But generally I encourage Americans to learn the rights they have when operating a car seeing as their lives revolve around driving.
I live in a small central California town. My wife and I enjoy a local band that plays occasionally at the local pub. I couldn't make it last weekend but my wife went with a friend and I picked her up after at about 10:00pm. Neither of us had anything to drink. Cop lights me up and pulls me over and claims I didn't stop at a stop sign, was weaving on the road and that my license plate light is out. All complete and utter lies. Cop said "Are you willing to take a sobriety test right now?" and I thought about it. My stubborn side wanted to say "hell yes, I'll take the test" but I've heard enough stories about cops fucking people over here that I just calmly said "No." He said "I can haul you in for that.." and I replied "And you'll look really bad in front of a judge if you force it and you find out I'm completely sober. I'll fight it the whole way." I was polite. Gave him my license and registration and cooperated as asked otherwise. He made us sit there on the main street for about 20 minutes while he sat in his car with his spotlight on us and didn't appear to do anything else. Then came back and tossed my license and registration at me and said he was giving me a verbal warning. Fuck these guys. I hear these stories all the time locally and I don't really see how anyone that experiences the petty lies can "back the blue".
But lawyers are expensive, and if it turns out you are just a witness, you are going to be spending a lot of money for nothing.
And then consider if you are are the spouse or parent of a murder victim or missing person, and are innocent. You are almost certainly going to be a potential suspect, but you also want to help them find the actual criminal, and if hiring a lawyer makes you "look guilty", then the police might focus their investigation on you rather than finding the real perpetrator.
Somebody else linked to a follow up talk by the lawyer in the video[0], in which he gives an example where this exact thing happened, and they wound up convicting the guy based on his attempts to help them. He was later exonerated.
The type of person who gets themselves in a situation where they can become a suspect is one that I can't see getting into. It makes me question what the person did to have this happen to them.
I lead a normal life. I've never gotten into a situation where this could ever possibly concern me. I'm betting the vast majority of people who visit HN (and aren't commenting here) wouldn't have this issue, either.
I do not fear the police. The police have helped me in several situations such as car accidents. At my business they discovered my back door open and, within minutes, caught the person who stole something. My car got side swiped overnight and they walked the street to see if any neighbor had a camera. And on and on.
You wouldn't find me in an illegal situation involving the police except if I happened to be there. But I wouldn't fear being hauled off to jail cause that just won't happen except on the internet.
> they discovered my back door open and, within minutes, caught the person who stole something.
Plenty of people can tell you about the cops never bothering to show up to a call, or showing up hours later and shrugging. The fact that this supposedly happened to you is the outlier.
A lot of discussion in this thread about traffic stops. James Duane (the law professor from the video in the blog) himself makes a qualifier about traffic stops: https://youtu.be/-FENubmZGj8?si=bL_1vR0xFKQqkmC5&t=505
These topics are always far more complicated than these experts claim.
My case in point: A neighbor's child was violently mentally ill. I have made my house a safe haven for her children on occasion, and at times have gone into her house to discreetly escort them out past the violent child.
Then the police show up, either because she was able to call them, or I did.
At that point, a refusal to provide witness information to the police would increase the danger for both the child (who I stress is mentally ill, not simply being a violent asshole), the mother, and the police.
In situations involving the police reacting to 911 calls to that house, I always answer their questions. At this point, I get "I remember this guy - you're a neighbor, right?" - because we've done this dance so many times.
Another instance - I noted someone hiding (with really obvious peaks around the corner) at the side of a house while driving home. Found multiple police cars parked on and near my block. I walked up and told the first cop I met where the "hide-and-go-seek" loser was, and answered their questions about his appearance. Hell yes I wanted to answer them.
Rando policeman stopping you and asking you questions is very different from having a local emergency, and wanting your locale to be safer. Yeah, maybe in some fantasy situation the cops could have arrested me for something during that domestic situation at my neighbors, but I value her life and her kids' lives above that paranoid outlook.
Sure, let lawyers spam HN every year with this narrative.
Never do anything without a lawyer. Never self-host a website. Never use VPS either, use cloud. But don't try to setup cloud yourself - use our platform in the middle. Don't accept payments, use our solution in the middle. Connect with your customers by using our [A-Z]AAS, powered by AI, but don't use AI provider, use intermediate provider, which proxies your requests to providers. Don't bother with analytics, just install our analytics service that will charge you just a $ per one thousand lines of logs. And if you feel sick of this - consult a doctor, but don't try to find the solution yourself.
