Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/07/16/rep-stephan-hay.html
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Ohio has a similar law.
My first election was 1988. The Democrats could easily have had me as a lifelong voter but Clinton’s triangulation on the war on drugs and criminal justice threw that in the toilet.
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Instead of contraband, how about a secret compartment that tazes anybody who opens it?
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“Congratulations, white citizen! We found no hidden compartments. Here are the pieces of your car back.”
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“So, black citizen. Did you really think that hidden compartment inside your spare tire would fool us? You’re going away for a looong time!”
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Well, this lady is out of luck.
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Funny, but…at what point is it simply safer in places like ohio to pepper spray a cop and/or otherwise detain them, and then run away?
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I wonder how all those people with hidden gun safes in their trucks are going to feel about this…
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I’m reminded of that scene in the French Connection when they search the Lincoln. Apparently it’s not on YouTube.
“That car’s dirty, I know it!”
“I took off everything but the rocker pannels!”
http://www.imcdb.org/i002340.jpg
In other words, every car has secret compartments.
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that is going to be a stupid law to enforce. what exactly qualifies as a hidden compartment?
my old car was a 2002 Toyota corolla, about as vanilla a car as one could possibly have. it had secret compartments in the trunk, you had to lift the carpet, then a board that looked like the trunk floor, then a hidden side flap to get to the car jack, and there was an empty one on the other side i kept an air compressor and jumper cables. These were completely hidden compartments.
what about people that buy used cars? how is one guaranteed there aren’t any compartments they don’t know about. technically you start pulling the side door panels and dash panels off and there are “compartments” under those, and many of them snap on and off, any void could be considered a hidden compartment, and cars are full of them.
having hiding places isn’t illegal. having illegal stuff is illegal whether or not you hide it.
what’s next? can we arrest anyone crossing the border who has a butthole just because one could potentially hide stuff up it? christ what a hideyhole…
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This has got to be unconstitutional on the face of it. A law can’t (constitutionally) presume guilt of a crime the defendant isn’t even being charged with. That’s a blatant violation of due process. You could outlaw secret compartments maybe, but that’s different than legally assuming guilt of a different crime based on their mere existence.
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Ah, but they aren’t punishing you for a crime. They are just taking drugmobiles off the streets.
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I have a hidden compartment under my trunk–it’s where the emergency wheel, jack and fill nozzle are. (I hope… It occurs to me that I’ve never looked in there.)
Yet another case where the police magically smell marijuana. You know, I can’t stand most of the people who do those “stand your rights against cops” videos, but when police use this BS loophole to toss any car they feel like, unless I have a good idea of why I’m being stopped, lowering the driver window only 2" and closing the others is starting to seem like a good idea.
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Just came up with the best/worst idea ever:
#Marijuana scented car air fresheners.
(Warning: Do not use if DWB.)
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Lots of states have this, including CA, IIRC.
I think it was Wired who had a good article outlining the history of said laws and followed a guy who used to do custom installs. Neat stuff like you have to press certain standard buttons at once on the dash to get it to open.
I know they make lock boxes that are at least partly concealed for firearms. Wonder if that counts.
So, anyway, WoD is a failure. This shit is just a further erosion of rights. I should be able to hide things from thieves and the government.
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I agree. Just because the storage place isn’t obvious to others doesn’t really mean anything, there are numerous reasons one would want to have less obvious storage places. It isn’t hidden to you the owner, you know where it is and are storing your property in your property.
It isn’t only crooks that have safes behind paintings. Not that behind a painting is really hidden, but that is the idea. out of sight storage for valuables makes a lot of sense.
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In the comments, someone points out that after the police use civil asset forfeiture to seize a car with a “hidden compartment”, they’ll sell it at auction, and then repeat the cycle all over again.
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Police Officer, "Well well well. What do we have here citizen?"
http://www.hitchsafe.com/images/hide-a-key.jpg
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Is it a “hidden compartment” if you have bumper sticker that says “THIS CAR HAS A HIDDEN COMPARTMENT?”
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