Unmasking Intent

Yeah, yeah. So there's two sides to the caper: the side that says this is yet another point, an end run, a reach around for the Constitution, and then the other ones that say, "No, it makes absolute sense."

So there's historical precedence. For anybody that just crawled out of a cave, probable cause (PC) is the minimum legal standard to apply for a search warrant or an arrest warrant. Probable cause means that, based on what you're seeing, experiencing, or perceiving, another random, reasonable person observing those same factors would also believe that a crime had been committed, was going to be committed, or was in progress.

Now that we know that, okay, you gave us facts on both sides, both arguments. But you said they had a reporting party (RP), the "coppers." They observed a person in the dark wearing dark clothes in a high-crime area that was waist-aware. You see what I'm saying? Those things are called probable cause — those are artifacts and evidence to support.

Or at least reasonable suspicion, at least, right?

Right. But I think that the group of them together and then wearing a mask was plenty for them to go up and do a contact. And the contact is a street interview.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

An interrogation — again, I'm just bashing on the people that write articles — an interrogation means custody applied, that the person is in custody and he's not free to leave, and now you're asking pointed questions about why were you there, what was it. The street interview is, "Hey, what's up?" And the guy is not following commands and they see that he's waist-aware and they pat him down, which they have the absolute right to, and he's got a weapon. So that's plenty.

Where did mask laws come from? It wasn't COVID. Most people, we joked Brian many times about, "You'll never be able to use that as probable cause again." And I still believe it's right. Those masks were around when stagecoach robbers were around. Those laws were around when the Ku Klux Klan was attacking and lynching people. Those laws have perfect historical precedence when you're talking about a riot or insurrection or in the performance of a crime. I think it should be added there. But saying that, "Hey, that person's wearing a mask," that's enough, a misdemeanor, to create probable cause (PC)? I think it circumvents a whole lot of stages that you should meet, don't you?

So that's kind of my rub with it, and I mean, this one, it appears from the other facts of the case that there was something going on here and they intervened and likely prevented maybe a home invasion or an armed robbery or whatever. But it's when you— it's like when we talk about body language and stuff too. If you're starting with this one thing and then working your way back, I think you're getting yourself into the trick bag. Because it's not the actual item itself, it's the intent and use of said item.

So in this case, it's the face mask. Or even with that, are there different types? Because it's not like a medical one where you see people wearing, especially if they're in public a lot and they're sick or they don't want to get sick, right? That's very different than the type of mask he's wearing. And I get that, but it's this reliance on an item or a thing that I have the problem with because I think it's ridiculous. You're relying on an actual physical object versus the totality of the circumstances, the intent behind it, and someone's actual behavior. Because I mean, again, it goes to the Halloween argument. Like, "I'm testing out my new Halloween costume for this year." I mean, we're getting at that time of year, it's two months away. What about Christmas?

Listen, let me depose you briefly to show the folks that might not work in law enforcement or corrections all the time how probable cause (PC) works. Brian, you work out. Have you ever had a run or a jog, whatever you want to call it, as part of your workout?

Definitely. More of a jog now.

Okay, now, right? You're getting older. Do you choose specific clothing for that run or that workout?

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Yes, knowing that you're going to be doing that movement, you're going to pick a certain type of short or shoes or whatever to make it more comfortable, to perform better, more optimally.

And if you're going to be outside of the gym and perhaps crossing roads or streets, do you have any high-visibility or reflective things on that clothing?

I personally don't, but if I was doing it in a low-light situation, I would. If only because I'd be doing it during the day because it's the safety issue. Someone could just run right into you, especially early morning or late night times, where people are not as easily seen.

You're spot on, and that's exactly what an attorney would do with any person and depose them on the stand and say it's reasonable to assume that if it's low light you're going to wear something so you don't get hit by a car. You get what I'm trying to say?

So here's how we establish probable cause: this person wasn't (doing that). And then when somebody says, "Hi, I'm a police officer, can you come over here and talk for a moment?" Well, unless a person has a learning disability or can't hear you or some other reason, you see how that works? There are all those factors you're talking about. It's like a recipe. One person taught me a great thing about cooking a long time ago: "Don't put all your spices in at the beginning because certain spices wear out before the food's done." So that's why you can't put like, you can put salt at the beginning and pepper at the beginning, but you can't often use too much because it doesn't wear out. But there are many other spices that you have to put in just before you serve or at the halfway point because if you don't, they'll get watered down and they're forgotten, so it's a waste of time. But if you take a look at the recipe for probable cause, it's all of those spices and when you put them in that make the difference.

