As a kid growing up in an impoverished part of Houston in the 90s, I was told never to talk to the police. If I were to be questioned, I was to tell them they could not talk to me without my mom. Fast forward to me at 16. I had moved to rural Wyoming. I was the only "witness" to a "theft" in my new high school. I didn't see the other kid do anything. I just know the object was there and then it wasn't. The local yokel police interrogated me. Alone. Despite my telling them, First off: I didn't see anything and Second: I was uncomfortable and afraid and wanted my dad to be there. They proceeded to yell at me more and tell me I had somehow admitted to seeing the other kid do it. They said I would be in trouble myself if I didn't say then and there that the other kid did it. When they finally let me out of the room, With both the cops and the teacher pressuring me, I was furious and crying but had stood my ground. The cops told the other kid that I had told them I saw him do it. The teacher said the same thing and made sure to "thank" me in front of him but then scold me in private. It was all so shocking. All I could do was call them liars and continue to cry. The rest of this small town school soon heard the story and as a result, I was so completely alone and miserable, I dropped out. It's not the worst thing the police have done to a minor, but it was traumatic and had real consequences for me who had done absolutely nothing wrong. Even at 38, I'm still extremely pissed about the whole thing.
Good on you! You stood your ground and you were true to your principles! It infuriates me that happened to you. I really hope your parents endorsed you at the time. You would always be welcome in my home, on my block and on my team! Hit me up if you're ever in Portland! We'll kick back and keep it real! 😁
Now, in addition to "never talk to the police" parents have to teach their kids "never call 911." As insane as that sounds, "911 call analysis" is a new form of pseudo-science that has been used to convict people of crimes because they 'sounded guilty' on the 911 call. One of the surefire lines that Law Enforcement says is a definite 'guilty indicator?' "I need help" SERIOUSLY. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. If you call 911 and utter the phrase "I need help" that is a 'guilty indicator' that can be used against you in a court of law. LIFE IMPROSONMENT has been handed down on the basis of this type of 'evidence.' Propublica just broke the story late last year, but others have written about it as well. It is a whole new level of ignorance in law enforcement, even more blatantly based on lies and anti-science rhetoric than the other despicable practices that were discussed in this podcast. www.propublica.org/article/911-call-analysis-fbi-police-courts
Then people think it's too much to say that All Cops Are Bastards. It's not a couple bad apples, it's the concept of using "apples" at all. I bet they were pumped to have something to do that day, played that "I'm a cop so I'm a god" act, and after emotionally traumatizing a kid for life, they probably went for a couple beers. That was 100% money well spent in funding the police force which trained those cops, 0 problems with anything about it.(tbh in their book they did everything perfectly, 0 mistakes. it'd be like being upset that capitalists get away with illegal shit in capitalism, like, it's not a flaw, it's the whole point of the system!) I'm really sorry that you went through that experience, I'm scared about what the kid that they treated like a theft suspect went through, I'm scared for every civilian those cops ever encountered, I'm scared about their superiors and their free punishments to ",tough 'em up", and I'm scared about this type of police being the global standard. The police needs to be defunded not bc they don't do much against crime(even tho they really don't), but because of all the situations where it misbehaves, always more energetically than needed, never less, and so that they don't get called to resolve stuff that should be dealt by the principal of the school, the counselor/therapist and other responsible adults from the school board. There was absolutely no need to call egomaniac people with guns and that have normalized emotional torture as being just standard, not even enhanced, interrogation. I've never seen the police help someone without immediately calling news media to film it and make their propaganda of the day, they never do it just to help people. It should be such a daily thing that it doesn't even become news, but every single time the police does a good thing it becomes news. And there really aren't that many of them even with a few that are "slightly"-staged. We won't have a safe population with this brutal police system, we need officers which are friends of the people, not enemies. I don't think you would consider that those cops were more inclined towards being friendly than treating you like their enemy, friends tend to not actively push through your feelings and traumatize you. Sorry if I'm too "passionate" about this, it's just that I'm just another victim of this type of system and have myself been traumatized by emotional torture of the sorts(they let me go eventually, but they made me kneel down and pray for their god. After they had already broken me down for hours). And I know we're not just two isolated cases finding each other as a one-in-a-million chance encounter case, everyone poor enough to not have themselves whitelisted bc of their or their parents's wealth, is probably another case like that. Some people have multiple stories like that, some have too many of them. We need another system. A humane one. And we need it desperately.
I pled guilty because it was 3 yrs instead of possibly 20... my entire life has been destroyed. I'm slowly rebuilding it, but it will never be what it could have. Prison was awful, and jail was even worse. We went without hot water 9 mo . I had 10 staphinfections, broke 3 teeth on eating the crappy food, was exploited by the telephone system ($0.23/min to speak to my kids). Jail/Prison is a money maker. We spend way over $30,000/yr per person that is locked up. For most people, locking people up doesn't protect the public, inmates come out more broken and screwed up than when they went in. I am more damaged than I was prior to incarnation. And it continues still... I never realized how screwed up our system is until I was caught up in it ...
We give the prisons 30,000 a year to care for the prisoner, yet that much isn't spent, AND the prison makes even more money off the prisoner in other ways. Glad you're still here. Hope it continues to look up for you, Michael.
I'm so sorry to read this, that this happened to you. I hope you can find a way back! At the very least that is something I believe, that hurt people can heal. I'm in the process of that myself, though from other things. I believe in you!
Hope you can find joy in life again, you may have been through hell but you’re not useless or broken, you deserve to live a meaningful life and enjoy yourself and your family
My son’s father was murdered in 2020 in broad daylight, detectives didn’t bother to do any forensic examinations on the weapon found moved from the scene and they told me it would take months for fingerprinting. We still don’t know who shot him because they barely tried, I’ve lost faith in the Justice system.
@@TheAdamConover hey ive always wanted to interview another adam lol n wonder the way you got ur name Adam xD if you had an email i could reach you at? i know im not special or anyone to talk to but id truly like a genuine conversation with you
also good lord... where was this? n almost like covid at the time was taking more precedence then normal reactions, i noticed alot of things became weird around those times... for alot of things, alot of cold cases got solved... but also alot of small things over looked.... also you need to not lose faith in the system or faith in urself... you need to push harder!!! thats what the system trys to do, is take you away from wanting to push, never stop!!!! someone WILL care, you will find someone within those circles to care.....
@@TheAdamConover funny to because im from amherst MA so when she brought that up i laughed so hard i truly hope you see this comment lol tho i doubt you will lol!!!
Twenty years ago, my mother and I lived in the projects. She'd been injured and it took literal years for her to get her disability. At the time, we'd basically been surviving off of the settlement. My mom had bought a pretty nice car (nice for us) so that we wouldn't have to be afraid of it dying. She took our neighbors to the store pretty often, because we're in a rural area, and the only thing within walking distance cost like twice as much as the 'bargain' stores. Well, eventually, mom took one of our neighbors to the store... and it turned out that neighbor was a snitch. We didn't have money. The only medicine my mother had was the medicine she needed to be functional. I'm honestly not sure how we survived up to that point. But regardless, this neighbor 'snitched' on my mom, and said that she'd traded drugs for something from the store. We later found out she'd done this a lot. That it was literally how she got her drug money. Anywho. Because our car was involved in the 'drug deal' that had zero proof, it was impounded. So we were left without a way to go anywhere, as were many of our neighbors. What's more, the police put her in the paper as being in the center of a major drug scandal operating out of a local store. Fast forward to the trial. The man involved who actually was trading drugs for merchandise got on the stand and said he'd never met my mother before that day. Then proceeded to plead the fifth. Jury was instructed to disregard, but I still believe that's the only reason they sided with us. In the end, the charges were dropped. She was still on that front page. And then we had to pay to get our car back. I'm not kidding. And when we did get it back, the thing was trashed. Holes burned in the seats, old wrappers in the floorboards, spoiled food, drinks poured all over it, holes burned in the ceiling... And a busted head gasket. Our neighbors still didn't have a way to and from the store. When we finally got her disability, she tried to fix the car, but it was never the same. We wound up trading it in for another vehicle that died shortly after. Things are better now, but the fact that this is widespread enough to be covered on this show, and I never really felt like I would be believed is kind of astonishing to me. I'm so sad and angry, thinking back to that time. "Would never happen in a rich neighborhood," indeed.
My sympathies and a reminder that this started with reagan. Most of the shit he did was was a bipartisan effort on behalf of the rich against everybody else, but this tactic of seizing property with no evidence beyond "because we say so" to get around the Constitution was his doing.
The fact is that you survived by sheer luck. You shouldn't have had to get by the skin of your teeth. I wish this hadn't happened to you. I wish you didn't live within an inch of disaster.
The problem with working for corporate media is that they would then control and stifle his ability to present issues and critique the system honestly.
I think Adam is closer to John Oliver in humor and delivery than Jon Stewart, but regardless, I would absolutely watch The Daily Show with Adam Conover. Even has a nice ring to it!
As my mother taught her children. Do not talk to the police. Even if you are not a suspect. Politely say I'm not comfortable speaking with you without a lawyer. Say nothing more. Do not take a anything from them no coffee or soda. I will speak with you only in the presence of a lawyer.
@@cryptbeast3222 I usually adopt the tactic of don't go looking for them and they usually have no reason to go looking for you. Not always possible. So I'll view that. Thanks.
@@JesusChrist42000 Police almost never touch rape cases. Unless you are very wealthy, they don't really give a shit. Hell, it's legal for cops to rape you in 35 states. So, your comment is completely pointless.
Now, in addition to "never talk to the police" parents have to teach their kids "never call 911." As insane as that sounds, "911 call analysis" is a new form of pseudo-science that has been used to convict people of crimes because they 'sounded guilty' on the 911 call. One of the surefire lines that Law Enforcement says is a definite 'guilty indicator?" "I need help" SERIOUSLY. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. If you call 911 and utter the phrase "I need help" that is a 'guilty indicator' that can be used against you in a court of law. LIFE IMPROSONMENT has been handed down on the basis of this type of 'evidence.' Propublica just broke the story late last year, but others have written about it as well. It is a whole new level of ignorance in law enforcement, even more blatantly based on lies and anti-science rhetoric than the other despicable practices that were discussed in this podcast. www.propublica.org/article/911-call-analysis-fbi-police-courts
I miss Adams right to the point quick vids. They were very entertaining and informative and always left me waiting for the next one. It's really hard for me to sit through such long sessions.
@@justicewatch4602 I think that is fair. The thing is that in those videos it tends to shut off other people's voices and it can be hard to communicate nuance, though he does really well. These discussions are a middle point, I want to know these things yet I have a really hard time reading non-fiction books. I am glad that the info is out there, even if it isn't edited down, but I can see how it might be hard to finish.
@@polerin And maybe both are important. Sometimes, concise stuff is important. Sometimes? Nuance is important. And the fact it can be both, makes shit complicated.
