Info that police can collect without a warrant?

Factual Questions
41

I found this this case on a DOJ website

GeorgiaCarry. org, Inc. v. Metro. Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth., No. 1:09-CV-594, 2009 WL 5033444, at*9-10 (N.D. Ga. Dec. 14, 2009) (finding “one or both of the [transit authority police] officer Defendants violated section 7(b)” when officers “asked [plaintiff] for his identification, firearms license, and social security number . . . . But neither officer told [plaintiff] whether he had to provide his social security number, what authority they relied on in asking for the number, or what the number would be used for”)

Any Federal, State, or local government agency which requests an individual to disclose his social security account number shall inform that individual whether that disclosure is mandatory or voluntary, by what statutory or other authority such number is solicited, and what uses will be made of it.” Section 7 of the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, 5 U.S.C. § 552a note (Disclosure of Social Security Number)).

42

Identifying information varies, but typically includes

  • Name, address, and an explanation of the person’s actions;

  • In some cases it also includes the person’s intended destination, the person’s date of birth (Indiana and Ohio), or written identification if available (Colorado). Ohio does not require the person’s intended destination. Ohio requires only name, address, or date of birth. Date of birth is not required if the age of the person is an element to the crime (such as underage drinking, curfew violation, etc.) that the person is reasonably suspected of.[31] Indiana requires either name, address, and date of birth, or driver’s license, if in the person’s possession, and only applies if the person was stopped for an infraction or ordinance violation.[32]

  • Arizona law, apparently written specifically to codify the holding in Hiibel , requires a person’s “true full name”.

  • Nevada law, which requires a person to “identify himself or herself”, apparently requires only that the person state their name.

  • Texas law requires a person to provide their name, residence address and date of birth if lawfully arrested and asked by police. (A detained person or witness of a crime is not required to provide any identifying information; however, it is a crime for a detained person or witness to give a false name.) Texas P.C. 38.02

  • In four states (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and Rhode Island), failure to identify oneself is one factor to be considered in a decision to arrest. In all but Rhode Island, the consideration arises in the context of loitering or prowling.

  • Seven states (Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio, and Vermont) explicitly impose a criminal penalty for noncompliance with the obligation to identify oneself.

  • Maryland requires a person to respond to identification request if the person is wearing, carrying (open or concealed), or transporting a handgun.

As of February 2011, the validity of a law requiring that a person detained provide anything more than stating their name has not come before the U.S. Supreme Court.

43

My point (many posts ago) is that like many other situations, an officer can arrest you for not answering or even just for pissing him off, and then the station can let you out without charges. So you don’t get to stand up in court and show him up, unless you can prove (your word against his) that he did something wrong by arresting you. First, you need to afford a lawyer to file a civil suit, and then show that whatever grounds he had for demanding information was bogus - meanwhile he just has to find a report of a recent crime where you vaguely matched, to justify that he had stopped and detained you demanding ID.

Hence “you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride”.

44

You can file a report with the police department if you are genuinely arrested without any cause at all. It absolute affects an officers record and employment if they do things like arrest people for no good reason.

45

Virginia used to use SSN as a driver’s license number. They discontinued that and reissued new numbers that are now DMV customer numbers. I think it was to help reduce identity theft through needless proliferation of the SSNs.

46

That is probably true in some towns…and easily overcome by lying.

47

LOL the Feebs do the interviewing for military and some other security clearances and I have held quite a number of clearances since 1978. Several of my friends reported to me that one question they asked was ‘Could she be coerced into doing something she normally wouldn’t’ and Marc reported to me [which was later confirmed by casually chatting with the agent doing most of the interviews for that particular clearance] that he laughed and said that if there was any coercing going on, that she would be the one doing it. Snicker. He went on to explain to the agent that I had a very strong personality, and refused to be pushed around. The agent later ‘tapped’ a try at scaring me by telling me they had me under surveillance, and didn’t know quite what to say when I asked him if they had gotten any decent pictures of me because I didn’t have anything current.

Personally, I am currently hetero, cis female, married in a 30+ year relationship, the vast majority of my socializing is done online which never goes away. I honestly can not think of anything one could threaten me with to make me do something, I can’t be blackmailed [I have never denied being raped twice, nor denied experimenting with women when I was in college.] My life is pretty much an open book.

48

Thank you. This is what I waded through 43 posts to find. I understand the many posters who have insisted that there is no obligation to answer the policeman’s questions. But then I wonder, what if he responds to my silence with something like, “That constitutes hindering an official investigation.” What am I supposed to do then? I don’t want to get myself in trouble, and I understand that even something as innocent as “I didn’t see anything” can get me in trouble. But as a good citizen, I truly do want to be cooperative and helpful.

