NTSB Wants Black Boxes in Passenger Vehicles

Discussion in 'General Motoring' started by MoPar Man, Nov 12, 2004.

  1. MoPar Man

    MoPar Man Guest

    This is either a step towards (or practically is) self incrimination,
    combined with illegal search and seizure.

    There is no reason for data recorders in cars other than to use as
    evidence against a driver in an accident. Are these black boxes even
    accurate during a collision - where G forces and wheel slippage
    provide no absolute indication of what a car may really be doing
    during an emergency situation? Let alone equipped for the high
    sampling rates needed.

    Shouldn't these data recording systems be certified in order to even
    be considered as sources of evidenciary data?

    This is tantamount to being forced to drive with a forward-facing
    camera mounted in the back seat, recording everything you do.

    The driver should have the ability to turn the data recording mode on
    or off. This works both ways. Anyone who turns the data recording
    off will not therefor have any data that could be used against him -
    but by the same token he won't have any data that could be used to
    defend him either. Every driver should have the right to that choice.

    An example of the mis-use of information is the fact that (apparently)
    some (many? most?) US states require a fingerprint as part of getting
    a drivers license. This seems to have lead (a few months ago) to a
    Seattle laywer being arrested for having something to do with the
    train bombings in Spain. For reasons that I've never heard explained,
    they claimed that fingerprints found on a shopping bag in one of the
    trains matched his. How they had his fingerprints was never explained
    - presumably because they are required when getting a drivers license?

    ------------------------------

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132056,00.html

    Privacy Experts Shun Black Boxes
    Friday, September 10, 2004
    By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

    •NTSB Wants Black Boxes in Passenger Vehicles
    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,127945,00.html

    •Evidence From Black Boxes in Cars Turns Up in Courts
    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90673,00.html

    WASHINGTON — Some safety and privacy experts are reacting with
    apprehension, others with all out condemnation over a recent ruling by
    the National Transportation Safety Board to require electronic data
    recorders or "black boxes" in all new cars manufactured in the United
    States.

    "I take offense that this personal property of individuals is now
    being designed by the federal government," said Jim Harper, privacy
    attorney and editor of Privacilla.org.

    Black boxes (search), or "EDRs" have been fitted into every General
    Motors car in its 2004 line and is in a number of Ford models — about
    15 percent of all vehicles on the road today, according to road safety
    experts.

    EDRs are certainly not new. Information gathered on black boxes —
    typically everything from speed, brake pressure, seat belt use and air
    bag deployment — has already been used in determining guilt in
    criminal and civil cases across the country.

    Proponents, including the NTSB and road safety advocates, say the data
    collected on these black boxes is valuable for studying how accidents
    happen and how to make roads and cars safer. EDR data has been used
    for years to fine tune air bag efficiency.

    "We think for understanding the dynamics of crashes, the information
    here can be very, very helpful," said Lon Anderson, director of AAA
    Mid-Atlantic. On the other hand, Anderson said, "We think it would be
    very wrong if the data in these boxes was deemed to be public
    information, open to anybody and the owner had no say over it."

    The NTSB recommended in early August that black boxes be mandated, but
    critics say dealers are not now required to alert car owners that
    their car has the ability to collect the information. Currently only
    California has a law requiring car dealers to notify buyers when their
    cars are outfitted with an EDR.

    Owners also have no legal protections to keep them from being forced
    to hand over that information to another party if a court order
    demanded it.

    "I think (owners) have to be told of whatever data there is — and what
    is being retained longterm. What are the storage conditions? Will
    they keep it confidential or will they have to release information to
    anybody?" said professor John Soma, director of the Privacy Center
    (search) at Denver University.

    "Without all of these concerns written into it, then obviously the
    recommendation is completely unacceptable," he said.

    According to Joe Osterman, director of highway safety at the NTSB, the
    recommendation was inspired in part by a tragic auto accident
    involving a 86-year-old man who drove his car into a crowded Santa
    Monica farmers’ market last summer, killing 10 and injuring 63.

    Osterman said a black box in the car might have not saved the people
    in the crash, but would have allowed investigators to find out how it
    happened and how cars could be better designed to reduce the
    likelihood of greater injury in the future.

