# Warrantless searches?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 29, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warrantless-searches/237107 "2004-03-29T16:51:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warrantless-searches/237107/41 "2004-03-31T21:53:27Z")
Bueller? Bueller? “Bullcaca” ? (damn I hate typeing that even with parenthesis) ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warrantless-searches/237107/42 "2004-03-31T22:35:30Z")
Y’know there are a few posters who I regard as authoritative in their area of expertise. So if I were in an argument with Bricker about legal issues, I’d pay much closer attention to what was actually said. Because odds are, I’d soon come to realize that I was wrong. As Zimaane pointed out, cops can often get people to consent to searches even when the people KNOW the cops will find contraband. I guess they think like elpadre and reason that denying permission will just get the pigs mad and they’ll search you anyway, only now they’ll try extra-hard to pin something on you. So they consent to the search and the cops find their weed or their crack or their gun or the girlfriend locked up in the trunk. I guess the criminal mind is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. “No, you can’t search me, my car, or my house.” “Am I under arrest?” “I wanna see my lawyer.” If the perps would just say those three simple things it seems to me that a cop’s job would be three times harder. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warrantless-searches/237107/43 "2004-03-31T23:03:44Z")
> [@elpadre](#): > > BullCaca. Not everyone with a busted taillight is smuggling drugs. You haven’t been pulled over for a broken tail-light. Cops routinely ignore lots of these. You’ve been pulled over because the cop wants to scope you out. Maybe you were Driving While Black or perhaps you Looked Like a Hippie Chick. If the cop asks to search your car, he’s going on a fishing expedition. If you have the right to say “No.” to a governmental request, you almost have the duty to say “No.” unless there’s a damned good reason to say “Yes.” The last thing the government needs is the attitude that it can presume even more power than it has. Failure to refuse on the part of the citizenry leads to that attitude. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warrantless-searches/237107/44 "2004-03-31T23:19:33Z")
> [@Jon the Geek](#): > > I’m not disagreeing, I’m just curious. If you _know_ there’s nothing illegal in your car, is there any harm in letting the cop waste his time on a fruitless search (and thus maybe preventing him from further fishing)? I think I’d probably say “no” out of principle, but I don’t see how saying “yes” would open me up to risk. > > Although, I guess maybe I’m being too naive… the cop could always plant something, I guess. The primary risk isn’t so much that the cop will plant something, it’s more about what may be in your car that you don’t know about. Can you vouch for everyone who has ever been in your car? The guys at the car wash last weekend? The prior owners? Your joyriding nephew, or someone else who you’ve let borrow yor car? Your current passenger? etcetera etcatera? Even if you can, you could conceivably be arrested for something that appears to be illegal, but isn’t. In college I once gave permission to search my car, and when he and his backup unit were finished an hour and a half or more later I had a police officer threatening to take me in for what he believed to be “contraband.” It was a small piece of paper he thought looked like it came from a roach, a paint scraper with white residue on it (paint, perhaps?), and a small mirror. I was told in very stern terms that I was “very lucky” not to be going to jail. My crime was DWHLHIAFLLAS…driving while having long hair in a Firebird looking like a stoner. To make a long story short even if you believe there’s nothing in your car, consenting to a search can only help the police and can only hurt you. If you have nothing to gain, why let them? ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warrantless-searches/237107/45 "2004-03-31T23:19:33Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > But their purpose is to find and arrest people breaking the law. And a lot of them end up with a fortress mentality. There are cops and cop families and everybody else is just a suspect. > [@](#): > > It is not a matter of having “nothing to hide”, it is your private property and they do not belong there. Know and assert your rights plainly. Exactly. We are not to be the slaves of the state. Statists want us to forget that. ---
**Author:** ![HumptysHamhole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f0a364/32.png) [@HumptysHamhole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumptysHamhole)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warrantless-searches/237107/46 "2004-03-31T23:27:14Z")
Hey my car has a busted tail light and I don. . . oh wait I do smuggle drugs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warrantless-searches/237107.md?page=2)