So, the cops getting the call, that's huge. It's on view, or plain view, or open view—completely different standard. And what were they suspicious about? Well, they're investigating crime, they're investigating maybe a person that's lost. Well, if a person's a criminal or they're lost, there's a different reaction when you go up and first contact them. So I think here, there's a certain, like Brian, you and I travel more than anybody we know. I know, and I'm always at the airport sitting with people wearing masks, and it is a medical mask. So if the guy was wearing a medical mask on that night, would they have excluded him? Do you see what I'm trying to say?

The even the term "view" to me here, and here's why we're discussing this and why this is important, is because when we talk about conducting predictive analysis and intervening sooner and preventing something from happening—obviously, especially in a situation like this—there are some legal issues with that. This stuff is always going back and forth. A lot of people don't like the concept of a pretext stop, where I saw you commit a traffic infraction, but I think something else is going on, so I'm going to pull you over for that traffic infraction. Even though the Supreme Court has held up this kind of stuff, it comes out in the media and in the news a lot, and there are these discussions: "Well, you're only stopping people because of this, and you shouldn't be able to do that." It's like, "Well, but that's how we prevent people from—or that's how we lock up people that have outstanding warrants. That's how we prevent future things from happening. That's how we prevent this from escalating. That's how we get drugs off the streets."

It gives this appearance, or people think it's some legal gray area, because in the past too, it has been used to harass people or do something wrong. The problem with it is, it's seemingly subjective, so therefore people go, "Well, it's going to be misapplied." But really, any law or any statute or any power or authority that anyone has over another has the potential to be misapplied. So there's always a cost-benefit analysis there. There's always a balance of, well, just in general, the United States, there's a balance between safety, security, and personal freedom, right? And what you're allowed to do. I mean, that's always a constant debate in any democratic, free society, that those things are always going to come up because they have to. It's like, okay, everyone hates going through security at the airport, but you're giving up some of your personal rights, you're giving up your personal freedoms, because you're allowed to be searched in order for the greater safety of everyone else. So that's a constant argument, that's a constant discussion in the background in any functioning democracy.

So you have that element, and then now when it gets down to this level, it's like, "Well, you're just harassing me because of this." It's like, "Okay, well, no, I pulled you over because you had a broken taillight." He's like, "Well, I don't have the money to fix it." It's like, "Okay, but that doesn't mean now I can have the discretion and not give you a ticket because this is, you know, you're not committing any other act." But it allows me access to see if there's anything else going on here because I have some other suspicion that maybe some other crime is (occurring).

When you get down to that street level, this is the problem too with different policies and different laws. It's easy to pass the law. It's easy for this court to decide something. It's easy for the Supreme Court Justices to write an opinion and decide on something. But the reason why there are still constant cases is because when the application is at the individual, local level, it gets complex, and it is a case-by-case basis. This case was immediately interesting to me when you sent it because of that. Because it's like, "Oh, we made a law against the mask, and it becomes about the mask." It's like, well, even just look at what they said and look at the initial reports and look at how the report was written. The mask is sort of at the end. It's like the bookend. It's the, you know, a nice "by the way, cherry on top." It really is. It's the sprinkles on top of the cupcake. You already had everything, the elements here, and this person was likely about to commit a crime. And so, obviously, you can't charge someone for a crime that they didn't commit, which is why you have these certain laws of what he was doing. I think it was the weapons charge because it was a concealed weapon. And then the other one was, I forget, but disruption or interference of governmental procedure—something which is such a general thing. I mean, that's like, in the military, the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), when they go "General Article," it's like, "Wait, what are you charging me with? General Article?"

But now this is the hard part, the prosecution. It's almost like it's easier for the defense to say, "Hey, I was just walking down the street, there's nothing wrong with that." But this is a great case to show, "No, no, no." It goes from some member of the community being curious with their environment all the way to, "Hey, I find this interesting. Hey, this is anomalous. Hey, this is reasonable suspicion. This is probable cause, and now we've got something." So that's why I like this case when you sent it to me. So it goes right from the beginning of everything, all the way up that escalation, to "now we can charge this person with a crime," and all of the different personal freedoms, civil liberties, government overreach—all that stuff is sort of in here in this case, which is why I loved it when you sent it. So I think there's a lot more we can even get into with this. So, what else are the big elements here that we want people to know about?

Well, the first one that I would add to, by the way, to unpack — I had to write a bunch of stuff down while you were talking, and remember folks, we talk stream of consciousness so you should write that down too so you can ask follow-on questions or read the article and then come back to us, because when you're talking at a rate like this, there are some things that fall under the rug, and we don't want them to.