    "We have a long history of using data recorders in other modes of
    transportation and found them extremely useful," Osterman told
    FOXNews.com, pointing to aircraft. "Unless we have all vehicles
    equipped, you will not have a true picture of what is happening on the
    highways, in a broader sense."

    Phil Haseline, president of the Automobile Coalition for Traffic
    Safety, which represents car manufacturers, said automakers are still
    debating the value of EDRs, and the idea of requiring them. Haseline
    said he is a proponent of black boxes but has certain reservations
    about the NTSB’s recommendation.

    He, like others, said he would like to first see standardization of
    the type of data collected in the black boxes, much like a
    recommendation made in June by the National Highway Traffic Safety
    Administration. Right now, dueling technologies record different
    things.

    Then, Haseline said, he would prefer that laws address the issue of a
    car owner’s knowledge of the EDRs in their vehicles, and that car
    owners have ownership of the data once its recorded.

    "I can understand [NTSB's desire] to have this information, but from a
    practical perspective, it is premature at this point to require it,"
    he said.

    While privacy experts say jokes like "'big brother' is riding shotgun"
    aren’t funny, the technology already is being used to monitor certain
    drivers.

    Global positioning systems are being used by car rental companies to
    track where renters are going and how fast they are driving. GPS also
    allows rental car companies to shut off the engine of a car and lock a
    renter out of it. It’s the same technology used by OnStar, which
    promises to be a guardian angel for car owners who are locked out or
    report a vehicle stolen.

    Parents of teenagers have also begun to use black boxes marketed by
    Road Safety International in Thousand Oaks, Calif. This item, which
    can be placed under the hood, is able to track the driver’s use of a
    seatbelt, excessive speed, hard cornering, braking and even unsafe
    backing, and can store hours of information for review later.

    Privacy experts warn that once cars are outfitted for the most limited
    data recording, the government will find a way to argue it’s for
    drivers’ "own good" to collect more. They point to a push in recent
    years to install GPS in all cars so that emergency officials can
    easily find incapacitated accident victims.

    "When you are telling someone it is for their own good, then it should
    be their own choice, they should be able to say ‘no,’" said professor
    Yale Kamisar of the University of Michigan Law School. "None of these
    things work out the way they are supposed to. Why should we believe
    all of these assurances when they haven’t been honored in the past?"
     
    MoPar Man, Nov 12, 2004
    #1
  2. MoPar Man

    howard Guest

    "There is no reason for data recorders in cars other than to use as
    evidence against a driver in an accident. Are these black boxes even
    accurate during a collision - where G forces and wheel slippage
    provide no absolute indication of what a car may really be doing
    during an emergency situation? Let alone equipped for the high
    sampling rates needed."
    ====================================

    how about evidence to SUPPORT a DRIVER in an ACCIDENT.

    YEAH, the person who hit me was speeding, driving erratically, and had a BA
    content of .18.
    and after looking at the red light camera, definitely drove through the red
    light.

    Sometimes it would nice to see some support for the "victim"!

    h
     
    howard, Nov 12, 2004
    #2
  3. MoPar Man

    maxpower Guest

    I would have to agree with you, but once those liars... i mean lawyers get
    the case it doesnt really mattter
     
    maxpower, Nov 12, 2004
    #3
  4. MoPar Man

    Art Guest

    Many states require lawyers to give their fingerprints when they take the
    bar exam. That is probaably how they got that lawyers fingerprints and not
    from a driver's license. The story is worse than you realize.... it was a
    terrible match and in fact the FBI experts said that the fingerprint they
    found was so bad that it was unmatchable with any degree of reliability.
    Notwithstanding when they found a Arab in the US that kind of looked close
    they arrested him on no other factual basis whatsoever. He's sueing the FBI
    now.

    Recently there was a Toyota story that Toyota refused warranty service
    because the computer said he redlined his engine. Well I know lots of
    software errors. Darn.... the electronic voting machines hardly work. And
    as the engine blew apart who knows what screwed up data the computer got.