49

“I’d like to speak with my attorney”.

50

Except that we were told that the police can freely lie to us, so why should we be at all cooperative or helpful?

51

Good answer! Thanks!

52

This is why the overwhelming advice from lawyers is always, “do not talk to police.” They are suspicious by nature and training. Simply not giving them the chance is the best policy. “Here is my license, I won’t be answering any questions without a lawyer present, please let me know when I am free to be on my way.”

53

My rights shouldn’t cost me $400 an hour.

54

Find a more reasonably priced mouthpiece. Or is your $400/hr hyperbole?

55

Sorry, how much should I spend to get out of jail on a trumped up charge because a cop was irritated by my Constitutional rights?

56

While you’re right, my issue is that you’re essentially making a formal statement to the police confirming that’s your page (implying that any info on that page was placed there, by you, on purpose) and not one belonging to someone else with the same name (especially in the case of it not having a profile picture of you) or an altogether fake account that someone set up in your name for whatever reason.

I feel like that comes up in systemic racism threads from time to time. Someone (black) is arrested for a bogus reason and even though they’re never charged with anything, the charges are dropped or they’re shown to be innocent, they’ll forever have that arrest which can cause problems down the road.

57

How many news stories about assorted situations have we read where exactly this happened - someone was arrested and then released (sometimes the next morning with no charges, or all charges dropped? At that point, you get to pay $400/hr (less the hyperbole) to try to prove that the officer had no probable cause to arrest.

As for whether complaints matter - how many cases - like Chauvin, like Pantaleo (who was the one choking Eric Garner) - have had previous complaints and kept their job?

Pantaleo and a partner won a civil lawsuit previously brought because of their actions:

Pantaleo was the subject of two civil rights lawsuits in 2013 where plaintiffs accused him of falsely arresting them and abusing them. In one of the cases, he and other officers allegedly ordered two black men to strip naked on the street for a search and the charges against the men were dismissed.

Gives a whole new meaning to “strip search”. But note again, charges against the arrested men dismissed. Officer still on force until 2019. Did not even get indicted for a death due to “compression of the neck”. The death happened 2014, there were (by Wikipedia) 3 disciplinary hearings in 2019. and the officer was only fired when the media found out a judge had said he should be.

My point here is not to debate the death or the punishment, but to point out that this is what happens, even in something as serious as a death. Hired experts actually said Garner was not choked (and others said he was), did not die from choking, would have died anyway. Between the thin blue line and normal authoritarian desire to hide any mistakes - if all that happens to you is you are held in jail overnight and let go, unless it is a national media firestorm, nothing will happen to the officer.

I see the point - qualified immunity - that police should not have to spend a week in court being sued over every little judgement call they make; but sometimes some will overuse that level of immunity.

OTOH, I suppose the simplest advice is best. Whether it’s a speeding ticket or mass murder, if the police have decided to do something like a ticket or arrest, you’re not going to talk your way out of it. They’ve heard every excuse in the book. What you can do, is talk your way deeper into it.

58

And that’s why it would be wise not to volunteer that information; but that has little to do with whether police can collect it if it’s freely given.

59

I think you should read what the ACLU and other actual lawyers say about this–I am not a lawyer, but I’m telling you that they’re going to say you just insist that you aren’t going to provide information you are not required to provide. It is extremely unlikely that the police will arrest someone for not providing information to which they are not legally entitled.

You should never prioritize your fear of what would be quite rare–a deliberately illegal arrest done solely because you refuse to answer “fishing” questions, over what your constitutional rights are under the law. The ACLU says this specifically on the matter:

And

@md-2000 is offering basically legal advice that isn’t supported by the law, mixed in with scare talk of a cop randomly arresting you for no reason. It would be a disservice to your constitutional rights to listen to that as advice on how to behave in a police interaction.

60

I think you should frankly save opinions about policing to Great Debate threads. This is a GQ thread for a person asking about what police’s legal powers are. Pointing out that police can do “illegal things” isn’t a factual answer to that inquiry. You’re putting out ideas that are opinion based and intermixing them with people giving actual legal answers about what to do in a police encounter, which could directly contribute to someone not protecting their actual constitutional rights in a real world situation–especially since people frequently find these message boards through Google searches or etc; the exposure of the information is higher than just the people who are posting in this thread.

I will also say that citing something like the Eric Garner case, which is an incredibly rare outcome of a police action, and not directly relatable to the scenario in this thread, is disingenuous. There are many millions of police interactions per year. Something like 1500 of them result in a death, and the vast majority of those deaths are non-controversial, legal uses of force against violent criminals. This is actual, factual information. You’re setting someone up to stooge themselves out to the police over something that is statistically only a few multiples more likely than being struck by lightning.