So one of the things that Brian brought up that was great is about the law. Well, this law seems to me on its face to be unconstitutionally broad, and anytime something is too broad, it has to be narrowed. So sooner or later, the courts will catch on and narrow it. But what we could do is we could lose some good cases in the meantime, because what will happen is they'll throw out the evidence, and evidentiary value is hugely important for convictions. So then the second part of that is that you don't want to have a law on the books that feels unscrupulous. Anytime that you lack intent...

So, I'll give you an example. You and I have both seen mug shots over the years where people took a magic marker and covered their face, or people took face paint or camouflage paint and covered their face. Well, technically that's a mask of some kind, you're masking something. Well, if you're masking your intentions, that's important to me. If you're wearing a mask because you're a magician, that doesn't demonstrate intent. Again, the unconstitutionally broad...

Well, there is intent behind that, but the intent is part of the act and the entertainment versus, "Why do you feel the need to hide something?" Is criminal intent present? Because if it's not, then you can't just go on a fishing expedition over and over.

And remember, I love New York, and I've got no problem with "coppers." People go, "Why are you bashing cops?" I'm not. I'm bashing bad laws and bad cops. And these aren't bad cops, they're doing what they were told to do.

But remember, there was a time when we were doing "Broken Windows." And Broken Windows were great because we found people that were jumping turnstiles. New York said, "Look, if you fix a broken window, you're going to fix the problem. If you clean up graffiti, if you mow a lawn, you're going to move off the next person because they're not going to want to operate in that area anymore." And folks, read it; it's a great study, and it did do a lot.

It's a whole policy, yeah.

But the problem was, it did some bad too. So yeah, I get jumping turnstiles because a person doesn't follow rules, and that means they don't follow rules in other places, and they don't pay for their tickets, and they don't show up for court.

But just recently, a few days ago, the Denver Police Department came down, and Governor Polis and Colorado and some other people piled on and said, "We're no longer going to stop people for small vehicle infractions." Okay, so is speeding a small one? Is a taillight out? Is a headlight out? And now if you're talking about a safety violation, and that person pops a curb and kills my kid, how are you going to handle the lawsuit that comes from that?

And you brought up, again, we go backwards a little bit, you brought up that people that don't take care of their car sometimes are [expletive redacted] people that also have warrants. Now there's the other half of the street, like you and I, that don't make enough money sometimes to go in immediately and get that alternator updated so the lights were dim, my battery's out and stuff. You know what? Cops are given discretion on that letter of the law, spirit of the law, where they can give you a maintenance violation, and you get so much time to fix it so you don't have to pay a fine, or they give you a courtesy warning, which means, "Hey, get that fixed, you can't drive on the street without it." So the law, it is like that wonderful boat on the ocean where it's rocking and it's taking the waves. They anticipated these things are going to happen, and there's precedent.

So, on the mask, if you could show me that it's a higher likelihood that during post-COVID America a mask is going to lead to some person committing a crime or being involved in insurrection, I think it's the opposite. I think if you show up for a riot and you're wearing a mask, it's an additional charge. I think if you commit a robbery and you were wearing a mask during a robbery, it's an additional charge, just like the weapons offense and all those other things. But I think as standalone probable cause (PC), if that's the only thing you got—remember the photo that we showed in class about those people walking in a bank and they were all wearing masks, with the bank masks? How many times a day has that happened between 2017 and now, right? So come on, you can't... I just think my argument will and continues to be that it's unconstitutionally broad, and it needs a left and right lateral limit and a limit of advance. And I think temporally where it falls in the probable cause timeline is important.

Let's say that you were driving down the street and it draws your attention to those people absent other factors. Brian, would you still have made that stop?

If the only thing that you're making that stop on is the physical mask itself, then I think you've got a shaky house anyway. I think you need more. This goes into a lot of the questions that we get from people, but a lot of the stuff I see on social media, especially with people talking about behavior or situational awareness, is like you're relying on what is an arbitrary standard or arbitrary observation because, lacking any sort of contextual cues, you can't just point to one thing. Unless it's so obvious, right? Okay, the guy's putting the nose cone into the RPG. There's only one reason why you do that. So it doesn't need to be named, it doesn't need to be called something, because it's so blatantly obvious.