     
    Art, Nov 13, 2004
    #4
  5. MoPar Man

    mic canic Guest

    it is already in gm cars inside the airbag modules but only gm staff can
    access not any dealer people of such as i was told

     
    mic canic, Nov 14, 2004
    #5
  6. No, not at all.
    Rubbish. And it isn't evidence against drivers as much as it is evidence of
    what actually happened.

    Let me guess, you are an advocate of removing black boxes from
    airplanes.

    So, have you bothered to ever READ the 4th and 5th amendments?
    No, not during a collision. But before one, yes. If someone smacks into
    another car it would be useful to know if they were speeding.
    Modern computers, even cheap ones, can sample far quicker than what
    is needed.
    Yes and no. A lot of this really depends on the court case.

    Assume for example that driver A hits and kills a pedestrian. The
    driver argues that he was going the speed limit, and the pedestrian
    jumped out in front of him. Two witnesses to the accident state
    the driver was speeding and the pedestrian didn't jump out in
    front.

    In this case the DA has no choice but to file charges of manslaughter
    and let the subsequent court case sort it out.

    If the driver had a black box in the car, and was positive that he
    wasn't speeding, he would sign over his rights against self-incrimination
    and let the DA examine the black box. If the black box said that the driver
    wasn't speeding, the DA would know that even if he pressed
    manslaughter charges, he would lose the case, and so he wouldn't
    press charges, thus saving the driver a lot of grief, and the court
    system a lot of money.

    If the driver had a black box in the car and WASN'T positive
    he was speeding, he would simply refuse to allow it to be
    searched. In that case the DA can still search it - and use the
    evidence to decide to file manslaughter charges - but the evidence
    wouldn't be admissible in the following trial, and the driver would
    have the same chance of getting off as without a black box. And
    if the DA were to mention it during trial, that would be an immediate
    mistrial and the DA could be disbarred.
    OK let's give airplane pilots that right too.

    The real issue though is this.

    YOU do not own the streets that you drive on. ALL of us, you, I
    and everyone, own the streets. If I'm going to allow you to drive
    on the streets that I own, I'm going to make you have a data recorder
    that you can't shut off. My right to require you to have a data
    recorder is equal to your right to not have to have one. So where
    does that leave us?

    Well, let me explain it. First, read the 5th amendment. To put it
    simply, a black box in a vehicle that YOU are driving is collecting
    evidence, AKA witness, on YOUR behalf. Legally it is exactly
    the same as if you were writing down all that data into a notebook
    that you have next to you, at very high speed. After all you own
    the black box, not the owners of the airplane.

    In a court case, if I demand you hand over the black box data
    and you know for a fact that that black box data is incriminating
    against yourself, then your lawyer will call for a trial halt, demand
    the jury leave, and when they have filed out you can simply invoke
    the Fifth Amendment and that is the end of it. When the jury comes
    back the judge will simply state that the black box data is unavailable.

    In fact if you had a really good lawyer, he might not even bother to
    do that, but simply say that we are sorry but there is no data
    available from the black box, then refuse to answer any further
    questions along those lines. Legally it would be correct for him
    to say that even though it would give the impression to the jury
    that the black box was smashed, which is a lie.

    In any case, this kind of thing is generally handled pre-trial when
    each side requests evidence from the other.

    Ted
     
    Ted Mittelstaedt, Nov 15, 2004
    #6
  7. MoPar Man

    MoPar Man Guest

    What rules do the police follow at an accident scene?

    What procedures are followed to insure that the "black box" is not
    commandeered, examined, and data extracted by police while the owners
    are unaware of what is happening to the remains of their vehicles?
    What can, and what can't, the police do to a vehicle that they
    impound?
    If the police love to do one thing, its to lay charges. As many as
    they think they can prove - and even some they know they can't. Any
    new toy, gizmo, device, method, or power given to them will be used
    just for that purpose. Heat-sensitive cameras that they can point at
    houses to see if they're growing pot inside.

    The law may treat you as innocent until proven guilty, but the police
    will always treat you as guilty and let the courts prove otherwise.
    The police will go to great lengths, even criminal or negligent
    lengths, to pursue you as a suspect if the initial evidence points to
    you.
    From a black-box point of view, airplanes are different from cars for
    at least 3 reasons:

    1) The vast majority of airplanes with a full set of data recorders
    are used in a commercial capacity to carry passengers or cargo.
    Private vehicles are, naturally, not used in a fee-for-transport
    capacity. The operator of a commercial vehicle does not necessarily
    have the expectation of privacy while on the job.