24 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 42.5 ms ] threadIn fact, the video is 14 years old and doesn't have anyone[1] from the law firm that linked to it in the video.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joseph_Duane
Don't Talk to the Police (2012) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45317167 - Sept 2025 (2 comments)
Don't Talk to the Police - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24754163 - Oct 2020 (1 comment)
Don't Talk to the Police - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23390344 - June 2020 (6 comments)
Don't Talk to the Police – James Duane - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19717507 - April 2019 (4 comments)
Don't Talk to the Police (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886628 - Dec 2017 (165 comments)
Don't talk to the police [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001859 - July 2013 (37 comments)
Don't talk to the police - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=219758 - June 2008 (35 comments)
I later contacted a civil rights attorney to see if there was any case for racial profiling, but instead they took the opportunity to eviscerate me for not talking my way out of detention. Truth is lawyer will say whatever you did is wrong because the premise of client fucking things up is often just a more convenient explanation.
Pro 17:28
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
In light of this, I find the comments of the police officer invited to the youtube talk about how lucky the listeners are to be in the US (because police in other countries is so terrible) somewhat amusing.
In the US one should generally be terrified of the police, especially if one's skin color doesn't happen to be white. Plus everything that was said in the talk.
While I suppose this is strictly true, the far more likely option for 2 is that you're a witness to the crime and you can therefore help that crime be solved.
So, in a situation where I am approached by the police to answer questions about something I know I didn't do:
1. I talk, and it helps the police solve a case
2. I talk, and it screws me
3. I don't talk, and it contributes to a case not being solved
4. I don't talk, and it screws me
I read stuff like this article and it tells you about 2, but it doesn't really put that into a broader context about the likelihood that 2 is the outcome. And there is a real decision to be made here!
For example, you are required to provide identification when operating a vehicle at a traffic stop. No exceptions. Don’t get hung up on the reason for the stop, it doesn’t matter. Additionally, police can articulate in virtually any situation that they fear for officer safety, which is reason enough in many states to order you out of the vehicle. At this point they have a foundation to frisk you for a weapon.
Resisting at any point of this is very risky.
Understanding when and where an officer doesn’t have the legal authority to do the above gets very nuanced. But generally I encourage Americans to learn the rights they have when operating a car seeing as their lives revolve around driving.
This is a classic! it's informative but also entertaining.
And then consider if you are are the spouse or parent of a murder victim or missing person, and are innocent. You are almost certainly going to be a potential suspect, but you also want to help them find the actual criminal, and if hiring a lawyer makes you "look guilty", then the police might focus their investigation on you rather than finding the real perpetrator.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48560692
I lead a normal life. I've never gotten into a situation where this could ever possibly concern me. I'm betting the vast majority of people who visit HN (and aren't commenting here) wouldn't have this issue, either.
I do not fear the police. The police have helped me in several situations such as car accidents. At my business they discovered my back door open and, within minutes, caught the person who stole something. My car got side swiped overnight and they walked the street to see if any neighbor had a camera. And on and on.
You wouldn't find me in an illegal situation involving the police except if I happened to be there. But I wouldn't fear being hauled off to jail cause that just won't happen except on the internet.
You don't know what normal life is in the US.
> they discovered my back door open and, within minutes, caught the person who stole something.
Plenty of people can tell you about the cops never bothering to show up to a call, or showing up hours later and shrugging. The fact that this supposedly happened to you is the outlier.
My case in point: A neighbor's child was violently mentally ill. I have made my house a safe haven for her children on occasion, and at times have gone into her house to discreetly escort them out past the violent child.
Then the police show up, either because she was able to call them, or I did.
At that point, a refusal to provide witness information to the police would increase the danger for both the child (who I stress is mentally ill, not simply being a violent asshole), the mother, and the police.
In situations involving the police reacting to 911 calls to that house, I always answer their questions. At this point, I get "I remember this guy - you're a neighbor, right?" - because we've done this dance so many times.
Another instance - I noted someone hiding (with really obvious peaks around the corner) at the side of a house while driving home. Found multiple police cars parked on and near my block. I walked up and told the first cop I met where the "hide-and-go-seek" loser was, and answered their questions about his appearance. Hell yes I wanted to answer them.
Rando policeman stopping you and asking you questions is very different from having a local emergency, and wanting your locale to be safer. Yeah, maybe in some fantasy situation the cops could have arrested me for something during that domestic situation at my neighbors, but I value her life and her kids' lives above that paranoid outlook.
Never do anything without a lawyer. Never self-host a website. Never use VPS either, use cloud. But don't try to setup cloud yourself - use our platform in the middle. Don't accept payments, use our solution in the middle. Connect with your customers by using our [A-Z]AAS, powered by AI, but don't use AI provider, use intermediate provider, which proxies your requests to providers. Don't bother with analytics, just install our analytics service that will charge you just a $ per one thousand lines of logs. And if you feel sick of this - consult a doctor, but don't try to find the solution yourself.
Yours sincerely, man in the middle.