You've been arrested - suggestions on what to do, to avoid

[planetaryjim]

Copied this from the IRS out of Keene thread, on bail bonds.

By the way, on general "free advice" you may at some point need to know:  the bail bondsman whose listing in the jail phone booth (most jails have these listings, often required by law) matches the name of the bonding agency to the name of the person is likely owned by an individual.  Otherwise, go with the least commercial sounding bonding agency.  The big faceless bureaucracies tend to be, well, faceless and bureau-rat laden.  And, on this topic, your bail bondsman or bondswoman is very likely going to know a lot of attorneys in their state, and should have good recommendations to offer. 

[maineiac]

Whenever the goons decide to run me in (certainly, in the eyes of the controllers, I've been a very naughty boy), it's going to be totally nonviolent noncooperation on my part. No bonds, bondsmen, signings, etc.

Anyone ever read the posts of one suijurisfreeman?

[Tom Sawyer]

Thanks for the idea to search for this man, suijurisfreeman.
Interesting guy.
The Unsung Ballad of Suijurisfreeman
http://billstclair.com/blog/stories/suijurisfreeman.html

[Kat Kanning]

Great article....thanks maniac and tom.

[Russell Kanning]

very funny and cool

[KBCraig]

The Unsung Ballad of Suijurisfreeman
http://billstclair.com/blog/stories/suijurisfreeman.html

[Bald Eagle]

I'd get a copy of "You and the Police!" by Boston T. Party

I also keep a copy of the ACLU card in my wallet - along with a razor blade, a staplegun staple, my attorney's business card, and a handcuff key.

I removed as much personal information as possible because they will sit there and root through your wallet.  Anything you want to keep in your wallet, write in code.  Scramble phone numbers, or add or subtract from the numbers, etc.

I wholeheartedly agree about keeping warm.  Get something like Underarmour cold gear with the long sleeves.  Imagine being cuffed to a pole in a dark basement for over an hour on the coldest night of the year.  Long sleeves are also nice to pull between your wrists and metal handcuffs when they are put on tightly.

Eat a high-caloric meal:  It will help to keep you warm, rational, and confident, and you may not eat for oh, I don't know - 15 hours or more depending upon when you last ate and when you get pinched.

[planetaryjim]

Dear Bald Eagle,

Valuable advice, and +1 karma for you, my friend.

You've stimulated a number of thoughts on this topic for me.  First, a fun story about my handcuff keys.

Police issue handcuffs and handcuff keys are widely available on the free market.  Several gun stores in Houston also sell these items, along with sundry security force "badges."  ("Oh, this badge isn't a meaningful symbol or anything.  It's just the badge of my company." - the excellent film "Grosse Pointe Blank") 

The fun story.  I was in Deer Park in 1993 renewing a vehicle registration for a client of mine.  Well, to my chagrin, he had tickets outstanding.  So, I ended up being asked to wait, then a police officer showed up and escorted me to the local jail, where I made a few phone calls, got the funds together, and paid off the tickets.  I was in a suit and tie, with my Stetson nicely blocked, so the cops were very pleasant, not at all rough.  I was seated in a room beyond one locked door, but not in a cell.  The cop who detained me handcuffed one of my wrists to the chair.  He was also kind enough to double-lock the cuff, so it wouldn't bind up.  Well, I checked the vicinity for obvious signs of camera observation.  Then I removed my keys from my pocket (yes, they searched me and kept my pocket knife aside, but didn't pay any attention to my key ring).  I unlocked the cuff.  Slipped it off the leg of the chair.  Put it onto the opposite leg, and cuffed my other hand.  After a bit, the cop came back in, unlocked me and took me to a phone where the rent seeking behavior on their part could be fulfilled with some phone calls on mine.  Didn't even seem to notice.  Next time I should cuff the chair to something else, I suppose, though how often could such a glorious opportunity arise?

Cell phones are great.  But, they are also an attractive nuisance, in this way.  It is so easy to store numbers on the phone.  I literally don't remember numbers I've recently programmed.  I just know that the name is in there.  The phone always tells me who is calling, so I have no reason to memorize numbers.  Happily, I have a dozen or so numbers memorized from the before time, when I had no cell.  It is very valuable to have a few numbers memorized, especially close friends, family, and an attorney.  Even if you end up being detained in a jurisdiction far from where your attorney practices, he can make calls and help you engage local qualified counsel.  So, if you know you are likely to be detained, you may want to have a few phone numbers memorized.

On items in the wallet, I typically carry a number of expired credit and debit cards, just to add tedium to law enforcement personnel's lives.  Give them something to do that leads nowhere.