    2) An incident (accident) with a car will almost always result in the
    complete recovery of all components of a car, and the relatively low
    speeds involved means that there is little chance of total
    disintegration of any critical component. Therefore complete analysis
    of the car's remains is almost always possible. The very opposite is
    almost always the case for a plane incident. There will also usually
    be no witnesses to a plane incident.

    3) The data recorder on a plane serves a much different purpose than
    in a car. Cars incidents rarely result from structural or control
    systems failure. However, planes (and I mean your typical passenger
    jet) is much more vulnerable to those types of failure. It is
    critical to identify such a failure (frequently only possible from
    black-box data) in order to apply corrective measures to all similar
    aircraft operating world-wide.

    If you want to compare the "validity" (or reasons) of using black box
    data recorders in cars with something already in place, then you must
    choose something other than a commercial vehicle being operated by
    paid employees.

    For example, the gov't could "decree" that all watches sold in the USA
    starting next year must have data and proximity recording capability.
    That means your watch will record your blood pressure, heart rate, and
    proximity to other watches being worn by others in your vicinity. In
    the case of a crime, the data in your watch would either exonerate you
    or convict you. The extension of the data recording car to the data
    recording watch is not very large.
    Was the pedestrian using a cross-walk or crossing at a intersection?
    Did the pedestrian have the right-of-way? The speed of the car will
    be the last factor to be examined (if indeed it ever would be).

    Being hit by a car going the speed limit (30 mph) vs one that is
    speeding (45 mph) makes no difference. Someone has the right-of-way
    in that case, and someone violated it.
    What exactly are the procedural rules for the handling of black-box
    data? Who can guarantee that some over-enthusiastic cop won't hook up
    a data terminal right to the computer's access port while it's still
    sitting at the accident scene? They do drive around with them, you
    know. They've gotten them from third-party manufacturers and even
    dealerships.
    What's the difference between the streets, the sidewalks, the parks?

    What's next - will pedestrians be required to wear data recorders too?

    Streets, sidewalks, parks, etc, are public places. Vehicles operated
    in public places must conform to mechanical and operational (pollution
    control) standards. People that operate these vehicles must be
    licensed. Beyond that, you are really going to take a toll on
    individual's rights to privacy if you want to implement more
    surveillance and data recording systems.

    50 years ago, we could be having this argument, and it would be
    theoretical because the technology wasn't there to implement this data
    recording form of surveillance.

    Black box data recorders in private vehicles is probably the first
    implementation of what could be called obligatory personal
    surveillance. In 10 years, the technology will be here to provide a
    low-cost, low-interference way to keep a surveillance record on
    practically all forms of individual human activity. Where do you want
    it to end? Do you want it to end?
     
    MoPar Man, Nov 15, 2004
    #7
  8. MoPar Man

    Art Guest

    I don't have any problem with using technology to get to the truth. But
    indeed, there are insufficient safeguards to ensure that the blackboxes will
    be used in a manner to get to the truth.
     
    Art, Nov 15, 2004
    #8
  9. MoPar Man

    Matt Whiting Guest

    Even if it tells your wife where you REALLY went last Saturday night? :)


    Matt
     
    Matt Whiting, Nov 15, 2004
    #9
  10. MoPar Man

    Art Guest

    I live a pretty boring life. My wife was probably with me.
     
    Art, Nov 16, 2004
    #10
  11. They cannot gather a scrap of evidence from an inpounded vehicle
    without a search warrant. And unless there is probable cause for a
    warrant to be issued, it won't be issued.

    It sounds to me like you have never had a vehicle impounded. I have.
    Twice in fact. One it was impounded because I forgot to pay a speeding
    ticket and my license was administratively suspended. Yep, dumb on
    my part. Oh well. I got it back the next day. The second time was
    because someone had stolen it.

    Both times the car went straight to an impound lot. No police searched
    the vehicle. In fact in the first instance the cop told me to make sure the
    car was locked before it was towed.