The legal system use of children for snitching is the most revolting thing i heard in a while. Not only is immoral, but also unreliable. How can a human being that sees monsters in the closet when you turn the lights off can be trusted to do this task?
And we know from studies on the Satanic Panic that kids under pressure try desperately to figure out what the adults want to hear and say that. Before a certain age they don't even realise what they are saying isn't true because adults are omnipotent and whatever they say is the Truth, and that doesn't suddenly stop but slowly fades as they develop. Then those kids have to live with personal guilt about lying when they get older and realize they "lied", because our culture teaches us the myth that coercive control doesn't exist and you can't be forced to do or say anything
So this happened to someone I was dating in 2008. We were in our mid 20's and he was figuring out he had schizo-affective disorder. During one of his profound episodes he got lost in our neighborhood and started crying. A 6 year old girl was sexually assaulted in her home at knife point. The cops blamed him. I found out by coming home to 8 news vans around my house. They had DNA but told us it was his. Because he was having a psychotic episode they were actually able to convince him he did it. Two of us, the group of very close friends around him, attempted suicide because the thought of that happening was irredeemable. The DNA was NOT his. We lost our home because the neighborhood drove us out. Before the DNA evidence came through the police publicized select lines of his journal without context. Check it out this the best part - we moved to Washington from Hawaii. The person who did the attack was Peter Inouye - a relative of the famous Hawaii Senator!! I know the story sounds unbelievable so if you want to vet it just google david lynch (yea his name is the same as the director) olympia washington rape. I did it and it came up. I think there's even footage of them trying to adjudicate while David's in a straight jacket muttering to himself, a total joke. The story is much longer but I'll stop it there.
@@stoodmuffinpersonal3144 I just realized I've never really told the whole story. I wanted to add that this story came to mind as relevant because the cops lied to us to get us to snitch. We were living as an anarchist commune and normally never would've cooperated, but they lied and said the DNA was his, so one of my good friends, an all around terrific human being, showed the cops where David's underground bunker was in the forest. In that bunker were like 15 years of his personal journals, and they took stuff out of context and gave it to news stations. Between how crazy he was, the gravity of the crime, the insane bunker - it was primetime news gold. In fact they closed down a tent city in downtown Olympia a few days after this happened, and it felt like the authorities had weaponized fear of homeless people with this story to get the public on their side. Later David sued the state and won a lot of money. He gave it all away, often giving like $3k to random homeless people, and is himself homeless and back on the street again. I've come to terms with this being how he wants to live.
Moral of the story, never trust an organization that says it needs unfettered access to minors and 0 oversight, limitations, or investigations into the matter.
In my extended family snitching tore parts of our family apart. My cousins’ grandfather was part of the French resistance during WWII, his own sister snitched on him to the Gestapo. It was brutal during the German occupation of Paris. He was sent to a prison labor farm in Germany, where he met my cousins’ grandmother (the only good thing that came from the experience). And he never spoke to his family ever again. My family only got in contact with that side of the family in like 2004, long after their grandfather had past.
Interesting story but no offense the topic of this podcast is the harm caused by snitching in the present day American justice system with no oversight.
@@dragnflye3797 not at all, much respect to the baguette brigade. I am referring instead to thugs, gang members, and street criminals terrorizing American communities in the present day.
My brother is serving a 46 year sentence on the word of a snitch who was actually the killer in a confrontation. The snitch killed someone down the street from where my brother was, and said my brother shot the person "by accident". Eyewitnesses say that is not what happened but the blood thirsty judge threw out opposing evidence and falsely committed my brother. Its been over 20 years and we are still fighting it. The system says it agrees now (mis-trial), but is taking its time releasing him.
I know it's an impossible wish, but I hope you get reparations for it, including them paying Theraphy for him, you, and your family, for decades which will be needed to get through this episode. It's ridiculous how ""flawed""(elite-biased) the current system is built. It's ridiculous how much unjustified power they have. They're supposed to protect and serve, I hear? Why then do I only see them kill and make life-scarring mistakes? How's the war on drugs? How's criminality? Anything at all being done against that? Or are the bribes just too enticing to refuse? We desperately need a complete reformulation of the system, we can't keep pretending this is a valid way to do it. How many more "mere casualties" and "silly mistakes" we'll need before we take the discussion on defunding the police seriously?
The true horror is all that money from all those cases trying to get him out and all that time of his life that's been stolen away. All the memories and all the moments and all the everything. He probably won't see a penny to compensate. Not that any amount of money would make up for everything that man has missed out on.
More than providing protections for the most vulnerable, the criminal Justice system CREATES the vulnerable. If you’re a normal human being and end up in that cesspool, you will never be the same, never recover. The trauma of false imprisonment is horrifying. Even for the smallest of infractions.
Couldn't love Adam's new format any more! The passionate delivery of factual points against systemic issues in USA is incredible! Keep up the amazing work, Adam!
One thing they got wrong is that "this is racism", but I might have misunderstood this. This is a wider problem than racism in the system. It's a racism enabler, a weapon for racist against the oppressed, but it's not racist onto itself. Let's say we have a magic wand that makes racism disappear. No more black people killed randomly on the street, no more convicted because black, etc. A lot of nasty, terrible stuff instantly gets solved. Everyone's life gets better. This, this doesn't go away. This stays. It gets better, because other people get more targeted taking away the focus from black (more like people of color in general I assume) communities, but it doesn't get much better. Putting that much focus on racism (although it's such a massive part of its impact on the community) takes away a little from the "tool for the powerful against the weak" discourse.
(a little like a gun: a gun doesn't care who it's shooting, but the shooter does. A gun isn't racist, the gun wielder is. To make racist (or other kinds of bad) people less likely to own a gun, stricter gun control must be adopted. This is the same, except it isn't a physical object)
@@Anankin12 or we could just not shoot anyone bc no one ever deserves a bullet and even if they did something, a bullet won't ever fix it in any way. It's self defense till they take it from you and steal your shit nonetheless, but gaining an extra gun that'll aid in their criminal endeavours. No gun has ever stopped crime, ever. Not even the one in Hitler's head.
I think part of the problem is how society views crime/criminals. It seems like the debt to society is never repaid. Even after getting out of jail, the criminal record is a scarlet letter that makes it harder to get a job, get a home, borrow money, etc. Even being accused of a crime and later exonerated can still ruin your life. Stand your ground laws in some states make it functionally legal to kill someone just because you felt threatened by them (especially if you happen to be white and they aren't). With that kind of an attitude towards criminals, it doesn't surprise me that there aren't more demands for accountability. I suspect some even see being used as a pawn and potentially killed for it as part of the punishment, along with assaults and sexual assaults while incarcerated.
We're also over-eager to trust the police. Most of the people who are labeled as 'criminals' shouldn't be, and the truly harmful people never go behind bars.
@@jobnieloliva5358 yep because we will never not be punished.... even after the fact.... never matters because if you "earn" to much you will do it again etc its truly sad.... also people who dont do said thing will always look down on those who do, n that applies to any context of things.... literally anything
The part around the hour mark where she points out how the fight is still worth fighting even if it gets rolled back because it still will be in place at that time to help people is such a powerful and important thought to hold on to. A fight that improves the material conditions for others is still a fight worth having.
I had a relationship end with a guy when the police tapped him to be an informant after a minor drug charge. He felt he didn't have a choice. Either he snitched or he, his brother, and his disabled mother would be deported to their country of origin where they would be even more vulnerable to violence. I don't know what happened to him in the end. I hope he's okay.
This was such an awesome and important conversation. I’m glad that the conversation is at least being discussed at the higher levels of our legal system. I am a victim of a no-knock warrant for a crime I had not committed; I was not even anywhere near the crime scene and did not even know that it had happened…. yet I still had to go to jail and suffer for months because I had no one to bail me out and a background check can still see what you are charged with, even if those charges were dropped. It was probably 9pm when about 15 of them rushed through my relatively small condo. was just me, my mom and my 3 month old baby. They trashed everything, read my personal diaries and took some of our stuff bc they claimed they had been “stolen”- even though no one had ever been charged of stealing anything. And of course the whole house was trashed when they left, with no effort on their part to clean up their mess or fix/pay for the broken door. If my mom had not have been there when they arrested me, my infant daughter would’ve had to go into the foster system. I later learned that the reason I was there was bc my abusive (now ex) husband had gotten high and tried to sloppily rob a bank. When I saw the security tapes I realized just how incredibly out of his mind on drugs he was, because he just kept wandering around in circles inside this bank, taking his sweet time, eating lollipops… the same bank that we had used for years and where we had just had an appointment weeks earlier to create a new savings account for our daughter. And he passed a threatening note to the teller asking for less money- much less- than we had in our actual accounts! I couldn’t BELIEVE that they used his interrogation as a way to arrest me… when I read the transcript in discovery it was so obviously clear that he was not aware of anything happening- he kept talking about “papa Smurf” and how he had “met important people by the dumpster” who gave him “a special mission to complete” and on and on. But the detective KEPT pressuring him to say “well your wife told you to do it right?” “Well your wife is cheating on you with your friends (a lie) so she wanted you to get in trouble right? Which is why she made you do this right?” Over & over & over he would make statements like this… each time my ex would ignore it or say nah I don’t think so…. Until probably the 17th time he was prodded that I had forced him to try to rob our bank, he said “uh sure, I guess… maybe.” WORD FOR WORD. That’s what their entire arrest warrant for me was based on. They wouldn’t listen to me or my mom who told them I literally couldn’t have done anything bc my mom came over before he had left AND my ex husbands phone had been off all day. They don’t care about truth or practicing what’s right or justice they care about power and that’s it. I have also had good interactions with the same department, but the fact that they are okay with their own coworkers acting in this manner means that policing in this country is, and has always been, fundamentally broken. Bc let’s be real… it’s not like this type of activity within the police force is a brand new phenomenon or that they’re “worse now.” Cops have ALWAYS been violent or destructive to people in an offensive way when the situation calls for them to act in the exact opposite manner. The drug war is just one way of sanctioning the cops to act like they’re the mob and to commit terrorist action on our own citizens and family members.
they use the tactic of, you clearly HAD to have known he was gonna do it blah blah blah anyways yeah.... they focus on that because they can earn alot of money from that raid, from fees etc its an entire system... n also punishing people regardless of the facts at hand... ive seen both sides of cases, some where things are so clear yet nothing done, vs nothing yet fully found guilty... it truly never makes sense... also the indictments... why did a grand jury write off on ur arrest.... they didnt even bother reading the evidence... just said well she is his gf so she MUST have known n they have a young child, not much money etc etc w/e they can use... its alot of things n how deep it can go but yeah more people as jury need to realize WHAT they are truly doing.... also some jury just dont wanna be there so they either just agree with w/e going on or bring a personal feeling into it n disregard facts
I was once interrogated for a felony crime. In that interrogation before I asked for a lawyer, they had asked me if I had somebody to offer them and they would let everything go. It was the first conversation they had with me. Ultimately I didn't offer anything, I wasn't charged all charges were dropped, but I believe the ask to snitch is every officer every crime.
