Tuesday, April 24, 2012

USA - Are you required to produce ID if a cop demands it?

OFF THE WIRE
http://www.pixiq.com/contributors/carlosmiller
Are you required to produce ID if a cop demands it?'
Papers please' for reporter at Texas capitol shooting investigation..
http://youtu.be/zPYW_8ehD1Y
http://www.infowars.com/

https://bikersofamerica.blogspot.com/2012/04/usa-are-you-required-to-produce-id-if.html
Like other reporters in the Austin-area, the Infowars team was immediately sent to the Texas Capitol building on news that a man, identified as Fausto Cardenas, had started shooting for no apparent reason.
There wasn't much else to discover once we got there. The suspect had apparently harmed no one and State Troopers were quietly combing over the South steps with their investigation.
I had catalogued everything going on behind the roped-off area and wandered around the other side of the Capitol to film another grouping of troopers who were combing the grounds with a (presumab
3:59 PM(presumably bomb-sniffing) dog. When a trooper noticed me filming their quiet investigation, everything suddenly changed.
Though the building itself was closed, the Capitol grounds remained open, and people were milling about freely. Only the area immediately surrounding the South steps was restricted by yellow tape.
Yet this officer approached me sternly, pointing his finger and commanding that I 'point the camera somewhere else' and provide ID. I refused.
For those who have forgotten, in the haze of post-9/11 paranoia, America is not a 'papers please' dictatorship or a corrupt banana republic, even if certain forces are might attempt to drag us in that direction.
So why did this officer feel the need to rush up and demand I justify myself? Were I suspected of a crime as benign as speeding such action might have been warranted, but I had literally done nothing but look in the wrong direction and catch the eye of the wrong person.
His name is known, but not important in this instance. He ceased being an officer, abandoning due process for arbitrary power. That is against the law-- the spirit of the law-- and thus I felt compelled not to go along with it. He asked if I had ID and I told him truthfully that I did, but did not feel I should give it.

By Carlos Miller -...