3 ms·

In the United States you are pretty much required to give your name to police if they ask for it. They will run that name and if it's doesn't check out, match t

In the United States you are pretty much required to give your name to police if they ask for it. They will run that name and if it's doesn't check out, match the picture on their computer, etc you will be arrested for providing a false name. In many states they can also demand you present photo identification and skip all of that. Practically speaking the United States has been a "papers please" country for a long time. What we're talking about here is a standardized, national ID. It's currently a weird patchwork of driver's licenses, identification cards, etc - each of which are slightly different variants issued by each of the states. So we don't have a standardized national ID. We have at least 50 of them, all with different formats, different issuing criteria, different validity, etc. We've tried to have some bare minim standards for years (REAL ID act) but the mandatory compliance date for that keeps getting pushed (currently next year).

FpUser 5y ago
>"In the United States you are pretty much required to give your name to police if they ask for it. They will run that name and if it's doesn't check out, match the picture on their computer, etc you will be arrested for providing a false name. In many states they can also demand you present photo identification and skip all of that." Stop and identify" statutes are laws in several U.S. states that authorize police to lawfully order people whom they reasonably suspect of a crime to state their name. If there is not reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, is being committed, or is about to be committed, an individual is not required to provide identification, even in these states
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  I've had to identify myself for flipping off a cop (unmarked car) who honked his horn at me because he didn't like me exercising my freedom of movement. This power gets abused all the time.
  - FpUser 5y ago
    Police also commits crimes, what's your point? We are talking about the actual law here.

FpUser 5y ago

>"In the United States you are pretty much required to give your name to police if they ask for it. They will run that name and if it's doesn't check out, match the picture on their computer, etc you will be arrested for providing a false name. In many states they can also demand you present photo identification and skip all of that." Stop and identify" statutes are laws in several U.S. states that authorize police to lawfully order people whom they reasonably suspect of a crime to state their name. If there is not reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, is being committed, or is about to be committed, an individual is not required to provide identification, even in these states

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
I've had to identify myself for flipping off a cop (unmarked car) who honked his horn at me because he didn't like me exercising my freedom of movement. This power gets abused all the time.
- FpUser 5y ago
  Police also commits crimes, what's your point? We are talking about the actual law here.