The topping on the Abramoff cake; he got to keep almost all of the money. In virtually every white collar, big time crime, even on the rare occasions that they are prosecuted and convicted, they get to keep the money.
That always struck me as odd, that these white-collar crooks who defraud the public and erode our freedoms get slaps on the wrist instead of life in prison or the death penalty.
If I was in charge, I would ask the medical institutions how much, on average, it costs to save a life. Then I would divide the embezzled funds by that number. And that's how many murders the embezzler would be charged with. Though I'll admit that the money would surely not have been used to save any lives. But money is freedom, and stealing someone's freedom is even worse than murder: I heard on History According to Bob that people who lost family to the civil war could tolerate that, but if their houses were burned or such, that left long-lasting resentment. Because that's family wealth gone up in smoke, not just people dying.
George Calombaris, a restaurateur who was a judge on Australian MasterChef, was found to have stolen eight million dollars in wages from his employees. The kicker is that the fine was so pathetic that even after paying the back wages and the fine, he STILL CAME OUT AHEAD FINANCIALLY, from the amount he earned investing that 8m. There is literally no risk in stealing from workers. The man was effectively rewarded.
In the case of ENRON, I feel like we could accomplish the same things as cutting deals with criminals to catch bigger criminals if we actually took whistleblowers seriously. Made them feel like they weren't risking everything by coming forward. Made them feel like they will actually be believed -- Actually be protected. It's far too dangerous for decent people to do the right thing. So, they don't do the right thing.
Yes. Instead, we advise whistleblowers that their lives will never be the same, they can never work in their field again, and everyone they know will turn on them. WTF? Then, wonder, “Gee, why didn’t anyone speak up?”
One of the things the US desperately needs is effective whistleblower protections. As it stands now, we have almost none at all, and what little we do have is largely unenforced.
Honestly, any protections put in place for whistleblowers won't work. Companies will blacklist whistleblowers even if it's 'illegal.' Much like how your boss will find a way to fire you for being gay, or pregnant, or a minority, but will claim it's because of "poor work performance" or "budget cuts," companies will find some other reason to not hire a whistleblower. Whistleblowing basically means ending your career, and possibly the careers of your relatives or friends. A workaround might be the financial support of the whistleblower for the rest of their natural lives - as funded by the national government via a special tax levy of the company that's now being charged - but that doesn't help their extended families who'll be retaliated against.
@@SkySong6161 They would work if we had sufficient union presence, and the legislation to back it up. I mean, what's the alternative, just giving up and becoming a happy little slave? Capitalist Realism?
@@SkySong6161 sure, that's a problem if we keep pretending that corporations should have unchecked control. Hopefully a society and government that actually prosecutes malfeasance exposed by whistleblowers would also not perpetuate the canard that corporations need total control.
We are so fucked. Completely fucked. I love Adam but I just end up in tears after listening to him tell me stuff I basically already knew but didnt realize quite how bad it was.
This was such a smart and fascinating discussion. Infuriating AF, yes, informative as hell, and both Adam and his guest were actively discussing and not just following some script. And Adam really strikes me as a very clever, critical and kind dude with the questions and followups he made. Great stuff
I saw a documentary about a young man who was buying drugs - got arrested - refused to snitch - then the actual drug kingpin took a deal and named him as the drug kingpin. So the last person to snitch or refuses to snitch gets the longest sentence. And as you stated - nobody reviewed the evidence.
@@Laotzu.Goldbug i have seen several reports discussing exactly that. the op got a few details wrong (was a low level seller not a buyer) but his main point that drug kingpin laws are rarely effective against actual kingpins and instead are most often used on underlings is absolutely true and is the subject of several documentaries.
Thank you AGAIN, Adam. This is absolutely incredible. Natapoff is nailing it as I type. We want the BIG conversation, but the value of ONE human life saved, one innocent released cannot be measured, and I love that reminder.
I was the victim of a violent crime back in 1999. I actually had no memory of the incident (lost an entire week to amnesia-no joke). When the police questioned me, they put a picture of a man in front of me and told me to point at home. He was a poc. The picture made him look angry. They said “that’s the guy who stabbed you, just point at him and we will go knock his door down” When I refused to point at someone I had never seen before, the cops got really frustrated, treated me like I was a criminal who was protecting another criminal. It was insane. They literally wanted to use me as a false witness, as far as I knew. This was in a very well known part of Northern California. Anyway, I don’t have any trust in law enforcement. I still to this day have no idea who attacked me or what they wanted. I just remember waking up in a hospital.
Before people stopped believing in hypnosis they'd have shown you a picture of a few men they didn't like, then offered to help you with your amnesia. The hypnotist would then have had a good chance of creating a false memory (accidentally or on purpose) simply by saying "was it one of the men from the pictures?" . Creating false memories is one of the ways hypnosis is real, creating false memories isn't hard even when someone isn't hypnotised. They were probably hoping you'd get confused and start seeing that guy in your memory, but the fact that you 1. Had no memory to be changed 2. Were honest and refused to let them intimidate you into lying meant they lost that day
When I was a kid and first started driving I witnessed a car crash. Some dude was going like 50 in a residential and slammed into another car. When the cops showed up I stuck around as a witness, as I was taught that was the "right thing to do". I gave my account of the events. But I mentioned that maybe the guy saw me pulled up a little into the intersection (which is normal to do to see what's around the corner after you made a full stop) and didn't see me until last second and swerved. Thing is, even if I was the reason the guy decided to suddenly swerve, there was so much space between us (like 10-20 ft) he didn't need to react to me at all and would have been fine just going straight forward without any issues. About a week later we get a letter that I was being the one charged with causing the accident. That pos cop actually told them what I said and pushed the narrative that I was the issue. So the guy turned the whole thing on me exaggerating everything with this information and falsely claimed I zoomed into and stopped immediately in the middle of the road and he was driving carefully but had to swerve to avoid me. I was in shock, I did nothing wrong and thought I was doing my duty of being a witness and that cops were the good guys and I'd be helping the person in other car who got hit. But not only did the cop sell me out to make the situation easier (bc then it was a he said he said between the other 2 cars and it would be harder to prove fault) but I was going to pay for someone else's crime and costs of medical and vehicle damages. Good thing my parents got a lawyer to fight it (not just to avoid the costs but bc they knew I wouldn't lie, I was a very straight laced kid) and we got evidence that a speeding camera caught the dude going 25 above speed limit right before crashing; which exonerated me. But I'm only lucky my parents had the money and wherewithall to get legal council, I'm sure if I didn't have those resources I'd be screwed. Since then I have never snitched again. I will barely talk to a cop if I have to interact with one, giving extremely vague and non specific information at most.
My friend (in the UK) was pressured to snitch on a powerful gang He was a small time drug dealer who rarely even got paid, he mostly just liked helping out his friends. Because he was friends with the big timers (even though he was a small time guy) he was pressured into snitching by being threatened with 10-15 yrs in prison. They made it out like he was at the top and therefore had little chance of a small or no sentence. One of their primary peices of evidence was him bragging on the phone that he knew the drug business tp a friend of his. Me and my other friend suspect it was because he had low self esteem and wanted to make it out that he was a bad boy. He committed suicide because he was afraid of the repurcussions of snitching involving them going after his family. This was a very violent and dangerous gang. Me and my otheer friend still mourn him. He was a nice guy who sold a small amount of drugs and had the police go after him as a big timer just to try and turn him.
You've come a long way since the college humor days. I really enjoy this new channel of yours. The only way things will ever change is to convince enough people to want it, and there's already a huge portion of people who want change but don't know how to start. I feel exceptionalism is what lets us ignore the terrible things people do.
I’ve seen police corner and bully kids as young as 12 years old in my neighborhood; on their bikes and the basketball court, right out in the open. They start putting the fear in kids at such an early age to be compliant. My neighborhood has a high black and latino population and yes, drug and gang crime is an issue so the communities outside look down on this community already. It allows the behavior and so much more to go unchecked but if you live here you see it everywhere. The city won’t invest in the schools or help build local commerce here but they’ll blow their budget to over police the area.
Yep. They over police kids from an early age, they adultify them to somehow qualify their abhorrent treatment of the kids. Their constant presence just creates overwhelming and many times insurmountable problems for the children starting so young. It's sickening.
@@bkk1996 well yeah its how you keep a budget.... n also other things at play, but anyone that starts hitting the nail will get censored or worst lol but also the constant police state is applied to keep anyone in check just like how school teaches always be obedient to ur elders n never question someone older
Great video. That message of moral relativism is what we all learn when we watch wars justified by "human rights" while we ally with brutal dictators. Thanks for driving home that point.
52:55 listen to the Enron story, and you'll understand just how perverted our "justice" system is. I mean listen to all of it, but this particular example gave me chills. Effectively they threatened to go after the children to force the father to testify.
The one thing you should always say when being interrogated, or have a "friendly chat", by the police and nothing else "I need a lawyer, I want a lawyer, get me a lawyer." Cover your bases, they have been know to use a technicality that you didn't explicitly ask for a lawyer.
Even if you do have a lawyer, they often are underfunded, are at a disadvantage in the system, are mistaken, or simply cannot help you in lots of ways. I really do think your most effective option, even if you do have a lawyer, is to say nothing. Everything you say CAN be used against you, but not for you. Best to fight it when it's not counterproductive to do so. ( Which they make sure to be never, even before or after your in prison)
As my grandfather told my uncle; just go to jail, being a snitch is a death sentence. This was after he had been a snitch for 2 years...which was about as long as he would have been in jail for originally.
Thank you Adam and Alexandra for bringing a positive aire to being the cynic of the room in current times. Every person who hears us is another potential policy change and every policy change is another life/lives saved. The "starfish thrown back to the sea" if you will.
55:15 & 1:00:15 - THANK YOU, Adam!!! I do appreciate the nuanced discussion of a complex issue. I additionally recognize, however, that in many minds the broken nature of the informant system is the OBJECTIVE of the system, not a byproduct of an altruistic aim. Thank you, Adam for bringing that point to light. 🎯 👍🏾
It's crazy that nobody pays this guy money to talk on television. He has a great way of pulling an audience. It would be really great if some old person didn't get in charge of networks and start canceling stuff that they were too out-of-touch to realize was mainstream and had lifespan of another few decades... Crazy how that works
I don't think I've ever paused a video more to think about the ramifications of a flippant comment than this. Please continue making more informative and thought provoking content like this
This was a really thoughtful conversation. I'm not a reformist, but I do think a lot of the things Alexandra raises are actually very valid, strategic, and important in ways that were covered in this episode - and in many ways that weren't!
I feel for Alexandra and the movement she represents because she is fighting one of the most opaque systems in the world and when it comes to criminal rights the public just doesn't care, until it affects them that is. Hopefully she can get the word out and help make some much needed changes.
I’m glad my siblings had awful memories and always tried to gaslight me into remembering their nonsense, inherently wired against interrogation. 44:00 wow the ATF being the good guys. As a child whenever my younger brother was mad at me for whatever reason, he’d lie and I’d get in trouble. Anyone with siblings knows informants are BS.