So anytime you point to stuff like this, it's like the "why." And part of the reason why I want to talk about this is this is why we have our terms, like, actually, shout out to Todd Fox. He reached out with a question about something with me the other day, but they ended up sparking a great conversation about urban masking and social camouflage, and why we give these things names. So like what he's doing is urban masking, and that mask is used to literally, well, as urban masking, to try to hide or not be seen or hide his identity, and maybe has a story or reason for a social camouflage that he's using. But the idea is, we use those terms not because they're broad and they can fit any context. Meaning, fast forward to October 31st, all of these same observations, now there's no weight to it. They're completely—everything from the call to what he's wearing to what he's doing—it's almost amusing. So a simple change of the date and the contextual part of it would completely change the case.

And so, I think a lot of people don't really understand, and which is why we have these types of laws. It's because of a lack of understanding of even what is meant by the totality of the circumstances and all of the observations. And that's what we focus on, right? Is all of those cues that are happening, what is the setting, what is the scene? And for this one too, it's like, you can do a simple "what if" game. I'm seeing this person. Well, okay, a lot of times people, especially maybe it's the old angry guy down the street who thinks everyone's up to something, let's say he's the one that calls in on this guy and sees him. Like, he thinks everyone's doing something bad. It's like, "Okay, but what else could this person be doing? What other reason would there be to be dressed in all black with a mask on?" What other purpose is there? And once you kind of look at it that way, it's like, okay. People go down this path, "He could be up to do anything." You could have that. It's like, "No, that's so unlikely." What are the likely reasons, given today, at this time, what this person is doing? What are the other likely things that it could be? And then it starts to narrow down, "Well, wait a minute, there's not a lot of things that this person could be doing. There is no other reason to be here in this area."

And everyone does that, "Well, they could just be passing through." It's like, "Yeah, but humans don't do that. Everything you do is done for a reason. You have goal-oriented behavior and intent behind something." The only people who don't, it's obviously severe or some sort of mental health issue where you see like the schizophrenic person wandering down the street, bouncing off the walls and talking, there's nothing there because there is no intent behind anything. But that's so rare and it's so obvious when you see that, whereas everyone else falls into this. So it's like 99% of people we're talking about here fall into this: you go and do something for a reason.

So I just, this is again, it's a great way to look at all of these as not the item itself. And that's what kind of gets me about the way everyone talks about this stuff. It's like, "Well, they had a knife on them." It's like, "Okay, I have a pocketknife on me, what does that mean?" Like, "Well, they had this." And then you just take these little one items and try to come up with a story behind it. It's like, "No, come up with the story and then see how the items fit." Look at what their story is and then go, "Okay, well, does this fit with what they're doing? Does this fit with how they're dressed, and the reason to be here, and the time of day, and the items they have with them?" That's when you see the incongruence. And it's like everyone seemingly does it the opposite way. Does that kind of make sense, Greg?

Yeah, yeah. So I love that you brought that up because let's just do a quick run back to the likelihood scale. So historical perspective, how many times do I bring that up? So you are a "copper" in this area, and in the 13 years, 33 years, three months that you've worked in this area, you've never encountered a person with a mask committing a crime, or you've often noted that when you contacted a person wearing a mask, they were in commission of a crime or whatever the answer is.

So, when I talk to a person and they jammed their hands down in their front pocket, in 75% of the cases that I was on, it always meant they were concealing drugs or narcotics or paraphernalia. Whatever that is, that's how you build probable cause. That's how you predict what's likely coming next, and the explanatory storyline doesn't come from you. It's the argument I had with Mooney and Van D, that, "Well, so many possibilities." Well, there are not so many possibilities. The idea is, they're not endless possibilities, they're finite, right? So if you lift your left foot, you're likely going to put that foot down at some point in the near future. The idea is, it's how you're looking at the information. If you say, "Well, not enough information," you're not looking hard enough, and that's your job. And your job is to measure things against a baseline for behavior that everybody does in that same situation.

So now this guy, I've seen him in the dark walk back and forth three or four times, and every time a car comes by, he steps into the darkness. And is there shadow and darkness at night? Yes, of course there is, right? Because there's light pollution, we know all that. Do your homework. But the idea is, unless this person is a suffering albino vampire with P issues, what would be the reason for that? So I watch a few times and then I drive by and the person conceals himself, and I go, "Hey, what's up, Bub? Where do you live? Do you live here?" Because if he lives there, then I've got to mind my own [expletive redacted] business and go on patrol. But he's got a dog with a vision issue, and he can bring it out at night, of course there's going to be a reason behind it. But if there's not a reason behind it, and it defies logic, and it's not normal human behavior, clinically normal human behavior, then it's worth investigating.

