FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - I was detained at the TSA checkpoint for about 25 minutes today
Old Sep 27, 2006, 2:14 am
  #162  
jonesing
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Arizona
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Posts: 2,419
Originally Posted by studentff
Huh? Produce an identification document? "Papers please?" Can you please cite examples (in the USA)?

I'm no lawyer, but I thought there was no requirement to produce ID at any time to engage in non-regulated/licensed activities (i.e., driving requires a license, so you have to show your DL to the cop). Walking down the street does not require a license. Nor does being a passenger in a car. Or standing in the airport.

I thought the Hiibel case established that the state (NV in that case) could require you to speak your name, but did not in any way say you had to show your papers to the cop.
Wow lookit all the traffic! Go out to dinner, put the baby to be and bam! 10 more pages of posts to sift through! I saw someone mentioned it briefly and I don't feel like citing too many articles but luckily, EPIC did a bang up job of summarizing things....

Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada
Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of Arrest for Refusal to Identify. In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court has narrowly upheld a Nevada law allowing law enforcement to arrest an individual when he refuses to identify himself, and reasonable suspicion--though not probable cause--exists that he has committed a crime. (June 21, 2004)

Keeping name private can be crime, court rules
The Supreme Court has again given police greater power to stop and question suspects, ruling Monday that a Nevada cowboy could not refuse to give his name to officers who tried to question him along a roadside.
...
The narrow 5-4 ruling was seen as a defeat for privacy advocates.

Larry "Dudley" Hiibel, the Nevada rancher at the center of the case, had become a minor celebrity for those who believed he was standing up for his constitutional rights.

He was arrested after he told a deputy that he didn't have to reveal his name or show an ID during an encounter on a rural road in 2000. Hiibel was prosecuted, based on his silence and fined $250. The Nevada Supreme Court sided with police on a 4-3 vote.

In its ruling announced Monday, the justices upheld Hiibel's misdemeanor conviction. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "Asking questions is an essential part of police investigation. In the ordinary sense a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Fourth Amendment."
Mind you, I'm not in agreement with this but as I said, most jurisdictions require you to identify yourself to LEOs when requested. Now the best form of "identification" is personal knowledge ie you have some sort of personal relationship with the officer. Notice that most notary blocks says something like "having been personally known to me or having produced proper identification" because if the notary knows you personally then you don't need an ID.

Since it's unlikely the LEO will know you personally, the most common form of identifying yourself is by the use of an acceptable identification document--eg DL, state ID card, passport etc. I say acceptable because Officer Fife of the Outer Jabip PD will probably not know what a US Passport looks like... So, if she stops you on the sidewalk because you "fit the general description" of a suspect and you produce a passport, she may not be able to easily call that in over the radio. In certain closed/homogeneous communities (college campus, large office facilities, military bases) accepted identification may be in the form of locally issued IDs. I remember going to several bars in my college town that would accept student IDs for getting in because the school put your birthdate on the back of the ID and many students didn't bother carrying their DL since it was all within walking distance.

But, if you're unable to produce acceptable identification then the LEO may decide to detain you until your identity can be confirmed. That may be accomplished by hauling you down to the PD so they can run your fingerprints and/or you can have someone bring your ID or come vouch for you. And they now have the backing of Hiibel.

Does this mean "Papers please?" well, my interpretation is "sort of". It's not a practical thing to do and it hasn't been widespread or a wholesale dragnet with a cop on every street corner....but there have been a few times around here where the police were looking for a suspect downtown or in the Heights so they had "information roadblocks" and don't you know they pulled aside everyone driving a "vehicle matching the description" and ran the IDs of all young Hispanic males. Both the demand for ID and the roadblocks (under a differnent decision) have been upheld by SCOTUS. Similar searches have happened around the country.
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