Post by RS Davis on Jun 25, 2004 3:02:29 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, UNBELIEVABLE NEWS[/glow]
[glow=red,2,300]by James W. Harris[/glow]
"Your papers, please." In movies, that chilling demand from government agents is always a giveaway that they are tools of an oppressive state.
The U.S. took an ominous step in that direction this week, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government can arrest and punish people whose only "crime" is a refusal to give police their names during a murkily-defined legal police stop.
The narrowly-passed 5-4 decision held that people have no constitutional right to refuse to tell police their names if police merely have a "reasonable suspicion" that a person may be involved in a crime. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said that demanding a name during a police stop "serves important government interests" and dismissed privacy and civil liberties concerns by saying the request is "so insignificant in the scheme of things."
Civil libertarians strongly disagree, arguing that giving police the power to command a person to disclose his name under such circumstances is unconstitutional -- a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches, and of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Tim Lynch, an attorney with the libertarian Cato Institute, put it nicely: the Supreme Court has "ruled that the government can turn a person's silence into a criminal offense... Ordinary Americans will be hopelessly confused about when they can assert their right to 'remain silent' without being jailed."
It is not a mere academic argument. Opponents fear the decision will encourage police to instigate far more encounters and searches, particularly on roads, at airports, and in inner cities, based on flimsy and deceptive accusations. The decision almost certainly guarantees that vast numbers of Americans will face such stops and demands. It will be easy for police to enter names into massive, ever-expanding government databases for further searching, much as is done routinely today with drivers licenses at car stops.
As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a dissent: "A name can provide the key to a broad array of information about the person, particularly in the hands of a police officer with access to a range of law enforcement databases."
And finally, this decision inevitably moves us much closer to a mandatory national ID, to be carried at all times and shown upon request. After all, the logical next question after "What's your name?" is: "Can you prove it?"
Or, as those totalitarian governments say in the movies: "Your papers, please."[/b]
(Sources: Associated Press: apnews.myway.com//article/20040621/D83BGOU80.html
Supreme Court decision Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of the state of Nevada, 03-5554:
www.supremecourtus.gov )
[glow=red,2,300]by James W. Harris[/glow]
[shadow=red,left,300]Supreme Court Limits Right to Silence, Moves Closer to National ID
[/shadow]"Your papers, please." In movies, that chilling demand from government agents is always a giveaway that they are tools of an oppressive state.
The U.S. took an ominous step in that direction this week, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government can arrest and punish people whose only "crime" is a refusal to give police their names during a murkily-defined legal police stop.
The narrowly-passed 5-4 decision held that people have no constitutional right to refuse to tell police their names if police merely have a "reasonable suspicion" that a person may be involved in a crime. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said that demanding a name during a police stop "serves important government interests" and dismissed privacy and civil liberties concerns by saying the request is "so insignificant in the scheme of things."
Civil libertarians strongly disagree, arguing that giving police the power to command a person to disclose his name under such circumstances is unconstitutional -- a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches, and of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Tim Lynch, an attorney with the libertarian Cato Institute, put it nicely: the Supreme Court has "ruled that the government can turn a person's silence into a criminal offense... Ordinary Americans will be hopelessly confused about when they can assert their right to 'remain silent' without being jailed."
It is not a mere academic argument. Opponents fear the decision will encourage police to instigate far more encounters and searches, particularly on roads, at airports, and in inner cities, based on flimsy and deceptive accusations. The decision almost certainly guarantees that vast numbers of Americans will face such stops and demands. It will be easy for police to enter names into massive, ever-expanding government databases for further searching, much as is done routinely today with drivers licenses at car stops.
As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a dissent: "A name can provide the key to a broad array of information about the person, particularly in the hands of a police officer with access to a range of law enforcement databases."
And finally, this decision inevitably moves us much closer to a mandatory national ID, to be carried at all times and shown upon request. After all, the logical next question after "What's your name?" is: "Can you prove it?"
Or, as those totalitarian governments say in the movies: "Your papers, please."[/b]
(Sources: Associated Press: apnews.myway.com//article/20040621/D83BGOU80.html
Supreme Court decision Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of the state of Nevada, 03-5554:
www.supremecourtus.gov )