Slavery is legal in America if you've been convicted of a crime. The 13th amendment didn't make slavery illegal; it made it explicitly legal. America also has by far the highest incarceration rate. Multiple industries rely on slave labor from prisoners.
This 'snitching' system is so much like how we treated war criminals from WWII, as well. People who had information and technology we wanted could trade that for lighter or no sentencing, even after perpetrating genocide
@@rlud304 but it is like letting people with power get away with crime because they're willing to snitch on the others who participated in the crime, even if they masterminded a lot of it, which is referenced in this video
Power grants you leverage and leverage grants you power. this will never not be true as long as there are at least two human beings left on planet earth. this makes some people uncomfortable because they think that certain systems or structures, whether democratic, liberal, libertarian, communist whatever can make power disappear from the human arena. they cannot.
The bail system is a big reason people cop a plea. Most people don't have the funds for bail & can't just sit in jail for months or even years waiting for a trial/hearing to exonerate them for obvious reasons. That's why many lower income people end up with "a record." Then those statistics are used against minority communities as proof of criminality & why we need more/stringent policing. You shouldn't have to pay to get of jail when you haven't been legally found guilty yet. Especially for minor offenses (non violent)
This is something I've thought about off and on. If the police are so concerned with morality and reducing crime, why would they cut deals with "criminals"? They shouldn't be lowering jail time for dangerous individuals in order to up their conviction/arrest rates. It completely negates their oath to protect and serve the public.
I looked up that Katheryn Johnston story just to assure myself that there was some sort of justice in the end. There was, kinda. Three officers were charged and were sentenced to ten, six, and five years. They were all supposed to get more time, but... they cut a deal with the prosecutor and agreed to testify with other corrupt officers in their department. Also, this happened in 2006, so they're all free men now.
The big problem with transparency in the informant scenario on an average citizen level is the premise or promise of non-documentation. If offered an off the books deal to inform vs a documented and regulated deal to inform... most look at the regulated deal just as detrimental as a conviction. The informants don't want to be seen AT ALL.
I love just seeing how the guests respond to Adam's obvious research into, and respect of them in the beginning of the discussion. Always a good watch!
I appreciated the pushback against the liberal ideology that all the system needs is reform because it's broken, instead of acknowledging that the system is fundamentally structured to achieve the outcomes it does.
I adore his ability to ask questions he already knows the answer to to make it abundantly clear to everyone. I'm terrible at that. I'm like right, tell me about the minutiae OR even if i don't understand, i ask questions that don't facilitate understanding
Beautiful discussion. Every change in my adult life I think has its roots in this kind of discussion, namely - "let's fix this tiny thing, now; we can fix the whole problem tomorrow"
The what? Are you joking? No he’s not because Adam is a logical rational person who values reason and critical thinking. That’s how facts work, the opposite of magical thinking.
I actually know someone who was a police informant 'by trade,' they where one of the most horrid individuals I met. Pretends to be your friend while they can use you, find out something they can weaponize against you then start making demands, soon as you say 'No' guess who runs off to the police. Given the drug addiction nature of that individual, said police really loved whenever he had a falling out with his dealers... and he got paid enough to start fishing around for a new dealer. The guy was literally 'no touch' by the local police, something else he gladly weaponized too.
A two headed monster, one thinking to help the other walk straight . I follow the money , governing transportation is through not donations , it’s tickets , fines and licensing . Governing companies , done through lobbiest giving money to politicians . It’s a perfect system as they see it .
Ever since Europeans landed here, we have used Divide and Conquer strategy. Sow mistrust of your own group, your own people. We also use people and then throw them away. How many times did the Crow people be scouts to find other tribes? How were the Crow shown appreciation? They too were put on a reservation.
Great interview and discussion. As a tangent to this, I think it really comes to us being honest about ourselves and actually being able to look in a mirror and not just be openly lying about everything. As a father I tell me children that honor, trustworthiness, and other clichés are respected in society. That this is what society values. But I know in the background that this is blatantly false. Society openly criminalizes the truly petty crimes and ignores the most absurd. While I could list many examples, I like the opioid epidemic as my go to for explaining what I mean here. The Sackler Family and Purdue knew that they were hurting people. Politicians knew, cops knew, and so on. Yet we didn't truly ever prosecute this company for decades because it was making rich and politically powerful people lots of money. El Chapo's biggest mistake was that he didn't start an American company and make sure to donate money to police unions and the political parties. Given the fact that this one company hurt and killed hundreds of thousands of people, and basically openly laughed at this while they took the money to the bank. Add in the fact that they've never really suffered any major consequences for their actions, you can basically conclude that they were all just sitting around a table looking at the most successful serial killer and cartel drug lord , and thinking to themselves: "Man what a lightweight!" The unstated rule is that you go big, and line the pockets of the most wealthy and politically powerful, and then you can get away with the worst crimes imaginable.
Adam. I have nothing but love and respect for you. This was an amazing, informative interview and I'm glad this conversation is happening. As a sound guy, I'm asking you to PLEASE teach yourself not to hit the table when you're making points. Or use a mic on a stand instead of an arm mounted to the table. Keep up the fantastic work.
It is disheartening to know how we have been led to believe in the system when questioning was part of our nation's beginning. What can we do, other than share, to bring light to these issues and start the changes needed? I understand it is a heavy undertaking however I can only be somewhat optimistic. I enjoy learning about subjects I may not have looked into. Your shows keep me educated and entertained during my cancer treatments. Thank you and keep 'em coming.
What's mad is that about 99% of all cases that occur in Better Call Saul are about plea deal negotiations so apparently it's more accurate to life than deliberate procedural police and legal dramas.
The problem isn't in the details. It is that the entire set of foundational principles behind the judicial system are wrong to begin with. It is not justice for a person to "pay" for crimes, and it is logically unreasonable to expect punishments and the labeling of good people and bad people to make society any better or safer. The entire problem is that the system is not actually focused upon making conditions better and stopping bad things from happening. It needs to be replaced with something more reasonable and logical.
Omg at the start I was really not looking forward to hearing another disturbing uncovery of why America is so terribly broken. But I'm glad it did leave me with a hope for an improving future justice system
Recently discovered your TH-cam work. Love it as always, was wanting the magic of TV to bring your sister in the whole time. Want to hear the public defender's opinion of plea bargaining. Keep it up!!
From the view of an outsider (Australian) this looks like corruption. The sort of corruption we have Royal Commissions (which are fully open to the public) about whenever there’s a hint of it. Transparency mightn’t completely eliminate the problem, but it helps enormously, and helps build public trust. I honestly don’t know if US law enforcement can rebuild public trust, or if the whole system needs to be reconstructed from the ground up.
As an American who has seen how broken and unjust our legal system is, there is seemingly nothing salvageable. The whole system needs to be torn down and rebuilt. It has racial and other inequality ideals and practices that are deeply engraved into them and is one of the main reasons why, if I could, I would move to Canada, or a European country, or maybe even Australia. We are not a land of the free and anyone who says other wise is either delusional or they don't care and/or have an agenda. We are a land of hypocrites.
yeah the cops here began as slave catchers and never stopped, unironically if cops never worked a day ever again here in the states thing would be universally better including lower crime, we know this from the few times cops went on strike and things got so much better in the area they had to go back to work to save face, any sort of reconstruction would need to be so radically different that it can barely be thought of as a replacement
ALL COPS ARE BAD. If your wonderful loving family member is a cop then maybe they are the one good one. But even if they do none of the bad things they are aware of it. And defend thier brothers and sisters in blue that practices it.
The old Martin Lawrence movie, Bluestreak actually has a part about how police use snitches. Martin and his partner find a small business owner doing illegal stuff and instead of arresting the guy they let him go with a warning. Martin then explains to his partner that the guy is now indebted to them so they can use him at a later time to catch a bigger criminal.
As a kid growing up in an impoverished part of Houston in the 90s, I was told never to talk to the police. If I were to be questioned, I was to tell them they could not talk to me without my mom.
Fast forward to me at 16. I had moved to rural Wyoming. I was the only "witness" to a "theft" in my new high school. I didn't see the other kid do anything. I just know the object was there and then it wasn't.
The local yokel police interrogated me. Alone. Despite my telling them,
First off: I didn't see anything and Second: I was uncomfortable and afraid and wanted my dad to be there. They proceeded to yell at me more and tell me I had somehow admitted to seeing the other kid do it. They said I would be in trouble myself if I didn't say then and there that the other kid did it.
When they finally let me out of the room, With both the cops and the teacher pressuring me, I was furious and crying but had stood my ground.
The cops told the other kid that I had told them I saw him do it. The teacher said the same thing and made sure to "thank" me in front of him but then scold me in private. It was all so shocking. All I could do was call them liars and continue to cry.
The rest of this small town school soon heard the story and as a result, I was so completely alone and miserable, I dropped out.
It's not the worst thing the police have done to a minor, but it was traumatic and had real consequences for me who had done absolutely nothing wrong.
Even at 38, I'm still extremely pissed about the whole thing.
Good on you! You stood your ground and you were true to your principles! It infuriates me that happened to you. I really hope your parents endorsed you at the time. You would always be welcome in my home, on my block and on my team! Hit me up if you're ever in Portland! We'll kick back and keep it real! 😁
Now, in addition to "never talk to the police" parents have to teach their kids "never call 911." As insane as that sounds, "911 call analysis" is a new form of pseudo-science that has been used to convict people of crimes because they 'sounded guilty' on the 911 call.
One of the surefire lines that Law Enforcement says is a definite 'guilty indicator?'
"I need help"
SERIOUSLY. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. If you call 911 and utter the phrase "I need help" that is a 'guilty indicator' that can be used against you in a court of law. LIFE IMPROSONMENT has been handed down on the basis of this type of 'evidence.'
Propublica just broke the story late last year, but others have written about it as well. It is a whole new level of ignorance in law enforcement, even more blatantly based on lies and anti-science rhetoric than the other despicable practices that were discussed in this podcast.
www.propublica.org/article/911-call-analysis-fbi-police-courts
Then people think it's too much to say that All Cops Are Bastards. It's not a couple bad apples, it's the concept of using "apples" at all.
I bet they were pumped to have something to do that day, played that "I'm a cop so I'm a god" act, and after emotionally traumatizing a kid for life, they probably went for a couple beers.
That was 100% money well spent in funding the police force which trained those cops, 0 problems with anything about it.(tbh in their book they did everything perfectly, 0 mistakes.
it'd be like being upset that capitalists get away with illegal shit in capitalism, like, it's not a flaw, it's the whole point of the system!)
I'm really sorry that you went through that experience, I'm scared about what the kid that they treated like a theft suspect went through, I'm scared for every civilian those cops ever encountered, I'm scared about their superiors and their free punishments to ",tough 'em up", and I'm scared about this type of police being the global standard.
