And yet after hours of typing and restyling the exact same things over and over, you've still failed to cite any specific Supreme Court ruling to back up your ramblings.

I'll help kevlar out on this one:

The New York Civil Liberties Union has encountered several cases of people who were unjustly harassed, detained and arrested by federal agents while photographing or videotaping federal buildings from public plazas and sidewalks.

Last year, we sued the U.S Department of Homeland Security in federal court to end this practice. In October, a judge signed a settlement in which the government agreed that no federal statutes or regulations bar people from photographing the exterior of federal buildings. It also agreed to issue a directive to members of the Federal Protective Service (the agency responsible for all government buildings) on photographers’ rights.

The settlement did not require the feds to disclose the directive, but at our request they recently provided us with a copy of it.

The three-page document plainly states that “absent reasonable suspicion or probable cause” security personnel must allow individuals to “photograph the exterior of federally owned or leased facilities from publicly accessible spaces.”

http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/you-have-every-right-snap-picture

I'll help kevlar out on this one:

http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/you-have-every-right-snap-picture

There is absolutely nothing illegal about a police officer questioning someone exhibiting suspicious behavior.
Until you can prove that a court ruling has stated that no police officers can question suspicious people then YOU ARE WRONG.

Try again.

Kevlar contended that a police officer has no right to question a person engaged in behavior which can be construed as suspicious, yet has provided no evidence to substantiate that.

Try again.

Kevlar contended that a police officer has no right to question a person engaged in behavior which can be construed as suspicious, yet has provided no evidence to substantiate that.

Based on REASONABLE suspicion.  Now you need to figure out what is reasonable.  Simply walking down the street late at night taking pictures to me may not be reasonable enough to approach someone.

Based on REASONABLE suspicion.  Now you need to figure out what is reasonable.  Simply walking down the street late at night taking pictures to me may not be reasonable enough to approach someone.

Remember that they were responding to a 911 call of a suspicious armed person taking pictures.

Remember that they were responding to a 911 call of a suspicious armed person taking pictures.

So, if I'm walking down the street, doing nothing illegal, and a cop decides to stop me for questioning, all they have to do is say I looked suspicious?  Or does he need to back up that assessment with a fact or two?

So, if I'm walking down the street, doing nothing illegal, and a cop decides to stop me for questioning, all they have to do is say I looked suspicious?  Or does he need to back up that assessment with a fact or two?

Lets look at your question this way.

A) You are robbing houses and a concerned citizen sees you robbing houses.
The police are called and when they arrive, you are all done robbing houses and are walking back to your van full of loot, at the time they arrive you are doing nothing illegal. All you're doing is walking back to your van.
Yet you fit the description of the person that was suspiciously removing items from a home where you don't live.

Do the police have the right to question you?

B) you are moving things out of your friends house because they had to work but today is the last day for them to get their stuff out. (They're moving)
A concerned citizen thinks you are robbing a house and calls the police.
The police arrive and you are walking back to the van full of your friends stuff. At the time they arrive you are doing nothing illegal.
All you're doing is walking back to your van.
Yet you fit the description of the person that was suspiciously removing items from a home where you don't live.

Do the police have a right to question you?

The point here is that police officers are employed to deter crime, investigate suspicious activity, keep the peace, report and investigate crimes and violations of laws.

I don't believe a police officer responding to a 911 call of suspicious behavior is a violation of your rights.

In the case in question, a man with a firearm is video taping or taking pictures of a federal building at night.
Something about it seemed strange to a civilian and they called 911 to report it.
The police officers responded to the call and ascertained that the person involved was not committing any crime nor did he intend to commit a crime there that night.
They let him go peacefully after that.

I am a firm believer in the constitution and the rights of American citizens.
I do not believe that as Americans we should be oppressed by a tyrannical government at any level.
I do however believe that we should be careful not to declaw and detooth our guard dog, lest he be unable to assist us in our moment of need.

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..........Many people think they are living in an episode of Law & Order, where the legal system is all they need to understand.  Unfortunately, having legal rights is only half the equation.  You, as a citizen, also have a duty to assist law enforcement.  That's why certain laws like citizen's arrest exist, and why lying to an investigator is unlawful.

The problem is how LE and the legal system uses and abuses their powers too often to bully and intimidate and wrongly convict innocent people.  That creates an environment where people are reluctant to get involved or even cooperate with the authorities for fear of retaliation by the actual perps or unwarranted arrest caused by volunteering information.  This problem comes around full circle, causing LE to be frustrated when people refuse to give them the time of day when all they are trying to do is ensure they and the public at large are safe.

I don't see a solution, and continuing to choose sides, LE versus law abiding citizen, will not get us any further along in these debates.

Those are my observations.  Maybe I'm off base?

