Another fiction is that a person should always cooperate with the police when they want to obtain statements or to do searches.  WRONG!!!   Just say “No.”  If a stranger were to walk up to you on the street and say he wants to look in, or feel, your pockets, or he wants to search your house, or he wants to know something about your parents, what would you tell the stranger?  Would you comply with the request, or tell him to pound sand.  If the latter, then that is what you should tell government [although maybe more politely, so you don't end up with a taser in your chest or billyclub across the brow.]  A policeman asking you things is the same as any other stranger asking you things, and what you would not allow any other stranger to do, you should not allow a cop to do.

We fought a Revolution partially to keep government out of our houses, out of our private areas, and out of our mouths. You sully the memories of those who shed blood for you in and after 1776 when you talk to the police or let them search, if either you or a friend or a loved one is suspected of a crime. Indeed, it should be noted that the proactive executive functionary that has become the modern professional policeman was evicted in the Declaration of Independence, and they only sneaked back into our social existence after the Civil War, long after the last Founding Father was dead and hence unable to sound an alarm.

It has never, ever helped a person to blab to the cops nor to let them search without a warrant; don't do it - you will be perceived as a fool by them when you turn over stuff to be used against yourself or your friends and loved ones.  Time and time and time again, people come to me to put the evidentiary horse back in the barn loosed by their own irresponsible lips.

We are seeing an increasing hostility of the Courts toward individuals' privacy and security, so it is more important than ever that you do all that you can to protect your own privacy by politely refusing to hand over information. The Framers envisioned the Courts as an agency of protection of individuals from excessive government - Liberty was to be the default position here. That founding premise has been turned on its head over the last decades, and now most of the Courts default in the direction of governmental power and against Liberty.