The police needs to be defunded not bc they don't do much against crime(even tho they really don't), but because of all the situations where it misbehaves, always more energetically than needed, never less, and so that they don't get called to resolve stuff that should be dealt by the principal of the school, the counselor/therapist and other responsible adults from the school board.
There was absolutely no need to call egomaniac people with guns and that have normalized emotional torture as being just standard, not even enhanced, interrogation.
I've never seen the police help someone without immediately calling news media to film it and make their propaganda of the day, they never do it just to help people. It should be such a daily thing that it doesn't even become news, but every single time the police does a good thing it becomes news.
And there really aren't that many of them even with a few that are "slightly"-staged.
We won't have a safe population with this brutal police system, we need officers which are friends of the people, not enemies.
I don't think you would consider that those cops were more inclined towards being friendly than treating you like their enemy, friends tend to not actively push through your feelings and traumatize you.
Sorry if I'm too "passionate" about this, it's just that I'm just another victim of this type of system and have myself been traumatized by emotional torture of the sorts(they let me go eventually, but they made me kneel down and pray for their god. After they had already broken me down for hours).
And I know we're not just two isolated cases finding each other as a one-in-a-million chance encounter case, everyone poor enough to not have themselves whitelisted bc of their or their parents's wealth, is probably another case like that. Some people have multiple stories like that, some have too many of them.
We need another system. A humane one.
And we need it desperately.
Read Foucault, school is a prison
@@deniseengle4269 Thank you so much. I hope I can take you up on that offer someday. I hear Portland is beautiful.
I pled guilty because it was 3 yrs instead of possibly 20... my entire life has been destroyed. I'm slowly rebuilding it, but it will never be what it could have. Prison was awful, and jail was even worse. We went without hot water 9 mo . I had 10 staphinfections, broke 3 teeth on eating the crappy food, was exploited by the telephone system ($0.23/min to speak to my kids). Jail/Prison is a money maker. We spend way over $30,000/yr per person that is locked up. For most people, locking people up doesn't protect the public, inmates come out more broken and screwed up than when they went in. I am more damaged than I was prior to incarnation. And it continues still... I never realized how screwed up our system is until I was caught up in it ...
We give the prisons 30,000 a year to care for the prisoner, yet that much isn't spent, AND the prison makes even more money off the prisoner in other ways.
Glad you're still here. Hope it continues to look up for you, Michael.
@@RealBradMiller thank you for the kind words...
I'm so sorry to read this, that this happened to you. I hope you can find a way back! At the very least that is something I believe, that hurt people can heal. I'm in the process of that myself, though from other things. I believe in you!
Omg!! 😭😭😭😭
Hope you can find joy in life again, you may have been through hell but you’re not useless or broken, you deserve to live a meaningful life and enjoy yourself and your family
My son’s father was murdered in 2020 in broad daylight, detectives didn’t bother to do any forensic examinations on the weapon found moved from the scene and they told me it would take months for fingerprinting. We still don’t know who shot him because they barely tried, I’ve lost faith in the Justice system.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. My god. Sending love. ❤️
R.I.P
@@TheAdamConover hey ive always wanted to interview another adam lol n wonder the way you got ur name Adam xD if you had an email i could reach you at? i know im not special or anyone to talk to but id truly like a genuine conversation with you
also good lord... where was this? n almost like covid at the time was taking more precedence then normal reactions, i noticed alot of things became weird around those times... for alot of things, alot of cold cases got solved... but also alot of small things over looked.... also you need to not lose faith in the system or faith in urself... you need to push harder!!! thats what the system trys to do, is take you away from wanting to push, never stop!!!! someone WILL care, you will find someone within those circles to care.....
@@TheAdamConover funny to because im from amherst MA so when she brought that up i laughed so hard i truly hope you see this comment lol tho i doubt you will lol!!!
I like newer, angrier Adam.
Everybody liked that.
Fcuk yeah!
Yeah this is the best meta in Adam’s whole update history
@stroncal he was milquetoast. This Adam says what we feel.
That's his secret, cap. He is always angry. 😁
Twenty years ago, my mother and I lived in the projects. She'd been injured and it took literal years for her to get her disability. At the time, we'd basically been surviving off of the settlement. My mom had bought a pretty nice car (nice for us) so that we wouldn't have to be afraid of it dying.
She took our neighbors to the store pretty often, because we're in a rural area, and the only thing within walking distance cost like twice as much as the 'bargain' stores. Well, eventually, mom took one of our neighbors to the store... and it turned out that neighbor was a snitch.
We didn't have money. The only medicine my mother had was the medicine she needed to be functional. I'm honestly not sure how we survived up to that point. But regardless, this neighbor 'snitched' on my mom, and said that she'd traded drugs for something from the store. We later found out she'd done this a lot. That it was literally how she got her drug money.
Anywho. Because our car was involved in the 'drug deal' that had zero proof, it was impounded. So we were left without a way to go anywhere, as were many of our neighbors. What's more, the police put her in the paper as being in the center of a major drug scandal operating out of a local store.
Fast forward to the trial. The man involved who actually was trading drugs for merchandise got on the stand and said he'd never met my mother before that day. Then proceeded to plead the fifth. Jury was instructed to disregard, but I still believe that's the only reason they sided with us. In the end, the charges were dropped. She was still on that front page. And then we had to pay to get our car back. I'm not kidding.
And when we did get it back, the thing was trashed. Holes burned in the seats, old wrappers in the floorboards, spoiled food, drinks poured all over it, holes burned in the ceiling...
And a busted head gasket. Our neighbors still didn't have a way to and from the store. When we finally got her disability, she tried to fix the car, but it was never the same. We wound up trading it in for another vehicle that died shortly after.
Things are better now, but the fact that this is widespread enough to be covered on this show, and I never really felt like I would be believed is kind of astonishing to me. I'm so sad and angry, thinking back to that time. "Would never happen in a rich neighborhood," indeed.
Damn
Yeesh. That's brutal.
My sympathies and a reminder that this started with reagan. Most of the shit he did was was a bipartisan effort on behalf of the rich against everybody else, but this tactic of seizing property with no evidence beyond "because we say so" to get around the Constitution was his doing.
The fact is that you survived by sheer luck. You shouldn't have had to get by the skin of your teeth. I wish this hadn't happened to you. I wish you didn't live within an inch of disaster.
Geez. I'm glad things are looking better for you now, but you should never have had to go through that in the first place.
Adam Conover should apply for the daily show. He would make a great host.
The problem with working for corporate media is that they would then control and stifle his ability to present issues and critique the system honestly.
Adam would be great.
@@JenSell1626 Adam is more radical than him
From your lips...
I think Adam is closer to John Oliver in humor and delivery than Jon Stewart, but regardless, I would absolutely watch The Daily Show with Adam Conover. Even has a nice ring to it!
As my mother taught her children. Do not talk to the police. Even if you are not a suspect. Politely say I'm not comfortable speaking with you without a lawyer. Say nothing more. Do not take a anything from them no coffee or soda. I will speak with you only in the presence of a lawyer.
Never take a drink or food from the police. Once it's "trash" it's considered public property and they can test your DNA from it, without a warrent.
Refer to the video "Shut the Fuck up Friday" for exact instruction on how to talk to police.
@@cryptbeast3222 I usually adopt the tactic of don't go looking for them and they usually have no reason to go looking for you. Not always possible. So I'll view that. Thanks.
@@JesusChrist42000 Police almost never touch rape cases. Unless you are very wealthy, they don't really give a shit. Hell, it's legal for cops to rape you in 35 states. So, your comment is completely pointless.
Now, in addition to "never talk to the police" parents have to teach their kids "never call 911." As insane as that sounds, "911 call analysis" is a new form of pseudo-science that has been used to convict people of crimes because they 'sounded guilty' on the 911 call.
One of the surefire lines that Law Enforcement says is a definite 'guilty indicator?"
"I need help"
SERIOUSLY. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. If you call 911 and utter the phrase "I need help" that is a 'guilty indicator' that can be used against you in a court of law. LIFE IMPROSONMENT has been handed down on the basis of this type of 'evidence.'
Propublica just broke the story late last year, but others have written about it as well. It is a whole new level of ignorance in law enforcement, even more blatantly based on lies and anti-science rhetoric than the other despicable practices that were discussed in this podcast.
www.propublica.org/article/911-call-analysis-fbi-police-courts
And yet honourable government and corporate whistle blower are treated as criminals .
This part ♥
I miss Adams right to the point quick vids. They were very entertaining and informative and always left me waiting for the next one. It's really hard for me to sit through such long sessions.
@@justicewatch4602 I think that is fair. The thing is that in those videos it tends to shut off other people's voices and it can be hard to communicate nuance, though he does really well.
These discussions are a middle point, I want to know these things yet I have a really hard time reading non-fiction books. I am glad that the info is out there, even if it isn't edited down, but I can see how it might be hard to finish.
Telling, right?
@@polerin
And maybe both are important.
Sometimes, concise stuff is important.
Sometimes? Nuance is important.
And the fact it can be both, makes shit complicated.
The legal system use of children for snitching is the most revolting thing i heard in a while. Not only is immoral, but also unreliable. How can a human being that sees monsters in the closet when you turn the lights off can be trusted to do this task?
“A human being that sees monsters in the closet”
Conservatives?
And we know from studies on the Satanic Panic that kids under pressure try desperately to figure out what the adults want to hear and say that. Before a certain age they don't even realise what they are saying isn't true because adults are omnipotent and whatever they say is the Truth, and that doesn't suddenly stop but slowly fades as they develop. Then those kids have to live with personal guilt about lying when they get older and realize they "lied", because our culture teaches us the myth that coercive control doesn't exist and you can't be forced to do or say anything
@@hopsonkim4952 ...... guess we found the problem here
Despite popular belief children are not, in fact, idiots
@@Laotzu.Goldbug Having been a kid...yeah they are. I believed my parents when they said there was a magic fat man who brought presents.
So this happened to someone I was dating in 2008. We were in our mid 20's and he was figuring out he had schizo-affective disorder. During one of his profound episodes he got lost in our neighborhood and started crying. A 6 year old girl was sexually assaulted in her home at knife point. The cops blamed him. I found out by coming home to 8 news vans around my house. They had DNA but told us it was his. Because he was having a psychotic episode they were actually able to convince him he did it. Two of us, the group of very close friends around him, attempted suicide because the thought of that happening was irredeemable. The DNA was NOT his. We lost our home because the neighborhood drove us out. Before the DNA evidence came through the police publicized select lines of his journal without context. Check it out this the best part - we moved to Washington from Hawaii. The person who did the attack was Peter Inouye - a relative of the famous Hawaii Senator!! I know the story sounds unbelievable so if you want to vet it just google david lynch (yea his name is the same as the director) olympia washington rape. I did it and it came up. I think there's even footage of them trying to adjudicate while David's in a straight jacket muttering to himself, a total joke. The story is much longer but I'll stop it there.
Ouch
holy shit
The police don't protect us. They protect the State, from us.