So what separates that sustained observation? What takes away sustained observation? A call from somebody going, "Hey, I don't know this guy, he's in my neighborhood and he's acting suspiciously." So the idea is you have a threshold of action, or for action if you want to use it that way. And that threshold means that if you meet reasonable suspicion, then you've got to look a little harder to get the probable cause. And you don't want to throw things in that are going to just muck it up. So if I already have reasonable suspicion and I'm building probable cause, and you're wearing a mask and I believe that a crime is afoot, now I've got it. Now you've met that threshold.

People driving wearing a mask, "Okay, ah, that's interesting." Hanging a bandana from your column might mean that you cracked the column and it's a stolen car. Hanging a bandana from your license plate might mean it's a false plate, and you're trying to conceal something. So to me, intent is a much better standard to develop first, because then you go, "Wow, of all the things I can think of this person's doing right now, the one that has the highest quotient for intent and the one that's seemingly the most obvious is that person's going to punch you or run from you or shoot somebody or do something." And Brian, that's an easy standard to meet if you have a system, if you have a process.

Right. And so this is kind of what we started discussing earlier too, you have the, for this specific case, the New York Civil Liberties Union which criticized this mask law and says it's "ripe for selective enforcement by the police department," and of course, they added, "with a history of aggression and discrimination." Which, okay. Then you have Disability Rights of New York, same thing. They said it was unconstitutional, discriminating against people with disabilities. And then there's some federal class action lawsuit, a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to immediately stop enforcement of the ban. And so this was approved by their legislature. And then they're saying, "in response to anti-Semitic incidents, often perpetrated by those in masks." The law makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for anyone in Nassau County to wear a face covering to hide their identity in public. And then it exempts people who wear masks for health, safety, religious or cultural purposes, or for the peaceful celebration of a holiday or similar religious or cultural event for which masks or facial coverings are customarily worn. So that's my Halloween argument.

But so it has these reasons in there, or exemptions in there. And again, it's about, people forget too, when you're in public, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Legally, you can be filmed, you can be recorded. People can watch you when you're out in public. I mean, there's nothing against that. So any attempt to conceal your identity for some reason is what it is. And that's very different than wearing a mask for medical or religious purposes or Halloween, right? Those are specific reasons versus just, "I'm trying to hide my identity."

Which, this is the pushback, is that some people are like, "Well, I don't have to show my face in public. I don't have to show..." Which, okay, I get what you're saying, but it goes right back to what you talk about: there's historical precedent for something where people typically only conceal or feel the need to conceal their identity when they're doing some sort of criminal act or something they're not supposed to be doing. So that's the sort of balance there with the argument. That's the crux of the issue: "Well, I should be able to do what I want and dress what I want and say what I want and do what I want." It's like, "Yeah, okay, you're right. You should be free to do as you please, so long as you're not impeding the rights of others." This is the general concept behind our legal system and our laws. But because people do, and because they use it in this manner, and it's happened so much over the course of history, it adds weight to the reasoning behind it, right? It's not just an arbitrary thing that they came up with; it's for a specific purpose. And then there are even exemptions to that purpose, like most laws will do. It's not just a black-and-white thing; there's always some gray area. But that goes back to what they're talking about is that it can be, and what I brought up was that then it becomes selective enforcement. Then we only go after certain people for wearing masks and not others. And it's like, "Well, yeah, of course that could happen, but when it does, you can figure that out and try that out in court, right?" I mean, you can't just not do something because it could be used for another purpose. I don't know, it's a weird, interesting legal area, which is why we're talking about it.

And again, it just goes back to what we even brought up at the beginning: if you're starting with this one arbitrary item or thing, then you don't have to do that. Start with what's going on, and that's what makes this person's behavior suspicious. It's not the mask itself.

Yeah, and your argument about a thing seems appropriate. But folks, it's the same coin, it's just two sides of it. So I'll use your argument for why I believe that this traffic enforcement — you know, saying, "Oh, just don't enforce these lower level [laws]." Look, if you're going to enforce a traffic law, and let's say it's not a major thing, it's failure to use a blinker that leads to road rage, what leads to death? So enforcing it is a good thing. Now you enforce it and find out the person is indigent, they don't have enough money to fix whatever, and they have some other problem. Well, that's what the courts are for, and that's what discretion is for. So the idea is, you said it early on in the broadcast, that it's a case-by-case situation. But tying up law enforcement and saying, "Well, no longer do them. Why? We'll no longer do them because we're targeting a specific population." Well, that's wrong by the Constitution anyway, so that means the law has to change. So if you're talking about something, let's make sure that we go at it the right way.