I disagree that the citizen has a duty to assist law enforcement.  Duty to me means this cannot be passed to someone else.  On the contrary I think that most law enforcement to some extent or another does not want you to become involved.  As with everything else this is not black and white, but muted shades of gray.

Do they want physical involvement? Nope.  Do they want your cooperation when investigating or litigating? Yup.

I do get what you are getting at though.  The trouble is we are dealing with humans and there will always be differing points of view and conflict.  There will always be greed and corruption.  I do not think our version is perfect, but it's still much better than a lot of the alternatives.

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Kevlar contended that a police officer has no right to question a person engaged in behavior which can be construed as suspicious, yet has provided no evidence to substantiate that.

You need to stop constructing strawmen arguments. I know you love to create a false narrative of my posts and then argue against said narrative, but it's disingenuous and petty.

What I've written is whether you think photographing a federal building is suspicious or not is irrelevant. The NYC federal court ruling has stated that that action, in and of itself, is NOT reason enough to stop someone and behave as these guys did - helicopter searchlights and the works. It does NOT meet the criteria for probable cause. You two have been CONFLATING probable cause and suspicion and using them interchangeably.

And yet after hours of typing and retyping the exact same things over and over, you've still failed to cite any specific Supreme Court ruling to back up your ramblings.

LOL. I've already stated that the matter was adjudicated in a FEDERAL court over and over. And now you say the criteria must be a SC ruling. Heh. Move the goal post much?

How can I provide evidence of a court ruling that doesn't exist? I've given legal jurisprudence and case law, and you and Q have given, well, nothing.

Tell you what, go fetch a court case that deals with this situation (photographing a federal building) and sides with your argument and then we'll see. So far, all you and Q have provided are Appeals to Authority and Appeals to Ridicule fallacies, amongst the name calling.

I would like to respond to this one, because I was associated with a case exactly like it.

A) Woman call us because man is supposedly standing outside her window, trying to break in and rip the screen.

B) Man runs into the hills behind her house when she turns on the light

C) We investigate, and discover evidence that someone was outside the window, trying to get in.

D) Man comes walking down the street, in the middle of the night, asking us what's going on and if someone was trying to break in. Why would a random person walk up to a house, in the middle of the night, asking if someone had just attempted to break into a house that just had an attempted break in? I guess its his constitutional right?

E) Based on the suspicious nature of the man, we ask him further questions and for ID (just like in the video), and he plays the stupid game that you both are playing about how he is so much more knowledgeable about his rights and the constitution.

F) When he is unable to provide accurate information about who he is or where he was staying in the premises, we detain him.

Guess what? Dude turns out to be the 37 year old 'boyfriend' of the 15 year old girl living in the house, and he was just trying to break in to see her, and had no plans to have sex with a minor even though he had handcuffs, dildos, condoms and psychotropic drugs in his back pack. Oh and yes, and the investigating officials determined that nothing done on our part was illegal, given that we, as law enforcement officers, were conducting law enforcement operations and were justified in acting on our reasonable suspicions.

Its because of clowns like you that more good cops stop giving a shit and turn into the bad cops you guys cry about. Personally, I was happy that my Judge Dredd interpretation of the law prevented a 15 year old girl and her mother from being raped by some psycho, so you can bitch and moan all you want but the fact remains the same: Unless you have been properly instructed in LE operations and/or understand how they work, all the shit you read and all the videos you watch on the internet is just assumptions.

Other than this being a long Appeal to Authority spiel, you've once again conflated suspicion with probable cause.

Your scenario has noting to do with the situation we're discussing.

First, an ILLEGAL act was committed (B and E), which is why you were called to that house. Since illegality has been established per the phone call and the window you looked at, you ALREADY have PC to give this man the scrutiny you did.

Second, snapping photos of a building - which neither one of you has disputed - is 100% LEGAL. Open carry in that state is 100% legal. This man did NOT commit a crime or engage in ANY behavior to would rise to the level of illegality. Since the criteria of illegality has NOT been meet, the LEOs have NO PC to do what they did. All they have is suspicion, which isn't even enough, legally speaking, to warrant their actions. Stop conflating suspicion and PC. One is a feeling, the other is legal threshold.

If you're representative of active LEOs and their attitudes, no wonder we video after video of police stopping open carriers when they have NO LEGAL justification to do so.

Now if you will excuse me, I once again need to become a subject matter expert on the AK platform by reading a user manual and watching some videos of Travis Haley.

KK, I'm coming for your AK knowledge crown!

And you're back to using an Appeal to Ridicule fallacy.

Some comments from the other OC thread:

Stop and ID was declared unconstitutional in the Kolender case in the 1980's and stopping someone to see if they are "legal" violates Delaware v Prouse.