@@stoodmuffinpersonal3144 I just realized I've never really told the whole story. I wanted to add that this story came to mind as relevant because the cops lied to us to get us to snitch. We were living as an anarchist commune and normally never would've cooperated, but they lied and said the DNA was his, so one of my good friends, an all around terrific human being, showed the cops where David's underground bunker was in the forest. In that bunker were like 15 years of his personal journals, and they took stuff out of context and gave it to news stations. Between how crazy he was, the gravity of the crime, the insane bunker - it was primetime news gold. In fact they closed down a tent city in downtown Olympia a few days after this happened, and it felt like the authorities had weaponized fear of homeless people with this story to get the public on their side. Later David sued the state and won a lot of money. He gave it all away, often giving like $3k to random homeless people, and is himself homeless and back on the street again. I've come to terms with this being how he wants to live.
Wow
Moral of the story, never trust an organization that says it needs unfettered access to minors and 0 oversight, limitations, or investigations into the matter.
I think you have too many qualifiers. You should shorten it to "Never trust an organization that says it needs 0 oversight for anything."
In my extended family snitching tore parts of our family apart. My cousins’ grandfather was part of the French resistance during WWII, his own sister snitched on him to the Gestapo. It was brutal during the German occupation of Paris. He was sent to a prison labor farm in Germany, where he met my cousins’ grandmother (the only good thing that came from the experience). And he never spoke to his family ever again. My family only got in contact with that side of the family in like 2004, long after their grandfather had past.
Interesting story but no offense the topic of this podcast is the harm caused by snitching in the present day American justice system with no oversight.
@@rlud304 the dangers of snitching are universal
@@dragnflye3797and so are the dangers of people keeping quiet and letting criminals operate in their communities unchecked
@@Laotzu.Goldbug with a nick like yours, of course you would regard resistance fighters as criminals
@@dragnflye3797 not at all, much respect to the baguette brigade. I am referring instead to thugs, gang members, and street criminals terrorizing American communities in the present day.
My brother is serving a 46 year sentence on the word of a snitch who was actually the killer in a confrontation. The snitch killed someone down the street from where my brother was, and said my brother shot the person "by accident". Eyewitnesses say that is not what happened but the blood thirsty judge threw out opposing evidence and falsely committed my brother. Its been over 20 years and we are still fighting it. The system says it agrees now (mis-trial), but is taking its time releasing him.
I know it's an impossible wish, but I hope you get reparations for it, including them paying Theraphy for him, you, and your family, for decades which will be needed to get through this episode.
It's ridiculous how ""flawed""(elite-biased) the current system is built. It's ridiculous how much unjustified power they have.
They're supposed to protect and serve, I hear? Why then do I only see them kill and make life-scarring mistakes? How's the war on drugs? How's criminality? Anything at all being done against that? Or are the bribes just too enticing to refuse?
We desperately need a complete reformulation of the system, we can't keep pretending this is a valid way to do it. How many more "mere casualties" and "silly mistakes" we'll need before we take the discussion on defunding the police seriously?
😭😭unbearable!!!!
Nice try. But your brother is a stone cold killer
The true horror is all that money from all those cases trying to get him out and all that time of his life that's been stolen away. All the memories and all the moments and all the everything. He probably won't see a penny to compensate. Not that any amount of money would make up for everything that man has missed out on.
Who is the judge? He isn’t immortal
More than providing protections for the most vulnerable, the criminal Justice system CREATES the vulnerable. If you’re a normal human being and end up in that cesspool, you will never be the same, never recover. The trauma of false imprisonment is horrifying. Even for the smallest of infractions.
Couldn't love Adam's new format any more! The passionate delivery of factual points against systemic issues in USA is incredible! Keep up the amazing work, Adam!
Right?? Same here
One thing they got wrong is that "this is racism", but I might have misunderstood this.
This is a wider problem than racism in the system. It's a racism enabler, a weapon for racist against the oppressed, but it's not racist onto itself.
Let's say we have a magic wand that makes racism disappear. No more black people killed randomly on the street, no more convicted because black, etc. A lot of nasty, terrible stuff instantly gets solved. Everyone's life gets better.
This, this doesn't go away. This stays. It gets better, because other people get more targeted taking away the focus from black (more like people of color in general I assume) communities, but it doesn't get much better.
Putting that much focus on racism (although it's such a massive part of its impact on the community) takes away a little from the "tool for the powerful against the weak" discourse.
(a little like a gun: a gun doesn't care who it's shooting, but the shooter does. A gun isn't racist, the gun wielder is. To make racist (or other kinds of bad) people less likely to own a gun, stricter gun control must be adopted. This is the same, except it isn't a physical object)
@@Anankin12 or we could just not shoot anyone bc no one ever deserves a bullet and even if they did something, a bullet won't ever fix it in any way.
It's self defense till they take it from you and steal your shit nonetheless, but gaining an extra gun that'll aid in their criminal endeavours.
No gun has ever stopped crime, ever. Not even the one in Hitler's head.
I think part of the problem is how society views crime/criminals. It seems like the debt to society is never repaid. Even after getting out of jail, the criminal record is a scarlet letter that makes it harder to get a job, get a home, borrow money, etc. Even being accused of a crime and later exonerated can still ruin your life. Stand your ground laws in some states make it functionally legal to kill someone just because you felt threatened by them (especially if you happen to be white and they aren't). With that kind of an attitude towards criminals, it doesn't surprise me that there aren't more demands for accountability. I suspect some even see being used as a pawn and potentially killed for it as part of the punishment, along with assaults and sexual assaults while incarcerated.
I have a cousin who is way smarter than me and works harder too but he can’t find a good job because he got caught with drugs 8 years ago
We're also over-eager to trust the police. Most of the people who are labeled as 'criminals' shouldn't be, and the truly harmful people never go behind bars.
@@jobnieloliva5358 yep because we will never not be punished.... even after the fact.... never matters because if you "earn" to much you will do it again etc its truly sad.... also people who dont do said thing will always look down on those who do, n that applies to any context of things.... literally anything
The part around the hour mark where she points out how the fight is still worth fighting even if it gets rolled back because it still will be in place at that time to help people is such a powerful and important thought to hold on to.
A fight that improves the material conditions for others is still a fight worth having.
I had a relationship end with a guy when the police tapped him to be an informant after a minor drug charge. He felt he didn't have a choice. Either he snitched or he, his brother, and his disabled mother would be deported to their country of origin where they would be even more vulnerable to violence. I don't know what happened to him in the end. I hope he's okay.
This was such an awesome and important conversation. I’m glad that the conversation is at least being discussed at the higher levels of our legal system. I am a victim of a no-knock warrant for a crime I had not committed; I was not even anywhere near the crime scene and did not even know that it had happened…. yet I still had to go to jail and suffer for months because I had no one to bail me out and a background check can still see what you are charged with, even if those charges were dropped.
It was probably 9pm when about 15 of them rushed through my relatively small condo. was just me, my mom and my 3 month old baby. They trashed everything, read my personal diaries and took some of our stuff bc they claimed they had been “stolen”- even though no one had ever been charged of stealing anything. And of course the whole house was trashed when they left, with no effort on their part to clean up their mess or fix/pay for the broken door.
If my mom had not have been there when they arrested me, my infant daughter would’ve had to go into the foster system.
I later learned that the reason I was there was bc my abusive (now ex) husband had gotten high and tried to sloppily rob a bank. When I saw the security tapes I realized just how incredibly out of his mind on drugs he was, because he just kept wandering around in circles inside this bank, taking his sweet time, eating lollipops… the same bank that we had used for years and where we had just had an appointment weeks earlier to create a new savings account for our daughter. And he passed a threatening note to the teller asking for less money- much less- than we had in our actual accounts!
I couldn’t BELIEVE that they used his interrogation as a way to arrest me… when I read the transcript in discovery it was so obviously clear that he was not aware of anything happening- he kept talking about “papa Smurf” and how he had “met important people by the dumpster” who gave him “a special mission to complete” and on and on. But the detective KEPT pressuring him to say “well your wife told you to do it right?” “Well your wife is cheating on you with your friends (a lie) so she wanted you to get in trouble right? Which is why she made you do this right?”
Over & over & over he would make statements like this… each time my ex would ignore it or say nah I don’t think so…. Until probably the 17th time he was prodded that I had forced him to try to rob our bank, he said “uh sure, I guess… maybe.” WORD FOR WORD. That’s what their entire arrest warrant for me was based on. They wouldn’t listen to me or my mom who told them I literally couldn’t have done anything bc my mom came over before he had left AND my ex husbands phone had been off all day.
They don’t care about truth or practicing what’s right or justice they care about power and that’s it. I have also had good interactions with the same department, but the fact that they are okay with their own coworkers acting in this manner means that policing in this country is, and has always been, fundamentally broken.
Bc let’s be real… it’s not like this type of activity within the police force is a brand new phenomenon or that they’re “worse now.” Cops have ALWAYS been violent or destructive to people in an offensive way when the situation calls for them to act in the exact opposite manner. The drug war is just one way of sanctioning the cops to act like they’re the mob and to commit terrorist action on our own citizens and family members.
they use the tactic of, you clearly HAD to have known he was gonna do it blah blah blah anyways yeah.... they focus on that because they can earn alot of money from that raid, from fees etc its an entire system... n also punishing people regardless of the facts at hand... ive seen both sides of cases, some where things are so clear yet nothing done, vs nothing yet fully found guilty... it truly never makes sense... also the indictments... why did a grand jury write off on ur arrest.... they didnt even bother reading the evidence... just said well she is his gf so she MUST have known n they have a young child, not much money etc etc w/e they can use... its alot of things n how deep it can go but yeah more people as jury need to realize WHAT they are truly doing.... also some jury just dont wanna be there so they either just agree with w/e going on or bring a personal feeling into it n disregard facts
Imagine if 95% of law and order episodes never got to trial. Great line Adam.
Law and order is based on the other 5% . If you think that 5% number is low look up crime funnel.
I was once interrogated for a felony crime. In that interrogation before I asked for a lawyer, they had asked me if I had somebody to offer them and they would let everything go. It was the first conversation they had with me. Ultimately I didn't offer anything, I wasn't charged all charges were dropped, but I believe the ask to snitch is every officer every crime.
I constantly cited to Professor Natapoff in law school. So excited to see this!
The topping on the Abramoff cake; he got to keep almost all of the money.
In virtually every white collar, big time crime, even on the rare occasions that they are prosecuted and convicted, they get to keep the money.
Yeah. It's always reported that they "lost," some massive number of investors' dollars - when we all clearly understand that they _stole_ it!
That always struck me as odd, that these white-collar crooks who defraud the public and erode our freedoms get slaps on the wrist instead of life in prison or the death penalty.
If I was in charge, I would ask the medical institutions how much, on average, it costs to save a life. Then I would divide the embezzled funds by that number. And that's how many murders the embezzler would be charged with.
