know your rights when traveling

maybe not 100%, but i have to ask, how else am i supposed to look at nuts like 'ticket quotas'? i mean from what i understand, cops are told specifically that they have to fill out a certain number of tickets or they get in trouble? that's essentially like telling them 'regardless of whether or not there ARE x amount of people breaking this law, you WILL report x amount of people breaking this law"

that pretty much leaves me with little choice but to assume that the reason for a law's existence means less to the cops than the benefits enforcing it provides to the state/public, namely increased funds. while keith/dude's arguments may not have a lot of evidence to support them (sorry man, but 'its just the way it is' is a pretty poor explanation'), he is definitely right in that the legal/justice system operates very much like a business in terms of striving for bottom line profitability...and if they can protect a few (but not all) citizens in the process, isn't society the better for it?

There is no such thing as ticket quotas. If you dont believe me call the police station and ask.

it dosent matter what i am against. we are protected from actions like this by the constitution. we all have to operate under the laws we are given. so druqs are illegal. cops should have to abide by the rules too. but they arent trained to respect our rights. they are trained how to get around our rights. so yea i am against all types of profiling. if we werent spending trillions on some incredibly stupid war on drugs we could secure our borders. 9/11 could have been stopped. some of the 9/11 hijackers entered the us using their rreal names which were on the terrorist watch list, it went unnoticed. they recieved suspicious training at flight schools, it was even reported to them by some instructors, yet it went unnoticed. but i bet they raked in a few million making druq busts. so if we spent our resources where they helped and didnt spend them on a druq war that hurts every single american, outside of law enforcement maybe these things would have received some attention. if our law enforcement did the job we intended them to do profiling wouldnt be necessary.

I know that the news did an investigative report on it where I live less than a year ago and there are none.

and just to be clear. i do think that law enforcement is needed. and it should be a respected profession. and they deserve more pay. its a shame that this crazy war on druqs has fucked this nation up beyond belief. there are important things that cops do. and they should stick to doing that. its a shame they dont. they dont prevent crimes. they shake people down for money until something happens and then they respond. quit wasting time on the druq war and start preventing some crimes. quit using up prison space for non violent druq offenders and let child molestors and rapists roam the streets.

here's the thing: either everyone speeding on the highway deserves a ticket, or noone deserves a ticket. you can't enforce a law subjectively, else the value of the law itself is completely useless.

the job of police is to enforce laws, every law for every citizen. by departing from that operating principle, it means that police choose which laws they enforce (essentially the way it is now). now, if police are citizens the same as we are and they are allowed to choose which laws they enforce, it is illogical to not allow other citizens to not choose which laws they follow.

So are you saying everyone should be ticketed or no one deserves a ticket?

Is that humanly possible? If it is, I'm sure police departments nationwide would be all ears.

EDIT: I should clarify, is it humanly possible to give everyone that speeds on the highway a ticket.

But I see police on the side of the highway everyday trying to nab speeders. Seems to me they're doing the best they can enforcing speed limits. But it's not humanly possible to nab every single driver that's speeding. So we should do away with speed limits because you can't give everyone that speeds a ticket? (not that I'm particularly opposed to that idea...)

EDIT: Wouldn't you say it's rather difficult to get an idea of who is inside a car going 65-80 mph from a standstill on the side of the road? I'm not saying profiling never happens, but I don't think that's the way the majority of people get pulled over. My Dad's a clean cut dude with no criminal record, he gets pulled over all the time. Why? Because he's always speeding.

Its probably part of a

It can't be about both? Of course it's revenue issue, any responsible organization (corporate, government, or non-profit) is going to have to be mindful of any source of income and budget accordingly. Not that I think quotas are a good thing, but I don't buy that it's "corrupt". Seems to me avoiding a speeding ticket is real easy: don't speed.

Hey, but I can seriously get behind abolishing speed limits. I like to drive fast. But if I'm driving fast and I get a ticket, I'm not thinking "that corrupt cop just has a quota to fill". More like "damn, I got caught speeding".

well i agree you speed you should get a ticket. but you shouldnt be asked all sorts of questions and intimidated into letting them search your stuff. you should get a ticket and be on your way. and they should have to pull over all speeders. the first speeder that comes by gets a ticket. no targeting people that fit a profile. it amazes me that the first thing a cop does is disrespect your constitutional rights by asking you to give them up. and intimidating you if you dont give them up. it should be illegal. and if the cops didnt spend so much time waitng for someone that fits a profile or searching through peoples stuff they would give many more speeding tickets and less people would speed and the roadways would be safer. but all of those things lead to less of a need for cops. they dont want to put themselves out of a job so they do this other junk which has nothing to do with serving or protecting.

So, are you saying if you get pulled over for speeding and you have natty dreads or you're a minority, you weren't really pulled over for speeding, you were profiled? I don't buy that either.

If, however, you get pulled over for speeding and you have natty dreads or you're a minority, you have no criminal record, there's no evidence of any crime being committed, and the cop wants to keep you on the side of the road while they get the dogs, I might say yeah, you were probably profiled. Make sure you know your rights in that case and call the ACLU.

no they were pulled over for speeding. but the cops chose to let a couple of dozen law breakers go on breaking the law right in front of them so they could target someone who fits a profile of someone who could possibly be doing something that can bring in alot of money.