Hawaii gun owners are so use to being beat in the ground that I can almost understand why they view sterile carry as dangerous and scary.

We had a guy who was nice and showed ID in Michigan, the police mailed him a disorderly conduct misdemeanor court summons that he had to spend $$$$$ to beat, where if he simply kept his mouth shut and did not show ID, the police would have had no way to entrap him and make up a bogus charge on him.

If showing an ID was ok and acceptable upon request then how would these people feel if I ID'ed them envy time they walked with their child, because they could be a pedophile who abducted the kid for all I know

You are 100% required to identify yourself if they have PC to stop you for a crime.  If you fail to identify yourself, they can arrest you and hold you until they figure out who you are.

One of my recent bails was a female who refused to ID herself for a citation, so she got arrested and got a few more citations as well lol.


-- Why stop with I.D.? Why not run the serial number of your gun, check some fingerprints, swab some DNA?  This way, we can find out if you have committed a crime we don't know about! (Or don't have a 'named' suspect).

What's the difference?  Many of you are trying to use the name to "catch criminals" so why not go all the way?

Bottom line fellas for me on this and I think about it everyday when all said and done you cannot not sort between the things on the constitution that you like or dont like its either you support your right or dont! Cant pick and choose. You have to live with the good and bad, the lesser of 2evils for me and my rights is the lesser evil for me.

Its obvious you got a chip on your shoulder about cops, so I will continue to assert that unless you have experience in the LE field, you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Go ahead and quote the same 4th circuit quote you have for the 17th time; fact remains that you are attempting to act like an expert in a field you have no experience in.


Now if you will excuse me, I will need to go play some call of duty and read some books on special operations so I can come back and tell everyone exactly what its like to be a navy seal and how they should be doing things.

Q many of us here don't have direct LE experience.  IMHO however that doesn't mean our opinions are any less valid.  Keep in mind that the general duty is to us the people. 

So, if I'm walking down the street, doing nothing illegal, and a cop decides to stop me for questioning, all they have to do is say I looked suspicious?  Or does he need to back up that assessment with a fact or two?

Yup, pretty much.  It's what happens in New York.............but wait..................check this out:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/12/nypd-stop-frisk/2642313/

..............Its because of clowns like you that more good cops stop giving a shit and turn into the bad cops you guys cry about. Personally, I was happy that my Judge Dredd interpretation of the law prevented a 15 year old girl and her mother from being raped by some psycho, so you can bitch and moan all you want but the fact remains the same: Unless you have been properly instructed in LE operations and/or understand how they work, all the shit you read and all the videos you watch on the internet is just assumptions.

Now if you will excuse me, I once again need to become a subject matter expert on the AK platform by reading a user manual and watching some videos of Travis Haley.

KK, I'm coming for your AK knowledge crown!

Q if you truly believe this you should not be a LEO.  There are reasons why the Founding Fathers & Framers put controls into the Constitution.  Balance for those who rule, those who enforce, and those who make the rules.  When this balance is upset there can be much more serious issues that arise.


FWIW you didn't do a Judge Dredd.  Dredd would have shot the BG in the nutz.

Q many of us here don't have direct LE experience.  IMHO however that doesn't mean our opinions are any less valid.  Keep in mind that the general duty is to us the people.

GZ, Q simply doesn't get it. He keeps using this silly Appeal to Authority argument over and over. He doesn't realize he's basing his entire argument over a logical fallacy.

Like the example I gave earlier - Q's line of thinking works like this: I go to restaurant and order a steak well done. It comes out bloody and with ice crystals on the edges. Since I never went to culinary school or worked in a kitchen, I'm unqualified to declare the steak undercooked. And my opinion is irrelevant. That's how silly his argument is.

All of the examples being used by KK and Q involve suspicion that someone is a perp after a crime is noted or reported.

This topic involves being stop when no crime is or has been committed. The act of photographing a building is not a crime. It is a Constitutionally protected activity, and can not be seen as suspicious.

All of the examples being used by KK and Q involve suspicion that someone is a perp after a crime is noted or reported.

This topic involves being stop when no crime is or has been committed. The act of photographing a building is not a crime. It is a Constitutionally protected activity, and can not be seen as suspicious.

Which is EXACTLY what I've stated over and over. They continue to conflate suspicion and probable cause. Oh, and they also like to throw around terms like 'stupid' or 'clowns' when referring to us and to use logical fallacies - a sure sign they can't debate the issue on its merits.

why don't you guys all agree to disagree?

Which is EXACTLY what I've stated over and over. They continue to conflate suspicion and probable cause. Oh, and they also like to throw around terms like 'stupid' or 'clowns' when referring to us and to use logical fallacies - a sure sign they can't debate the issue on its merits.

I Agree to disagree.

Now that's a quote.