On handcuffs, again, it is useful to ask if the officer or deputy would double-lock them.  If you anticipate riding in a car with your hands cuffed behind your back, you definitely want to make this request.  Do so as you are being cuffed.  "Please double lock the cuffs.  I've had several wrist injuries."  Keep in mind that your body, in their custody, is their responsibility.  If you are injured while in custody, that may become a big problem for them, in terms of liability. 

Your recommendation of You and the Police! by Ken Royce aka Boston T. Party is very good.  I also recommend a look at his book Hologram of Liberty if you want an incisive examination of the constitution for the united States of America and how it was designed to allow for significant centralization of power.  Ken's books are available from http://javelinpress.com/ which accepts e-gold and 1MDC as digital gold currencies.  Ken also accepts silver and gold coins at spot prices, if you prefer to pay with honest money.  Instructions for payment with money orders are also on the site.  Ken is the very sincere founder of the Free State Wyoming project, and a good friend of mine.

About food, I have another story.  In February 1991, I was falsely accused of felony gambling promotion of a lottery in connection with the lawful sweepstakes operation of Space Travel Services.  I was arrested in our company offices, along with the company president.  We were taken to Harris County jail.  Now, that was "old Harris County" as the inmates called it.

At the time, there were notices posted on every wall of every holding cell to the effect that just being there was regarded by the federal courts as "cruel and unusual punishment."  Every cell was redolent with human wastes.  Several of the cells we were in were an inch deep in sewage overflowing from the toilets.  By tacit assent, nobody flushed the toilets, and newcomers were asked not to, but inevitably someone would, and more sewage would go over the floor.

Well, we were "fed" according to jail house records, every six hours while I was there.  Had lunch and dinner, anyway.  In both cases, these were sandwiches wrapped in brown paper sacks, slid under the door into the cell.  Straight into the raw sewage.  Needless to say, there was not a lot of eating going on. 

About three hours into this ordeal, shortly after "lunch" was served, we were provided with water in a 5 gallon jug, like those water cooler jugs.  I'm sure it was filled with tap water.  No cups were provided, though.  So, after staring at this jug of reasonably fresh water sitting in an inch of sewage, one of the inmates went up to it and lifted it carefully over his head, spilled some into his open mouth without touching the lip.  Some of the other inmates clapped at this performance, and the poor schmo smiled and spilled a quart of water down his front.  He was cold after that.  An hour later, one of the jailers brought styrofoam cups in, and we handed them around, took turns pouring water.

These were among the most surly, hateful jailers I've ever encountered.  My subsequent trips to new Harris County in 1993 and 2004 were comparatively pleasant.  The 1991 jailers would take the name of anyone talking in line and put that person's paperwork at the bottom of the pile.  One of the prisoners said something smart to a jailer who promptly beat him over the head with a truncheon, one hard blow to the left temple.  That guy was knocked out cold.  Lay there in the sewage for about five minutes while the jailer reviewed with the rest of us the consequences of being smart mouthed.

So, no, you might not get anything to eat while you are in custody.

Regards,

Jim

[Kat Kanning]

You've had an interesting life, Jim.

[maineiac]

You've had an interesting life, Jim.

I have known/known of Jim in cyberspace since my debut. I believe he is one brilliant and determined individual, forging ahead with enthusiasm, in spite of the general, modern climate of coercive collectivism.

Hey, Jim, how did that palladium experiment go, back a few years, when you bought up my e-balance for a song?  I was forrest.

[planetaryjim]

Dear Forrest,

Thanks for your comments, and for reading my stuff.  As I recall, Cambist bought your palladium for spot palladium prices.  Yes, they were rather low at the time.  Wasn't it e-gold Pd?  That is, e-palladium, I guess we could call it.  Anyway, I believe we sold all that to a guy who promptly ex-patriated to Belize.

There's quite a lot of that about, didja know?  People in half a dozen Latin American countries that I know about.  Some in Southeast Asia.  Americans on strike, in the Atlas Shrugged tradition.

We had a Forrest who came to the first and only Awdal Roads Conference in Houston.  Would that also have been you?  In which case we've met.

If the enthusiasm shows through, that's good.  The sadness can be overwhelming sometimes.

One of my teachers said that most people are motivated by one of two emotions.  Fear or sadness.  I have been blessed with a certain fearlessness, an an utter lack of fastidiousness.  But the sadness is real for me.  The wasted potential, the opportunities which have slipped by, the brutality.  It can be very hard to carry on sometimes, and show the world that enthusiastic facade. 

"If war is inevitable, then let it come in my time, that my children may know peace." - Thomas Paine

Regards,

Jim

[planetaryjim]

You've had an interesting life, Jim.

