So I'm riding down the sidewalk about 20 feet from the bike path down by the river where i am going to go for a ride and a cop car shines its spot in my face. So i wave at him after deciding not to give him the finger, but only just.

Another cop car stops and a woman yells at me to stop. I'm about 10 feet from the bike path and it is night time if i want i am gone but i decide to stop and i go back to her.

I ask her what's up and she says that there was a report of a bicyclist hit by a car. I say well it's not me and i have no idea what you are talking about. She asks me my name and i say why? She repeats her question. Asks me for my name, my address, and my SSN. Then she asks me if i have id. I say no. She says that I'm required to carry id at all times.

About here i lose it and i say, what? In Russia? I say it's obvious i wasn't in a wreck as i told you that. My bike is fine and I am fine so i'm done here. She says im not going anywhere. We get in a pissy and i yell back at the other car which one of you is the supervisor. The supervisor is in the car and comes running up to me all red in the face like he wants to wack me with his night stick. He starts yelling at me for giving his officer a hard time yada yada yada. He checks my bike and sees it has a license and a front and rear light and says so.

The get more huffy with me and won't let me leave and give me this cop threat routine.

So here's the question-- obviously i could have handled it in a nicer way and i didn't win any points for the cycling community but was that cop right in what she did? I'm obviously not injured, it's obviously not me so their probable cause to stop me is done. Am i required to give the cops my info-- i did-- but further am i required to carry id on me at all times or did that cop lie to me?

Well, looks like they let you go, so they didn't do anything wrong. Of course, asking for your name is fine, just give them your first name, though SSN and address is kinda strange.

You're not required to carry ID with you, but if you had broken the law, no matter how tiny (such as no lights) they would be able to arrest you.

iunno where you're at but here in jersey you must have an ID on you at all times, prolly the same all over the US. next time i'd just handle it calmer. the easier you make their job the quicker you get out of there and on your merry way.

I believe there was a an article a few months back that said that you HAVE to give your name and address to a police officer if they ask. I have serious problems with that ruling/ law, as I do beleive it is a slippery slope that we are on, considering that all our activities/ phonecalls/ purchases are monitored, either by a governmental organization or a private enterprise. I was joking around with the people I work with to get an office pool on how many pages the FBI has on my uncle. I am guessing around 4k. Google "Lew Rockwell", see what tuns up, and tell me if you think I am off base.

The FBI doesn't NEED to keep a file on your uncle. They could just Google him ;) As for privacy, I think we should all be trying to salvage what little we have left.

I googled Lew Rockwell. Interesting stuff. Now I'm probably on the FBI watchlist for clicking his link. Thanks alot, abeyance.


*pulls down blinds, clicks off lights, hunkers down and peeks out the window. Was that car parked across the street yesterday? :(

What spun me up was her telling me that the law required me to carry i.d. Actually i was rambling on there but nah, that is what spun me up.

He was been working on building an anti-leviathan organization since that late 70's I believe. It's amazing how large it's become, from a 800sf office in DC to a 30000sf building with conference rooms, offices, and everything else you could think of. And the organization owns it.

As for the people who clicked the link, you did it, not me.

And you prob. agreed with most or all of it.

Sadly, I think privacy will only return with the inevitable fall of Rome, hopefully within my lifetime.

How do we know you're teh real abeyance? :D
:o
:(

*peeks out window again

wait you need a bike lisence plate?

i once read that you can ask "am i under arrest?" and then "am i being detained?" and if they say no to both, you can just leave. of course that was on the internet and pre-9/11 so it is most likely total bull****.

* checks the window.


Car's gone. Now I can go to bed....

*Oh **** he's getting suspicious!*
*fumble, fumble*
*click, VRROOOOoooomm*

thats what i was sayin..
wow
i'm screwed

In wichita each bicycle is required to have a license. They cost like 7 bucks and never need to be replaced. It's a sticker.

I'm from wichita and I'd never heard that before. I'd also never put an ugly ass sticker on my nice steel frame, so it didn't really make a difference.

:crash: Wichita broken. Stupid Wichita...

i used to live near wichita. elbing, bet you've never heard of it.

Actually, you are required to show ID to even security gaurds now.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/25...ed_for_re.html
http://www.papersplease.org/davis/

Fun world we live in, aint it?

Dont you watch Cops ?
You should have just raced down the trail as fast as you could
and ditched them.

Well, she was probably charged for failing to produce ID to the Feds who arrived at the security guards prompting. The security guard works under the auspise of the federal government but can only detain, not arrest and so had to call in the big boys. In fact only a registered peace officer (a real cop) can demand your ID but a security guard may deny entry to private or government property for failure to produce ID on demand. It would seem the bus she was on passes through a federal property. Denver or the feds should re-route the bus or have a checkpoint at dis-embarkment anywhere on the federal property rather than harrassing innocent people trying to get from point A to point B if those points have got nothing to do with the feds in-between.

Thats all I can tell from the articles which were rather small and lacking detail. The bus passes through a federal facility, they should retool that so only people getting off show ID. Sounds like a pretty ignorant arrangement if they're checking everyone just for being on the bus. Besides needlessly harrassing citizens it seems just plain inefficient (the feds being inefficient?? Crazy man!)

Well yeah I just read the rest of it by simply following the links at the bottom of the pages you linked and that's what happened. She was legally charged and such, the ACLU got her off by making it a high profile case (rightly so) and quicly pointing out that the defendant had no intention of entering the fed facility but the bus she was on passed through it. If the feds in denver are smart they'll fix that cause its right unfriendly.

The arresting federal officers made a mistake that isn't pointed out. She should have been offered the option of simply walking away (not enter the facility) or taking a bus the other way. That would suck though, maybe all this hubbub will fix the problem they have with their bounds overlapping a public transit system that should be freely traveled.

and more on the OP (original poster, right?) topic, one of the friendly things I noticed when I moved to Canada is that you are not required to show identification to police unless they intend to charge you, and they'd better charge you if they demand you give it up unwillingly.
Weirded me out, being from Tx where you "damn well better have ID, boy!".

****ing political bull****.

i keep hearing about how if they say "let me see your id" and you dont have it, they get you for failure to comply or some****, i dont know