    Cops know the law a lot better than you, apparently. Illegal search is
    about the quickest way to get a conviction tossed out that there is, and
    it always makes the investigating cop look bad in the eyes of the judiciary.
    Cops that do a lot of illegal searching end up being completely useless to
    the police force because the judges get to know who they are, and will
    rule against them without question. You really need to read up on the
    exclusionary rule.
    They cannot use evidence so gathered to make an arrest or get a
    conviction unless they got a search warrant before pointing that camera.
    And they can't get a warrant unless there is probable cause. And in
    that pot case you are referring to the arrested person (who was growing
    pot, by the way) had his convictions tossed out for exactly this reason
    (illegal search)

    The only exception is the 'plain view' doctrine - meaning that if a cop
    observes you committing a crime in plain view - ie: smoking marijuana,
    breaking a window, whatever - without the assistance of any electronic
    gizmo, then they don't need a search warrant.
    But the crime must be likely and imminent, and none of this fits an
    accident scenario when the cops show up afterwards.
    Well, DUH! Where have you been that this is a surprise?
    You still fail to see the difference between a police investigation and
    a conviction in a court. The police can do whatever they want but
    unless they do it legally, nothing they gather on you is worth shit
    towards getting a conviction. Why do you think that OJ Simpson
    got off?
    Ding ding ding ding ding!! Hello!

    This is EXACTLY why black box data recorded out of a car is different
    than black box data recorded from a plane! The operator of a private
    car DOES have expectation of privacy - which is why your doomsday scenarios
    of illegal searches are baloney. Why is it that you understand the
    difference
    between a black box in a plane and a car yet refuse to acknowledge
    the legality on them is different? What is wrong with you?!?
    So what are you saying here - that because the black box doesen't
    disintegrate that we shouldn't put it in?
    Yes, planes are more vulnerable and prone to structural and technical
    failure. But not even the majority of major jet accidents are due to this.
    Weather, bombing, pilots navigating wrong and flying into structures and
    into other planes, those other things are the majority.

    You also might consider that BECAUSE we haven't have black boxes
    on cars, that structural and equipment failures in vehicles are going to
    be overlooked in many cases, thus skewing the results. Also, the
    crash results are extremely skewed because of drunk driving - which
    isn't going to be recorded as a structural failure.
    Absolutely false. If it is established in court that the driver was
    speeding
    then the standard for the driver having reckless disregard for the life of
    the
    victim will be met, which is a requirement for a manslaughter conviction.
    Also, the standard for committing a crime during the process of committing
    another crime will be met as well, which heaps further problems on the
    head of the driver. In that case the driver can argue all he wants that it
    was an accident - but his chances of showing that he had no culpability
    will be about zero. He's going to get convicted.
    They can do that all they want, but if they do it without a warrant, they
    are going to ruin a convicion, because any data they get from it
    that incriminates a driver will be inadmissable.

    I think you must have been watching too much Hollywood cop shows.
    In any accident that is serious (ie: fatality, serious injury, etc.) an
    accident
    investigator shows up. The regular cops aren't even allowed to touch
    anything.

    Have you ever actually seen what happens during a serious auto accident
    where someone dies? Let me tell you for example how a recent one out
    here worked, out on US 26 in the sticks.

    2 girls speeding in a Honda head-on a panel truck. Within the first few
    minutes the direct witnesses call the cops on a cell phone. 10 minutes
    later the cops come and start interviewing witnesses and cordoning off the
    site. 20 minutes later the ambulance gets there and the paramedics
    determine
    that the 2 girls are dead. For the next 2 hours nobody is permitted to
    touch anything, that means no witnesses, no family members, no cops. The
    2 bodies remain out in the open where they lie, while
    the accident investigator gets there. Another 2 hours later he's finished
    and
    the bodies go off to the morgue. The panel truck drivers have general cuts
    and bruises but otherwise walk away.

    During the entire time the local police officers have not been permitted by
    their own rules to touch anything whatsoever, until after the accident
    investigation is completed. The remains of the car are then towed to a
    holding area and are off-limits to anyone other than the accident
    investigators and the next-of-kin investigators. In this case as witnesses
    related the girls crossed the line, the panel truck if it had a black box
    the
    data recorded would be worthless insofar as determining where on the
    road the panel truck was, and the owners of the truck would quite
    obviously consent to access to the black box to limit their liability.