Somewhat.  We live in interesting times, Kat.  I often pray that we don't come to the attention of important persons.

[planetaryjim]

Dear Forrest,

I'm not sure whether a thread about this essay of mine is even appropriate, or whether it would go into civil disobedience, NH politics, or somewhere else.  Perhaps a Maineiac such as yourself would have some gentle suggestions?

The link:  http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle373-20060625-02.html

The excerpt: 

Since voting is an act of aggression, it ought to look more like an act of aggression. Sure, the stylus for many of the paper ballots is sharp enough to put an eye out, but the process isn't violent enough. So, I make a modest proposal which I pray "...will not be liable to the least objection."

Paper ballots are all very well for bond initiatives, referenda, and the occasional change to the state constitution. But for voting for candidates, something more vigorous is wanted.

I propose that each candidate be required to submit enough publicity photos of his or her own head and shoulders so that every voter in the district be able to have one for the vote process. It is a delightful bit of irony that such photos are called "head shots."

I propose that for each set of candidates for a given office, each voter be required to shoot, from a distance of 25 yards, the "head shot" of his preferred candidate with a rifle bullet. Only successful penetration of the head or upper chest (or we could require the bullet be within the sniper's triangle formed by the eyes and the point where the clavicles meet the sternum?) of the photo would count as a valid vote. Being "on paper" isn't good enough. The candidate with the most successful bullet penetrations would be elected.

"I think the advantages of the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance."

Regards,

Jim

[penguins4me]

Since the Supreme Court had just ruled that one can be arrested for refusing to identify oneself on the street, I complied

Not that I blame you at all, but the Hiibel case ended with the US Supreme Court stating that the requirement of identifying one's self can be satisfied by simply verbally telling the person in question your name - it does not compel someone to produce any identification papers.

One specific reference to that is on pages 8-9 of the linked PDF above (end of page 8 through first part of page 9).

-edit
Corrected spelling of Hiibel's name - no wonder I had such a hard time finding documentation!

[planetaryjim]

Not that I blame you at all, but the Hibel case ended with the US Supreme Court stating that the requirement of identifying one's self can be satisfied by simply verbally telling the person in question your name - it does not compel someone to produce any identification papers.

An excellent distinction, and plus karma for you.  I had not realized those specific aspex of the Hiibel ruling.  (Since his name is at issue, we might as well spell it aright. ;-) 

As you say, you don't blame him for identifying himself with papers.  Many states have specific laws demanding that identity papers be presented, and many cops have not been taught to distinguish between the state law requiring identity papers and the federal supreme court ruling demanding verbal self-identification (self-incrimination of a sort, I believe). 

Naturally, I favor telling the truth in such a situation.  I have been "Jim Adamson" because everyone calls me Jim and every man is a "son of Adam."  But, in situations where I have identity papers of a different sort, I typically vouchsafe my name to the same.  <smile>

One of the really great things about the identity state is how stupid it is to substitute a piece of plastic with some markings on it for the identity of the individual, which is something a person generates internally, and which his friends and neighbors and acquaintances may validate externally - even to the point of seeing through disguises and other artifices.  It is more idiotic than merely multiplying entities unnecessarily (and without end) though it certainly does so.

The identity state makes it necessary to trust not the person presenting the identity paper, but the state minions who generated that identity paper, plus the whole chain of custody for getting it to the supposed subject, plus that person who might have obtained an illegal for fraudulent identity paper, or been assigned something false by some government agency for some nefarious purpose.  So, yes, Occam's razor is badly dulled by such twit-like behavior.

But, on top of all that, it presents the notion of presenting identity papers as the determining factor in identifying someone.  So, given the ludicrous stories of how poorly secured the state computer systems are, and given how easy it is to manufacture nearly anything these days, it is simply bizarre that anyone is taken in.  It is childishly simplistic. 

The only aspect of it which is not a game is the extent to which police and deputies are willing to taser people for having expired licenses, as seen on Aaron Russo's film, or truncheon people who don't present identity papers, or, as in the film "Casablanca" and all over Nazi occupied Europe, to gun down those who won't comply.  The USA is a police state.  Those who would excuse its use of identity papers to limit internal travel and justify  all manner of searches and seizures may assert that the pigs here don't gun down people who refuse to show papers.  I don't know of any cases, but such an argument is simply one of degree.  The filthy animals who bully and intimidate and use their offices and badges to give color of law to their murders, thefts, rapes, kidnappings, and tortures are brutes who, if they have not yet stooped to killing those who won't provide identity papers to their liking, are unable to make the ethical choice not to do so once ordered.

Regards,

Jim