There are people that say, "What's wrong with these demonstrations where we knock over [expletive redacted] and burn down stuff and everything else?" Well, you obviously read your Constitution because it's peaceful assembly. You have the right to peacefully assemble anywhere, but you don't have the right to do other things. So we cannot pick and choose, and that's specifically what selective enforcement is. But we can't do it on either side. We can't do it where the cop does it, and we can't do it where you, Brian, as a private citizen pick and choose what you'll do and what you won't do. "I tell you what, I don't feel like this is important." Well, now you're a constitutionalist, maybe in the bad sense, a presenter that says, "Hey, I'm going to draw my own licensed plate with cardboard to the back of my car, I'm a free traveling person or whatever that nonsense is." That turns into a homicide, that turns into shooting, that turns into violence.

So the idea is, for public order, there are certain laws that you need to enforce. And this is one that's a great thing if it's the icing on the cake, if it's the sprinkles. You know what? I would take it to this: look, atmospherics. We used to work on military installations every month. I mean, it wasn't a month that went by that we weren't working there. And sometimes when we went in, it was a holiday or weekend. On a holiday or weekend, there was no line, and you could pull right up to security, flash your ID and go right on the base. Okay, that's called an atmospheric and a geographic. And those differences that were going on, those were very potent, they were obvious. So if I was testifying to that, I would say, "Every other day that I went there, the line went around the block and we had to wait for hours. But on this specific day, there was no traffic, and that's what drew my attention to this situation."

So whether it's the weather, or whether it's something that stuck out of the car — this was the only car on the road that had an eight-foot pole with a 20-foot banner flying behind the car and weaving in and out of traffic — yeah, that's why you articulate those things because baselines change dependent on things like weather, time of day, whether it's a holiday or not, which city limit you just crossed into. And so you have to constantly update that information. We're not talking about a fixed, simple loop; we're talking about Bayesian thinking, that you have to constantly update the model of the reality that you're in, because if you don't, Brian, it's not as it was 15 minutes ago. So here's a simple case that if it's the first thing that draws your attention, I say it's wrong. And in this one, it's kind of defeating the argument because they got a call on suspicion. But that alone is probable cause. That alone is opening your door, because it's a high court misdemeanor. To me, that's still sketchy.

And you know, it's again why we're discussing this specific case on The Human Behavior Podcast, is that it's unnecessary to look at these different items. I can go back to what you said, just really understand a baseline and understand normalcy and what's typical. And this goes back to one of the things I always tell people is like, "Look, human behavior is way simpler than you think, but also way more complex than most understand." And those two things can be true at the same time. You can be your own unique little individual and have your own thoughts, feelings, and emotions and experiences, but at scale, across the population, they're rarely ever unique, and they're rarely ever different. Meaning, the details are different, the time, the location, the date, but the overall, I would say, prototypically, sort of the same—the different experiences that people have.

And because, you know, I'm a huge fan; one of the greatest things about our country is that we have these civil liberties. We have free speech. We have the ability to literally—it's, we're predicated on, "You should be able to do whatever the [expletive redacted] you want, so long as you're not impeding the rights of others." Like, we have so much freedom. And so with that comes issues, it comes problems, it comes security concerns, it becomes, "What is government overreach?" We have local, state, and federal. All of that stuff gets tied in together. And so, which is why the law is what it is. So the law is written down so that it's black and white. However, the interpretation of it is contextually based. Therefore, it can't be oversimplified or it can't be put into such a narrow box. But it also can't be too broad, like you talked about. Like, maybe this is too broad, maybe this is too far, and that stuff gets ironed out every day.

But it's so analogous to behavior in general, Greg. Because, yeah, you can do whatever you want, you can go along, but it doesn't matter, you're going to set these specific patterns, even when you're trying not to sometimes. It's like, you brought up the military example: you have to know don't walk along the ridgeline because you can be seen for freaking miles up there. So you go what they call the military crest, below that. But the problem is, if you're walking along something, guess what you're going to start doing? You're going to start going downhill because naturally, gravity, the human brain, wants the easiest way to go. So you actually have to plan for things. You actually have to take a look at your route and go, "Did I take this same route before?" Because you will, even when you're trying not to, you default to easy mode and you default to what you know.

And so that's kind of the point of all of this, and in this case, because this is a great discussion to get into all of these different details. You could break this case down and do 10 minutes every day for the next two weeks or something. You could break these issues down into modules almost, or discussion points, and keep the same thread going of the same case. That's how much is in here. Because a lot of times, we've gotten before, "Why do you guys pick these random things?" It's like, "Well, they're not random." I understand why you think they're random. And like, "How come you guys don't comment on some new thing that's going on?" It's like, "Well, because the details aren't out yet, and we don't know what actually occurred." And when you can, you have to pick one apart because otherwise you'll get horrible analysis and all be wrong. But the other thing is, these are the elements, and these are the cases that matter, right? Meaning, this is a window into so many different areas. And the big ones that we hear about on the news are typically not the best for learning points. They're like, "Okay, well, it's obvious something went wrong and someone made a mistake, and that's why this occurred." So it's almost like not great for analysis, or they're just eye candy. "Hey, look at this first sentence! Do you want to read more on a caper that's very interesting or new?"

