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Dudley Hiibel, a Nevada rancher who covets his privacy, didn't want to hand over his identification to a police officer in 2000. His refusal landed him in jail and his name on the U.S. Supreme Court's docket.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,...w=wn_tophead_1
lol and image just came to mind of the precedence this could set. Remember police were called to the scene, they just didn't show up out of no where. "Miss this is 911 what is your emergency...." "A man just tried to get into my car and when I screamed he threw a rock at me and broke my window. He's walking down Main street now with a blue jacket." "OK mam we are dispatching an officer to check it out, remain calm." "He's comming back! I am out of here." And the lady drives away while the police come around the corner. "Sir hold it right there, we had a complaint that you assulted a woman in a car, can you explain what is going on? "**** off Pig." "Sir may we see some ID" "Hell no coppa, it's my right not to show you jack, so piss off." "Fair enough sir, have a nice day. Oh, try not to break into peoples cars and break their windows with rocks. It's bad."
Yes, but you can have trouble the other way, In the video posted he had not done anything other than to refuse to identify himself. He was guilty of nothing at that point. Yes the officer could have talked with his daugher and if there was reason to believe he had done something then proceed from there to possible arrest him or whatever, but it never went there, he was arrested for refusing to "talk" with the officer, i thought we had the right to remain silent?
I agree there is possibly a legal imbalance here. But we citizens often fail to forsee the actions of our passion. Every body has the right to remain silent, but taking it to an extreme sets an entirely different stage, one that would perhaps resemble my other post. This was a complaint filed by another citizen. The alternative future is to ignore those complaints.
I'm not saying to ignore the situation :)
I agree that police should look into complaints to prevent crimes or punish those guilty of crimes, but if someone refuses to speak to police or to provide information, that is their right as an American, that does not mean the police must stop their jobs but it does mean that unless they have probable cause or evidence to link that crime to that person they should not arrest them