    That is how it works in the real world.
    Oh, so you regularly drive at high speeds on the sidewalks?
    And people that operate these vehicles must follow all traffic laws.
    How conveniently you ignore this.
    Why? Don't you understand that observational data in a situation like
    that is completely worthless unless a human is sitting there watching it?

    So what, there are a lot of cameras. Where is the staff going to come
    from that is going to have to look at all that data? No states have the
    budgets to have this kind of staff. Hell they don't even have enough staff
    to screen the security checkpoints at the airports!!
    Frankly I want more and more and more of it. Every time another camera
    goes in, it increases expotentially the number of staff required to keep
    track
    of it. Eventually you got so many cameras that it is impossible for any
    government agency to track it and the surveillance becomes completely
    worthless - unless a crime is committed and the survelliance has been
    stored, then you can go back and look at it, to see exactly how the
    crime worked. But, unless you know that a crime is being committed
    at a particular place and time, nobody is going to have to time to review
    all that survellience data to try to find crimes.

    Here's a test for you, since you are so all fired up about survellience. Go
    buy yourself a small computer camera. Point it out the window at your
    street and set it up to run while you are at work. Now, come home
    and try to use the data you get from that camera to try and detect criminal
    activity or other objectional activity on your street. How many hours
    a day are you going to be spending reviewing that data to find crimes?
    And while your reviewing that data, yet more data is being recorded that
    your going to have to review later. Now let's add 5 more cameras and
    see how well you keep up.

    What people like you don't seem to understand is that 1984 was a real
    crock of shit when it came to the bugs in people's rooms. If a government,
    totalitarian or not, wants to spy on it's citizens it does so by getting
    other
    citizens to do the spying work.

    Nazi Germany knew this well. They didn't have all this high tech
    survelliance
    camera crap. What they did is simply control the media and propagandize
    the populace into doing their spying for them. And this is happening today.
    The Bush administration using propaganda convinced the American public
    that Moslems are evil, and now the FBI and police agencies are flooded with
    people turning in suspicious activity reports about anyone who is wearing
    a turban and a beard.

    People like you play right into the governments hands. You go run out there
    and stir up the populace against survellience gadgets, which takes the
    attention
    away from the real breaches of individuals rights to privacy.

    Sure, run a campaign to ban cameras and black boxes. While the masses
    are busy making them illegal - which is fine since they are useless for
    spying
    anyway - the government can work away at things like the exclusionary rule,
    due process, rights to speedy trial, and other things without the masses
    catching
    on to what they are doing.

    Ted
     
    Ted Mittelstaedt, Nov 16, 2004
    #11
  12. What does and doesn't work is difficult to predict. A nearer example is the
    former GDR (communist East Germany). They collected huge amounts of info on
    the population through informers and the like, and many (most) people had a
    Stasi file. In the end they could not do much with it because there was too
    much, including recording where people went shopping and the like.

    DAS
    --
    For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
    ---

    [...]
    [...]
     
    Dori A Schmetterling, Nov 16, 2004
    #12
  13. MoPar Man

    MoPar Man Guest

    Your entire premise about police not necessarily having free and
    unfettered access to black-box car data is largely false.

    What will stop cops from routinely making cursory (exagerated)
    observations of incidents or accident scenes and hence pretty much
    always getting search warrants whenever they ask for them?

    This touches on the similar tactic of stopping someone for a driving
    infraction (real or trumped up) and then the cop calls a buddy with a
    K-9 unit who takes the dog for an innocent walk around the car. If
    the dog thinks he smells drugs, well then what do we have now?
    Illegal search without a warrant? Probable cause?

    If cops make up reasons to get search warrants (to search cars or to
    get black box data) then there should be consequences to null
    discoveries just as there are consequences to positive discoveries (of
    drugs, of speeding prior to an accident).

    There should be a negative consequence to a cop who discovers nothing
    based on a bogus search by his buddy's K-9 unit.
     