But Brian, just because it's nuanced doesn't mean that it's going to have longevity, doesn't mean it's going to impact my life or livelihood.

Yeah, and that's why we picked these ones too, because this does impact everyone at an individual level. A law like a mask law, because you're kind of saying the government gets to decide what you can wear. I mean, it's getting into that area.

But let's talk about that. Let's talk about some companion capers that are close enough that you'll start seeing our reasoning. So recently, Colorado handed down, as a matter of fact, I'm holding it here in my hand—I don't want to show it for non-attribution—but the laws versus concealed carry, open carry, and carry in general of guns at polling places. So the law always has been that whether you're open carry or concealed, as long as you're licensed, you have no problem, go vote. But then some people came up with the idea that, "Listen, if you're open carrying at the polls, I might feel intimidated that you're trying to push me to vote one way or the other." And they don't allow people to proselytize for their candidate there, so why would they allow you to have an open weapon? Well, then that didn't impact the concealed carry, licensed carry people. And then somebody came up and said, "Well, wait a minute, if you've got a gun, you're more likely to commit a crime." That's not true. And the problem is that there's a bunch of people that believe that, and the next thing you know, now it's "nobody can carry a gun unless you're a uniformed officer." "And by the way, if you are, don't show up at the poll because you'll be forcing that police state on me and changing the vote."

What happens is, all this ancillary [expletive redacted] is going after the law. So every time you Frankenstein bolt on something else to it, it becomes unconstitutionally broad or ridiculous when seen on its face, on what they tried to accomplish. If you're trying to lower the level of violence at the polls, I understand. Is this the way to get there? If you're trying to lower the likelihood of somebody feeling intimidated, is this the way to get there?

And let me show you just one more quick one. Brian and I, folks, were at a place where we were talking to some subject matter experts on certain things, and they were working certain demonstrations. And the demonstrations that they were working always became violent. And artifacts and evidence that they gave us in support was, when they walked by a group, the group was talking about things like, "You'll handle the emergency evacuation and emergency medical. You'll handle the comms with the cops. You'll handle the external comms with the vehicles. You got—you'll handle medical." You remember that caper? And at the same type of gathering, I remember picking up a flyer, and the flyer said, "These things work as gas masks if they use tear gas. These things work against handcuffs. This is how you disassemble a barricade." Well, Brian, all of those things taken one at a time might not mean something. But if I start stacking them up and looking at my intent scale, my likelihood scale, now what am I looking at? So in this caper, I like that approach. I like having a process, and it fits the process. But anytime I have a process and it's the first thing I'm looking at, that becomes the lens that shapes my vision on everything else. So I don't want it to do that. I don't want just the person wearing a mask alone to start going, "That's suspicious," because once we use the word "suspicious," we're hooked. If we go, "Well, that's interesting because the person's standing out in front of a 7-Eleven wearing the mask and it's a high-crime area," completely different standard. And I think that's what we endorse, and I think that's the direction that we like to demonstrate to people.

Yeah. And "interesting" versus "suspicious"—this is a great one, because typically someone from the public calling in, they're going to say, "Hey, this is suspicious," or, "I think this," and you're kind of already, you could jam the square peg in the round hole. But then again, most police officers are going to go, "Okay, great, it's suspicious, maybe it's not." I mean, because you have the street experience of people calling in saying everything is suspicious and this is weird, and it's usually, most of the time, it's not anything. But the problem is, when it is something, it's usually something very serious, like this guy, an armed robbery or an armed home invasion. It goes right back to the groups you talked about with the example. When you're taking these steps, you are creating a plan to do these things, and because you're expecting them to happen, that demonstrates your intent. If you're showing someone this is how you bypass a locked door, this is how you bypass these security measures, why would you do that unless you planned on actually carrying that act out?