Though I'll admit that the money would surely not have been used to save any lives. But money is freedom, and stealing someone's freedom is even worse than murder:
I heard on History According to Bob that people who lost family to the civil war could tolerate that, but if their houses were burned or such, that left long-lasting resentment. Because that's family wealth gone up in smoke, not just people dying.
George Calombaris, a restaurateur who was a judge on Australian MasterChef, was found to have stolen eight million dollars in wages from his employees. The kicker is that the fine was so pathetic that even after paying the back wages and the fine, he STILL CAME OUT AHEAD FINANCIALLY, from the amount he earned investing that 8m. There is literally no risk in stealing from workers. The man was effectively rewarded.
In the case of ENRON, I feel like we could accomplish the same things as cutting deals with criminals to catch bigger criminals if we actually took whistleblowers seriously. Made them feel like they weren't risking everything by coming forward. Made them feel like they will actually be believed -- Actually be protected. It's far too dangerous for decent people to do the right thing. So, they don't do the right thing.
Yes. Instead, we advise whistleblowers that their lives will never be the same, they can never work in their field again, and everyone they know will turn on them. WTF? Then, wonder, “Gee, why didn’t anyone speak up?”
One of the things the US desperately needs is effective whistleblower protections. As it stands now, we have almost none at all, and what little we do have is largely unenforced.
Honestly, any protections put in place for whistleblowers won't work. Companies will blacklist whistleblowers even if it's 'illegal.' Much like how your boss will find a way to fire you for being gay, or pregnant, or a minority, but will claim it's because of "poor work performance" or "budget cuts," companies will find some other reason to not hire a whistleblower. Whistleblowing basically means ending your career, and possibly the careers of your relatives or friends. A workaround might be the financial support of the whistleblower for the rest of their natural lives - as funded by the national government via a special tax levy of the company that's now being charged - but that doesn't help their extended families who'll be retaliated against.
@@SkySong6161 They would work if we had sufficient union presence, and the legislation to back it up.
I mean, what's the alternative, just giving up and becoming a happy little slave? Capitalist Realism?
@@SkySong6161 sure, that's a problem if we keep pretending that corporations should have unchecked control. Hopefully a society and government that actually prosecutes malfeasance exposed by whistleblowers would also not perpetuate the canard that corporations need total control.
We are so fucked. Completely fucked. I love Adam but I just end up in tears after listening to him tell me stuff I basically already knew but didnt realize quite how bad it was.
This was such a smart and fascinating discussion. Infuriating AF, yes, informative as hell, and both Adam and his guest were actively discussing and not just following some script. And Adam really strikes me as a very clever, critical and kind dude with the questions and followups he made. Great stuff
I saw a documentary about a young man who was buying drugs - got arrested - refused to snitch - then the actual drug kingpin took a deal and named him as the drug kingpin. So the last person to snitch or refuses to snitch gets the longest sentence. And as you stated - nobody reviewed the evidence.
also because the higher up you are in a org the more dirt you know about others. dudes on the bottom only can snitch on the 1 guy above them.
To be honest, this does not sound even in the slightest bit believable. What was the name of the documentary?
@@Laotzu.Goldbug i have seen several reports discussing exactly that. the op got a few details wrong (was a low level seller not a buyer) but his main point that drug kingpin laws are rarely effective against actual kingpins and instead are most often used on underlings is absolutely true and is the subject of several documentaries.
Thank you AGAIN, Adam. This is absolutely incredible. Natapoff is nailing it as I type. We want the BIG conversation, but the value of ONE human life saved, one innocent released cannot be measured, and I love that reminder.
I was the victim of a violent crime back in 1999. I actually had no memory of the incident (lost an entire week to amnesia-no joke).
When the police questioned me, they put a picture of a man in front of me and told me to point at home. He was a poc. The picture made him look angry. They said “that’s the guy who stabbed you, just point at him and we will go knock his door down”
When I refused to point at someone I had never seen before, the cops got really frustrated, treated me like I was a criminal who was protecting another criminal. It was insane. They literally wanted to use me as a false witness, as far as I knew.
This was in a very well known part of Northern California.
Anyway, I don’t have any trust in law enforcement. I still to this day have no idea who attacked me or what they wanted. I just remember waking up in a hospital.
San Mateo California?
sounds like Corte Madera
@@jakeolthof Believe it or not, EPA back before it had Ikeas and Home Depots
When you say Person of Colour , exactly which ethnicity / race are you talking about??
Before people stopped believing in hypnosis they'd have shown you a picture of a few men they didn't like, then offered to help you with your amnesia. The hypnotist would then have had a good chance of creating a false memory (accidentally or on purpose) simply by saying "was it one of the men from the pictures?" . Creating false memories is one of the ways hypnosis is real, creating false memories isn't hard even when someone isn't hypnotised. They were probably hoping you'd get confused and start seeing that guy in your memory, but the fact that you 1. Had no memory to be changed 2. Were honest and refused to let them intimidate you into lying meant they lost that day
When I was a kid and first started driving I witnessed a car crash. Some dude was going like 50 in a residential and slammed into another car.
When the cops showed up I stuck around as a witness, as I was taught that was the "right thing to do". I gave my account of the events.
But I mentioned that maybe the guy saw me pulled up a little into the intersection (which is normal to do to see what's around the corner after you made a full stop) and didn't see me until last second and swerved.
Thing is, even if I was the reason the guy decided to suddenly swerve, there was so much space between us (like 10-20 ft) he didn't need to react to me at all and would have been fine just going straight forward without any issues.
About a week later we get a letter that I was being the one charged with causing the accident. That pos cop actually told them what I said and pushed the narrative that I was the issue.
So the guy turned the whole thing on me exaggerating everything with this information and falsely claimed I zoomed into and stopped immediately in the middle of the road and he was driving carefully but had to swerve to avoid me.
I was in shock, I did nothing wrong and thought I was doing my duty of being a witness and that cops were the good guys and I'd be helping the person in other car who got hit.
But not only did the cop sell me out to make the situation easier (bc then it was a he said he said between the other 2 cars and it would be harder to prove fault) but I was going to pay for someone else's crime and costs of medical and vehicle damages.
Good thing my parents got a lawyer to fight it (not just to avoid the costs but bc they knew I wouldn't lie, I was a very straight laced kid) and we got evidence that a speeding camera caught the dude going 25 above speed limit right before crashing; which exonerated me.
But I'm only lucky my parents had the money and wherewithall to get legal council, I'm sure if I didn't have those resources I'd be screwed.
Since then I have never snitched again. I will barely talk to a cop if I have to interact with one, giving extremely vague and non specific information at most.
My friend (in the UK) was pressured to snitch on a powerful gang He was a small time drug dealer who rarely even got paid, he mostly just liked helping out his friends. Because he was friends with the big timers (even though he was a small time guy) he was pressured into snitching by being threatened with 10-15 yrs in prison. They made it out like he was at the top and therefore had little chance of a small or no sentence. One of their primary peices of evidence was him bragging on the phone that he knew the drug business tp a friend of his. Me and my other friend suspect it was because he had low self esteem and wanted to make it out that he was a bad boy. He committed suicide because he was afraid of the repurcussions of snitching involving them going after his family. This was a very violent and dangerous gang. Me and my otheer friend still mourn him. He was a nice guy who sold a small amount of drugs and had the police go after him as a big timer just to try and turn him.
you kind of answered the question tho.... he should have avoided it ALL together.... yet he was a by product of that game
@@BushMaster420circle how do you work a keyboard with a boot in your mouth and a rod up your butt?
You've come a long way since the college humor days. I really enjoy this new channel of yours. The only way things will ever change is to convince enough people to want it, and there's already a huge portion of people who want change but don't know how to start. I feel exceptionalism is what lets us ignore the terrible things people do.
I’ve seen police corner and bully kids as young as 12 years old in my neighborhood; on their bikes and the basketball court, right out in the open. They start putting the fear in kids at such an early age to be compliant. My neighborhood has a high black and latino population and yes, drug and gang crime is an issue so the communities outside look down on this community already. It allows the behavior and so much more to go unchecked but if you live here you see it everywhere. The city won’t invest in the schools or help build local commerce here but they’ll blow their budget to over police the area.
Yep. They over police kids from an early age, they adultify them to somehow qualify their abhorrent treatment of the kids. Their constant presence just creates overwhelming and many times insurmountable problems for the children starting so young. It's sickening.
@@bkk1996 well yeah its how you keep a budget.... n also other things at play, but anyone that starts hitting the nail will get censored or worst lol but also the constant police state is applied to keep anyone in check just like how school teaches always be obedient to ur elders n never question someone older
Great video. That message of moral relativism is what we all learn when we watch wars justified by "human rights" while we ally with brutal dictators. Thanks for driving home that point.
Thankyou Alexandra Natapoff, you are both doing an essential job, keep up the good work.
52:55 listen to the Enron story, and you'll understand just how perverted our "justice" system is.
I mean listen to all of it, but this particular example gave me chills. Effectively they threatened to go after the children to force the father to testify.
The CEO of Enron would not be prosecuted today, the system is rotting from the inside.
The one thing you should always say when being interrogated, or have a "friendly chat", by the police and nothing else "I need a lawyer, I want a lawyer, get me a lawyer." Cover your bases, they have been know to use a technicality that you didn't explicitly ask for a lawyer.
Even if you do have a lawyer, they often are underfunded, are at a disadvantage in the system, are mistaken, or simply cannot help you in lots of ways. I really do think your most effective option, even if you do have a lawyer, is to say nothing. Everything you say CAN be used against you, but not for you. Best to fight it when it's not counterproductive to do so. ( Which they make sure to be never, even before or after your in prison)
Everyone should know and understand the “lawyer dog” story
You just solved the American justice system!
As my grandfather told my uncle; just go to jail, being a snitch is a death sentence. This was after he had been a snitch for 2 years...which was about as long as he would have been in jail for originally.
Thank you Adam and Alexandra for bringing a positive aire to being the cynic of the room in current times. Every person who hears us is another potential policy change and every policy change is another life/lives saved. The "starfish thrown back to the sea" if you will.
55:15 & 1:00:15 - THANK YOU, Adam!!! I do appreciate the nuanced discussion of a complex issue. I additionally recognize, however, that in many minds the broken nature of the informant system is the OBJECTIVE of the system, not a byproduct of an altruistic aim. Thank you, Adam for bringing that point to light. 🎯 👍🏾
It's crazy that nobody pays this guy money to talk on television. He has a great way of pulling an audience. It would be really great if some old person didn't get in charge of networks and start canceling stuff that they were too out-of-touch to realize was mainstream and had lifespan of another few decades... Crazy how that works
I don't think I've ever paused a video more to think about the ramifications of a flippant comment than this. Please continue making more informative and thought provoking content like this
Excellent guest. Thank you.
It honestly does feel like the backlash against the changes is far greater than the tiny changes themselves...You nailed it
This was a really thoughtful conversation. I'm not a reformist, but I do think a lot of the things Alexandra raises are actually very valid, strategic, and important in ways that were covered in this episode - and in many ways that weren't!