    MoPar Man, Nov 16, 2004
    #13
  14. How many judges are going to put up with constant and unending
    requests from a cop for search warrants which end up never panning
    out? The current court system, which is really overloaded as it is,
    does not have time for this. Not to mention that you have to have
    suspicion/evidence of criminal activity to get a warrant in the first
    place, and speeding isn't a crime, it's an infraction. I don't think there
    are going to be many judges out there who are going to be issuing
    warrants to cops that want a warrant just so they can check the
    black box to see if someone's been speeding, when there are no
    injuries or fatalities in the accident. And if they do, then vote them
    out of office, these judges are elected, after all.
    Sure, that happens. I won't deny this. Is this a bad thing? It is if
    your carrying drugs.
    They still have to get a warrant. What usually happens is everyone
    sits cooling their heels until they get one.

    I think if you bother to look you will find that cases of drug sniffing
    dogs indicating drugs when there aren't any, are pretty rare.
    There is. While he's wasting time doing that, someone else with drugs is
    getting away with it.

    What do you think happens to cops that spend their entire days calling out
    the
    K9 units and then coming back with nothing all of the time? Don't you think
    the K9 units have better things to do? Do you really think that their
    supervisors
    are going to continue to let them run these wild goose chases while other
    officers
    on the force who are actually doing their job, and are also calling in for
    those
    K9 units, and they are actually using them to find real drugs?

    And, if there's a hint of race discrimination going on here, such as if you
    got
    a cop that only stops black people and always calls for k9 units for the
    people he has stopped, then the feds are going to come down hard on the
    department.

    Ted
     
    Ted Mittelstaedt, Nov 17, 2004
    #14
  15. MoPar Man

    no.one Guest

    Based on experience, quite a few. In your own back yard, look at the
    Molalla cop who just now got recognized by the Clackamas DA as a bad actor;
    how long did that take?

    When a rogue or lazy cop plus a compliant judge end up knocking your door
    down at oh-dark-thirty, who pays to fix the damage from the 'search'?

    Who replaces the time lost? Who removes your frustration, makes it all
    better?

    Better it is that this malfeasance doesn't occur in the first place. But,
    it does.
    Nor does it often have time to police the police.
    <snip>

    Isn't it incredibly difficult and expensive to mount a campaign to unseat
    an incumbent judge?
     
    no.one, Nov 17, 2004
    #15
  16. Uh, yeah. This is the same DA's office that employs Alfred French who
    swore on an affadavit that John Kerry was lying about his record - then
    admitted he was lying. The same French who had a sex affair with
    another employee in the office. The same one who the prior DA fired
    but who was rehired when the current DA won the election in 2000.

    The citizens of Clackamas County elected the current DA, knowing that
    the prior DA didn't tolerate bullshit, and the current one that they elected
    in was a backscratching, old-boys-club machine politician. So I don't
    really have much sympathy for them. They quite obviously WANT
    corrupt police and DA's, they voted them in. Who are you to tell the
    rednecks-i-mean-citizens of that county that they can't have the
    corrupt cops that they obviously want to have?
    The cops do. Lawyers love civil suits like this. The reason you generally
    never read about them is that the typical MO is the lawyer files a huge
    damage suit then the city and lawyer work an out of court settlement and
    the city never admits fault, but pays out a big chunk, and the plantiff has
    to sign a gag order to get the payment.

    We have a friend in North Portland that had this happen, cops were chasing
    a thief and saw my friend in the kitchen at 1:00am, and charged in busting
    the back kitchen door with guns drawn. My friend was down on the floor
    in his underwear for about 10 minutes until his wife came in yelling what
    the
    **** were they doing.

    The city had insurance adjusters out there the next day, (Saturday) and made
    it very clear that they did not want a lawsuit, and would pay anything
    needed to
    fixup the damage (within reason, of course)

    This kind of thing happens so often that they don't even bother printing the
    stories in the news anymore, there's so many of them.
    I got news for you, regardless of whether there's black boxes in cars this
    sort of malfeasance is going to happen.

    And without a blackbox do you know how they estimate speed in a killer
    collision? By the so-called forensic science of measuring skid marks,
    amount
    of impact, etc. In short, educated guessing. And, they write tickets based
    on
    that. And, the guesses are almost always high because they want the tickets
    to be higher.

