What do you do if you are stopped by the police? On the street, in your car, what protections do you have under the law?

If a police officer asks to search your bag, what should you say? It's the police, right?

So it can be very hard to stay calm and focused. Even if you already understand your basic constitutional rights,

you might need to be reminded of them.

Atia Holly is the managing attorney for impact litigation at the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Basically, I file lawsuits to challenge the government and to challenge failures within our criminal legal systems,

both here in Georgia and Alabama. And I guess I would say I would just try to make the system work better

for people who are systemically marginalized by our criminal courts.

There is a term for resources that answer these questions about how to interact with the police.

They're called know your rights materials. But atia says a lot of Americans actually do know their rights.

Perhaps it might be better to call them user rights or, you know,

asserting your rights or what have you.

I'm Noel King. In this episode of Life Kit, Atia is going to help us understand what rights we have while interacting with the police.

She'll cover the basics, what constitutional amendments we should know,

and how they apply in various scenarios. She's also going to walk us through some things that commonly happen.

Now, I should say the information in this episode is for general informational purposes only.

It is not intended to be legal advice. For any specific legal matter, you should call an attorney.

This episode is about knowing what to do if you are stopped by the police.

So to start things off, let me ask you directly, if a person is stopped by the police,

what protections under the Constitution are they afforded? What rights do they have?

They have a right under the fourth amendment not to be unlawfully searched.

They have a right under the first amendment to record their interactions with the police,

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