I mean, it's the protest example, because that was where I said, "Well, what should you expect to see?" While someone showing up with signs, maybe some bottles of water, they're going to be out there for a while, and some snacks and certain elements. Maybe they are going to bring, yeah, maybe, and they do think that, "Well, the police might come in and shoot tear gas at us, or we'll have these things on us to still be able to breathe or something." Like, those things kind of make sense. But when you show up and you're wearing a certain type of clothing, or you have kit and weapons on, and you've got a gas mask on, and you're bringing... It's like, that's my argument too with the open-carry stuff, and we've talked about it before about the guy who showed up at the Atlanta airport with a rifle. It's like, "You're making us all [expletive redacted] dumber." "What do you expect? What do you think is going to happen today? Because your loadout is more than I've carried in combat." So it's like, "What do you—you're planning for something else here." So these are all those demonstrations of intent that we're talking about. And it just—but it's compared to what I should expect to see. It's not just drawn on what you're wearing or the hat that you have on and the message on it necessarily, or what political affiliation you have. It's not any of that. It's the steps you took. It's the behavior you're exhibiting within a defined context.

And so, I don't know, there's so much of these that I love discussing because these are the good ones. Actually, the less known ones are usually the best ones. And you're not going to get a documentary made about this because it's seemingly nothing there. Where I'm like, "No, this is everything. This is the law. This is the behavior. This is what rights you have. This is a concerned citizen trying to make their neighborhood safer." And doing the right thing, and it's police intervening before a situation occurs. And that's hard to do legally, right? If I don't know how to articulate that, if I don't look for those things or find things curious or interesting in my environment. And so that's what it always starts with. And so, I mean, I appreciate these types of discussions because I think there's so much more value than just picking apart some video of something where something happened, or talking about that high-profile case and, "Oh, I think might have occurred." It's like, "All right, man, there's no value in those to me."

I know, I absolutely agree. And I think that if anybody that routinely listens to Brian and I, one thing that I hope we encourage you is what I like to call the Shawn Clemens quotient. Shawn, thankfully a workaholic, has time in the evenings to scour all types of news from all types of places. And then Brian and I are constantly going on the legal sites and the medical sites. And what happens is the confluence of Shelly, Brian, Shawn, a couple other great folks that send us stuff, what happens is we've got this fodder, and then we go through them, and we go, "Okay, which ones are hard? Which ones would be hard for a defense attorney or hard for a prosecutor? Which ones are the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) going to jump on? Which ones are the Southern Poverty Law Center?" And Brian, you're right, those are the least popular ones. But you know what? For every citizen, those are the ones that abut right against our rights and are the most important.

And when it's an opinion-based thing, like you see some states enact something, when it's something—and don't get me wrong on this one—where we're adding somebody's name to a law, sometimes what's happening is we're getting deep into the emotion and not deep into the science, not deep into the research. And that's why we have to scale some of these back. They come out with good intentions. There's no hiding the fact that someone wearing a mask and advocating Hamas was wearing a face mask on a campus, and the cop goes, "Man, wouldn't it be great if I could go over and ask that person for their identification?" You see, that's how these things start. And that's not a bad intent. They didn't have the intent to, "Hey, let's beat down this class or group of people." But what happens, Brian, is once you open, once that short end of the wedge is in something like this that's too broad and not constitutionally protected, then you're going to get those creeps. You're going to get those people and they're going to follow that spiral. So our voice hopefully is making people think twice about it, going, "Well, I never considered that." And we're not playing Devil's Advocate because we're not against the cops and we're not against the rule of law and public order. What we're saying is, "Have you considered this? And this is just as important as that." And that's why I like them too, I like these capers.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we got into a lot. So I'd love to get any feedback from folks. You, of course, and all of our Patreon members, can reach out directly on there. And if anyone wants to check that out, we've got all kinds of other information on there as well. But reach out to us. We have, obviously, humanbehaviorpodcast@gmail.com is how you can email us or reach out. But we'd love to get feedback. And actually, depending on what podcast player, there should be a little link in there that says, "Send us a text message." It's a one-way kind of communication. We'll get it, we can't respond on there, but we can respond on air and record something. But we'd love to get feedback from folks on any of the stuff that we discuss because it helps us make the message more clear and more cogent when we hear your perspective on it. So I always ask people to give us feedback. I don't know, anything else to add on this one?

Just briefly, man. LinkedIn, folks, if you're on LinkedIn and you give us a thumbs up, or you give us a listen, or you give us a repost, those things are really hugely powerful on social media. Brian knows all the other platforms. I'm only on LinkedIn, but even if you hear of upcoming training or we're posting somebody else's position for visibility because they're looking for a job, help a brother out. If you've got a chance that your brothers and sisters are on LinkedIn, give us a look. So I really appreciate the opportunity, and I'm looking forward to our Patreon.

All right. Thanks everyone so much for tuning in, and don't forget that training changes behavior.