    Another true story for you:

    On Tuesday of this week I was talking to a customer, her son (16 years old)
    smashed the family van, a 2000 Honda Odssey, last Friday up in Washington
    State on some freeway exit. He came off the freeway exit and the exit
    curved,
    he couldn't take the curve and the van smacked into the cement wall. Not
    hard, just enough to dent the front fender and rear bumper. The van doors
    were fine. It was raining at the time.

    Anyway, while this poor 16 year old is standing there staring at the side of
    the
    van probably saying "Oh shit", some 45 year old drunk driver came off the
    same exit, couldn't take the same curve, and impacted the cement wall about
    20 feet in front of the kid. Unlike the kid, though, this guy was going at
    a really
    good clip, enough to cave in the side of his car, knock him unconscious,
    blood,
    broken glass, the works.

    So, the kid grabs the first aid kit out of his van and runs over to the
    driver, and
    at the same time calls 911.

    10 minutes later the cops show up, compliment the kid, etc.

    Then, one of the cops notices the side of the kids van and hauls out his
    ticket
    book and writes him a $500 speeding ticket for going "too fast for
    prevailing
    conditions"

    His van didn't have a black box. If it did, he could walk into a court with
    the
    evidence and get the ticket thrown out. As of now who knows what will
    happen. I told my customer to get a deposition from the body shop
    estimating
    the impact speed, as we all know a 5 mph collision will crumple a car like
    thin tin, so he may be able to get the ticket tossed based on that. But,
    maybe
    not.

    If you think about it you will realize that in collisions,
    if the driver was not breaking the speed limit the black box data is going
    to
    be a lot more useful to the driver to get miscellaneous bullshit tickets
    thrown
    out, then it will be to the police to file charges against the driver.

    It's only in cases where the driver was breaking the speed laws that black
    box data will work against him.
    A -competent- incumbent judge, yes. It's actually pretty easy to get judges
    out of office that aren't competent, their peers tend to take a dim view of
    it
    not to mention that the defense lawyers that usually work that court are
    more than happy to fund a campaign.

    Ted
     
    Ted Mittelstaedt, Nov 20, 2004
    #16
  17. MoPar Man

    cloaked Guest

    Well they may be elected in the USA, but NOT in Canada! They are
    appointed - usually political patronage. And judges here are pretty
    much unanswerable to anyone. They can rule pretty much any way they
    want, and if you choose to dispute it, it is off to the Appeals court
    (Minimum $10,000 price tag!)

    And even if you DO go to appeals court, then you are asking judges to
    rule against their fellow bretheran from the "old boys network" which
    they pretty much wont do unless you have them in YOUR back pocket.

    This whole thing is a very serious issue. If manufacturers want to use
    the data for product failure analysis and improvement, then fine. But
    anyhting else is headed for the "slipery slope" as far as I am
    concerned.
     
    cloaked, Nov 21, 2004
    #17
  18. MoPar Man

    KaWallski Guest

    Black boxes are like photoradar and redlight cameras. They do not have the
    full story.
    Foto radar and intersection cameras do act as deterants.
    They are revenue streams. That is the motivator.

    Friend of mine got a red light instersection infraction ticket sent to him
    in the mail. He had moved into the intersection against the red light to
    allow an ambulance to pass through. He had to pay the ticket because the
    photo showed his car - not the ambulance in the intersection.

    This is exactly the type of thing that can happen with black boxes. The FULL
    story will never be known in a post-event snapshot.

    There already have been many court cases in Canada both for and against
    using the data. I watched a news documentary not too long ago as an
    insurance company tried to use this data to prevent paying in a case where a
    woman was killed. Insurance companies want to use the data where they can in
    order to prove reasons that would allow them to avoid paying out more money.
    Extrapolating the data is not an exact science either - the police in that
    show admitted it was closer to a lie detector test as it could be
    misunderstood data.

    This is the motivator for getting black boxes installed in personal
    vehicles.

    Open your eyes. How could a black box ever ever help you or I. Would you
    sleep better at night knowing your new car was so equipped?
     
    KaWallski, Jan 8, 2005
    #18
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