ACAB.
I feel for Alexandra and the movement she represents because she is fighting one of the most opaque systems in the world and when it comes to criminal rights the public just doesn't care, until it affects them that is. Hopefully she can get the word out and help make some much needed changes.
Such a great topic. Thanks for tackling it!
I’m glad my siblings had awful memories and always tried to gaslight me into remembering their nonsense, inherently wired against interrogation. 44:00 wow the ATF being the good guys. As a child whenever my younger brother was mad at me for whatever reason, he’d lie and I’d get in trouble. Anyone with siblings knows informants are BS.
Well that was both infuriating and informative. Always great to hear from Adam and his great guests.
I'd love to hear Legal Eagle do a video on this video, Devon is great at explaining the legal realm.
Many people don't realize he got the name Legal Eagle because he consistently ranks among the nation's top 5 experts in bird law.
@@MisterRlGHT excellent point
Slavery is legal in America if you've been convicted of a crime. The 13th amendment didn't make slavery illegal; it made it explicitly legal. America also has by far the highest incarceration rate. Multiple industries rely on slave labor from prisoners.
She was my Crim Pro professor in law school. Got recommended this organically. Neat.
You have the most amazing guests and conversations.
Adam has rarely ruined anything. He just showing how things been ruined for a long time.
no no he is ruining the game thats being played hehe he is ruining everything that was trying to be shoved down our throats xD
This 'snitching' system is so much like how we treated war criminals from WWII, as well. People who had information and technology we wanted could trade that for lighter or no sentencing, even after perpetrating genocide
That’s not the same as targeting teenagers for bullshit on purpose with no oversight or accountability.
@@rlud304 but it is like letting people with power get away with crime because they're willing to snitch on the others who participated in the crime, even if they masterminded a lot of it, which is referenced in this video
Power grants you leverage and leverage grants you power. this will never not be true as long as there are at least two human beings left on planet earth. this makes some people uncomfortable because they think that certain systems or structures, whether democratic, liberal, libertarian, communist whatever can make power disappear from the human arena. they cannot.
I never thought I’d see chemistry between two people talking over criminal informant reform
The bail system is a big reason people cop a plea. Most people don't have the funds for bail & can't just sit in jail for months or even years waiting for a trial/hearing to exonerate them for obvious reasons. That's why many lower income people end up with "a record." Then those statistics are used against minority communities as proof of criminality & why we need more/stringent policing. You shouldn't have to pay to get of jail when you haven't been legally found guilty yet. Especially for minor offenses (non violent)
Adam, you are a true, natural, passionate type of talent
This is something I've thought about off and on. If the police are so concerned with morality and reducing crime, why would they cut deals with "criminals"? They shouldn't be lowering jail time for dangerous individuals in order to up their conviction/arrest rates. It completely negates their oath to protect and serve the public.
I looked up that Katheryn Johnston story just to assure myself that there was some sort of justice in the end. There was, kinda. Three officers were charged and were sentenced to ten, six, and five years. They were all supposed to get more time, but... they cut a deal with the prosecutor and agreed to testify with other corrupt officers in their department.
Also, this happened in 2006, so they're all free men now.
The big problem with transparency in the informant scenario on an average citizen level is the premise or promise of non-documentation. If offered an off the books deal to inform vs a documented and regulated deal to inform... most look at the regulated deal just as detrimental as a conviction. The informants don't want to be seen AT ALL.
This show is consistently incredible at establishing, engaging in, and presenting some truly top-shelf dialectic.
I love just seeing how the guests respond to Adam's obvious research into, and respect of them in the beginning of the discussion. Always a good watch!
I appreciated the pushback against the liberal ideology that all the system needs is reform because it's broken, instead of acknowledging that the system is fundamentally structured to achieve the outcomes it does.
I adore his ability to ask questions he already knows the answer to to make it abundantly clear to everyone. I'm terrible at that. I'm like right, tell me about the minutiae OR even if i don't understand, i ask questions that don't facilitate understanding
Beautiful discussion. Every change in my adult life I think has its roots in this kind of discussion, namely - "let's fix this tiny thing, now; we can fix the whole problem tomorrow"
Adam I have said it Before and I will say it again. You are doing the Lord's work.
The what? Are you joking?
No he’s not because Adam is a logical rational person who values reason and critical thinking.
That’s how facts work, the opposite of magical thinking.
@@rlud304oh no what have you done!!! Now people are going to call you an "edgy atheist" and somehow invalidate your point by doing so!
I actually know someone who was a police informant 'by trade,' they where one of the most horrid individuals I met. Pretends to be your friend while they can use you, find out something they can weaponize against you then start making demands, soon as you say 'No' guess who runs off to the police. Given the drug addiction nature of that individual, said police really loved whenever he had a falling out with his dealers... and he got paid enough to start fishing around for a new dealer.
The guy was literally 'no touch' by the local police, something else he gladly weaponized too.
Glad you're discussing this. What a horrific practice that a supposedly civilized society condones or at least looks the other way on.
We are not a civilized society. Not even close.
Thought provoking conversation. Uplifting to consider the progress being made here and the increasing trends of decriminalizing drug use.
A two headed monster, one thinking to help the other walk straight . I follow the money , governing transportation is through not donations , it’s tickets , fines and licensing . Governing companies , done through lobbiest giving money to politicians . It’s a perfect system as they see it .
Prof Natapoff is pretty amazing to listen to.
Ever since Europeans landed here, we have used Divide and Conquer strategy. Sow mistrust of your own group, your own people. We also use people and then throw them away. How many times did the Crow people be scouts to find other tribes? How were the Crow shown appreciation? They too were put on a reservation.
I feel very grateful for you Alexandra. Thank you
Great interview and discussion. As a tangent to this, I think it really comes to us being honest about ourselves and actually being able to look in a mirror and not just be openly lying about everything. As a father I tell me children that honor, trustworthiness, and other clichés are respected in society. That this is what society values. But I know in the background that this is blatantly false. Society openly criminalizes the truly petty crimes and ignores the most absurd. While I could list many examples, I like the opioid epidemic as my go to for explaining what I mean here.
The Sackler Family and Purdue knew that they were hurting people. Politicians knew, cops knew, and so on. Yet we didn't truly ever prosecute this company for decades because it was making rich and politically powerful people lots of money. El Chapo's biggest mistake was that he didn't start an American company and make sure to donate money to police unions and the political parties.
Given the fact that this one company hurt and killed hundreds of thousands of people, and basically openly laughed at this while they took the money to the bank. Add in the fact that they've never really suffered any major consequences for their actions, you can basically conclude that they were all just sitting around a table looking at the most successful serial killer and cartel drug lord , and thinking to themselves: "Man what a lightweight!" The unstated rule is that you go big, and line the pockets of the most wealthy and politically powerful, and then you can get away with the worst crimes imaginable.
Adam. I have nothing but love and respect for you. This was an amazing, informative interview and I'm glad this conversation is happening.
As a sound guy, I'm asking you to PLEASE teach yourself not to hit the table when you're making points. Or use a mic on a stand instead of an arm mounted to the table.
Keep up the fantastic work.
Keep up the good work people need to hear this
Plea bargains are legalized blackmail.
It is disheartening to know how we have been led to believe in the system when questioning was part of our nation's beginning. What can we do, other than share, to bring light to these issues and start the changes needed? I understand it is a heavy undertaking however I can only be somewhat optimistic. I enjoy learning about subjects I may not have looked into. Your shows keep me educated and entertained during my cancer treatments. Thank you and keep 'em coming.
I found this entire conversation absolutely engaging and informative. It's a shame there isn't more discourse like this.
The point bout transparency forcing law enforcement to treat those without resources more like those with resources is spot on.
I can't help thinking, why couldn't we had this conversation back in 1992 with the Rodney King riots?
A good topic that needs to keep getting pressed on Great interview Adam and also 100% support Adam Conover host the daily show😗
Came to support the show!! So glad youtube pushed this to my home page!❤🎉
Great interview! This mainly confirmed what I already thought but it's good to hear it from an expert
What's mad is that about 99% of all cases that occur in Better Call Saul are about plea deal negotiations so apparently it's more accurate to life than deliberate procedural police and legal dramas.
One of the best most substantial convos I've heard in a long time I feel. Left is best. U are making gold here
I remember a true crime case where the killer had similar enough fingerprints to the victim that his print was put in the pile with hers
Yet another compelling reason to decriminalize substance use. Substance users aren't criminals; they're either innocent or they're victims.
None of this will ever be fixed until the public reckons with how it treats and views criminals, especially the truly guilty
The problem isn't in the details. It is that the entire set of foundational principles behind the judicial system are wrong to begin with. It is not justice for a person to "pay" for crimes, and it is logically unreasonable to expect punishments and the labeling of good people and bad people to make society any better or safer. The entire problem is that the system is not actually focused upon making conditions better and stopping bad things from happening. It needs to be replaced with something more reasonable and logical.
You are absolutely spot on.
Omg at the start I was really not looking forward to hearing another disturbing uncovery of why America is so terribly broken. But I'm glad it did leave me with a hope for an improving future justice system
Recently discovered your TH-cam work. Love it as always, was wanting the magic of TV to bring your sister in the whole time. Want to hear the public defender's opinion of plea bargaining. Keep it up!!
From the view of an outsider (Australian) this looks like corruption. The sort of corruption we have Royal Commissions (which are fully open to the public) about whenever there’s a hint of it. Transparency mightn’t completely eliminate the problem, but it helps enormously, and helps build public trust. I honestly don’t know if US law enforcement can rebuild public trust, or if the whole system needs to be reconstructed from the ground up.
As an American who has seen how broken and unjust our legal system is, there is seemingly nothing salvageable. The whole system needs to be torn down and rebuilt. It has racial and other inequality ideals and practices that are deeply engraved into them and is one of the main reasons why, if I could, I would move to Canada, or a European country, or maybe even Australia. We are not a land of the free and anyone who says other wise is either delusional or they don't care and/or have an agenda. We are a land of hypocrites.
yeah the cops here began as slave catchers and never stopped, unironically if cops never worked a day ever again here in the states thing would be universally better including lower crime, we know this from the few times cops went on strike and things got so much better in the area they had to go back to work to save face, any sort of reconstruction would need to be so radically different that it can barely be thought of as a replacement
Adam, I like how you're saying your ad promos in a tone that makes it clear that you consider them to be obligatory BS!
Thank You! Thank You!! Appreciate you covering this topic!!! 👏👏👏
☮️❤️
ALL COPS ARE BAD.
If your wonderful loving family member is a cop then maybe they are the one good one. But even if they do none of the bad things they are aware of it. And defend thier brothers and sisters in blue that practices it.
The old Martin Lawrence movie, Bluestreak actually has a part about how police use snitches.
Martin and his partner find a small business owner doing illegal stuff and instead of arresting the guy they let him go with a warning.
Martin then explains to his partner that the guy is now indebted to them so they can use him at a later time to catch a bigger criminal.