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

In DC you are required to register your bike with the police. It costs a dollar or something, and they put a sticker on the frame. If your bike is not registered, it can be confiscated. To get it back, you have to figure out where it is (police station or impound lot), and then prove that you own it by showing a reciept.

I tried to register my bike once at a DC fire station. The guy said he'd have to go get his engraving tool so he could etch the number on the tube of my bike. I left, quickly.

The police claim that this is a way to deter bike theft. Problem is, NOBODY knows about it. I'll bet most cops don't know about it.

Oh, and if you're riding a bike, you have to carry ID.

We should all know by now that getting uppity with the cops is a no win situation. They have power.....and they WILL use it whether they are entitled to or not. I don't like it but that is the reality.

There was a guy here in Toronto (he shall remain nameless to protect the stupid) working as a messenger. I think we all know that many folks have worked in places that perhaps they might not totally be legally allowed to. He got into a confrontation with a cab driver. Cops are called. They ask him for I.D. Instead of just giving a fake name or his real name he refuses. Cop then places him under arrest for refusing to identify himself. If he can be arrested here in good ol Canada I can only imagine what the penalties are in Patriot Act territory. After placing this guy in the back of the cruiser the cop proceeds to search his bag. Voila! A bag of a green leafy substance.....4 months worth of cheque stubs....and his U.S. I.D. he had a great time detained at the airport for a week and a half until the powers that be decided to deport his sorry ass home. Moral of the story.....If you are polite and dont give the cops attitude, most of the time they wont hassle you. O.K.......some of the time.

the DC bicycle registration is a joke, WABA (I believe) went to a number of different police stations and found that many of them did not have the stickers and would ask the cyclists to come back later or go to another station; and also that many did not even know about the law. also they often put it on the bottom bracket shell or bottom of the down tube, and many DC cops used lack of a visable bicycle registration as a pretext to harass cyclists of color. since theyre usually on the bottom of the bicycle which isnt visible DC cops now have to stop you for something else if they want to check registration.

for dealing with police: http://www.aclu.org//police/gen/14528res20040730.html

SIR, your papers please.

as far as i know, and have experienced, a cop can ask you for your id, but it's a voluntary exchange unless there's probable cause that you've committed a crime. if you don't want to show it and haven't committed a crime or violation, you can tell the cop that that's a voluntary request, you haven't been involved in a crime and that you don't need to show id. if you do as was suggested earlier and ask, "am i under arrest? am i being detained?" and they say, "no." you don't have to show them anything. nor do you have to let them search your bag or yr person. nor do you have to give them your name or address--NOTHING. if they answer, "no," just be on yr way.

it's the same when cops tell you you can't take a picture of something. there's no such rule. it's another issue of voluntary compliance. you can tell them, "you can suggest that i not take a picture of that, but can you cite the ordinance that gives you the authority to demand it? there's no such law. it's an issue of voluntary compliance and i'm not going to comply."

cops abuse voluntary compliance all the time. don't give them that power.


an example of the ID thing is this. at the bike bloc at the RNC, my girlfriend and i were separated when the cops swooped in. she got arrested and i didn't. she had no id. the cops asked. she didn't have it. they didn't care. she received 6 charges (all dropped) and none was anything having to do with not having id. when she asked her lawyer about the id thing (the cops had said they had to hold her longer since she didn't have any). the lawyer said that that's the only reason cops ask for it. it makes things quicker for them. otherwise you have to be fingerprinted and yr prints and SS number have to be sent to albany where they verify that you have or don't have a record and that the SS number you gave belongs to the person you claim to be.

but, as stated above, carrying an id does make it easier to identify you in a fatal accident. but just cos you carry an id doesn't mean you need to show it.