Is it legal to stop you just to check ID?

[noshenanigans]

I was visiting my family in super-rural North Carolina (near Grandfather Mountain- beautiful area), and I was driving along and the county deputies were parked at a big intersection (no light or anything), stopping everyone. I had to show them my driver's license and they looked at my tag, then let me go. The car was my dad's, so I guess our names matched and they didn't care. Can they do that, though? When I asked I was told it was because "there's a lot of illegal immigrants driving stolen cars", but something about it rubbed me strangely.

Has this happened to anyone? Is it normal? I don't want to come off as all paranoid because it's not as if I was carting heroin or anything, but it just seemed... odd.

[Reverend_Smitty]

1. I swear I remember reading something about a new law...

that lets law enforcement officers demand to see your ID without any reasonable suspicion that you are breaking the law. I would imagine it was one of those post 9/11 Patriot Act things and I'm pretty sure it caused a bit of an uproar around here...but I'll be dammed if I can remember if it actually passed or not. So living in this day and age, I'm not surprised a bit by it

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. "Halt! Show us your papers!"

Police roadblocks for purposes of checking license/registration/insurance, etc. have been ruled legal, as far as I know (the laws in all states I'm aware of require the operator of a motor vehicle to provide these items upon a request from police).

[Seabiscuit]

10. That's right. It applies to drivers. It doesn't apply to pedestrians in public.

[misanthrope]

21. The hell it doesn't!...

...I was stopped and strip searched on the side of the road one night simply because I was walking home. I was breaking no laws. I didn't have a driver's license or any other form of photo ID at the time and was eventuallly ominously warned by the cop that I "best get some ID."

As long as they have the gun and the badge, they can do a lot more than you'd like to believe.

[LSK]

3. they have been doing that for years in Chicagoland

They have checkpoints and are looking for drunk drivers I think.

Yes they sound totally illegal but they have been doing it here ever since I can remember.

[xmas74]

4. We've done checkpoints in MO for years now.

You usually see them around big travel holidays. They block off a part of a highway and every car driving through the checkpoint has to offer driver's license, registration and proof of insurance.

They rack up some money around here on those checkpoints.

[LeftyMom]

5. They pass them off as drunk driving checkpoints here

They just "happen" to nab a lot more illegal immigrants than drunk drivers. :eyes:

[Sequoia]

6. I was in that same area years ago and they did the same thing.

Looking for druggies back then and it was in Cherokee and I was driving a rental car.

[ruiner4u]

7. it is in ohio

that law went into effect a few years ago here...

[Wapsie B]

8. Go to many small towns in Iowa and you'll have the town cop follow you

around town. Very common practice. So is the mass traffic stop like you experienced.

[pitohui]

9. yes of course it's legal if you're driving

drunk driving checkpoints, even seat belt compliance checkpoints, insurance checkpoints, INS checkpoints, i don't know what all, once i saw a sign warning they were checking for "exotics" by which i presume they meant parrots but for all i know could have really been looking for demon walking glow-in-the-dark catfish

[UncleSepp]

16. Is it illegal to transport a parrot across state lines?

Specifically, an umbrella cockatoo (so not a Quaker parrot, or one of the other feral species).

[AlienGirl]

18. Not illegal according to everything I have read

The only parrots restricted are Quakers (restricted by some states for agricultural reasons) and Lear's and Spix's macaws (highly endangered and require federal permit; probably similar for other CITES I species). Regulations about transport across state lines are, as far as I could determine, about "transport for commercial purposes." I couldn't find anything about any restrictions on road-trips with a captive-bred umbrella too!

Tucker

[Ms_Dem_Meanor]

11. Checkpoint Alert!!!

It's done all of the time nowadays.

[Connonym]

12. It certainly seems like it should be illegal

but we've entered a new reality and I think they are now allowed to do anything they want.

[pitohui]

13. driving a motor vehicle has always been that way

you never had any right to operate a motor vehicle w.out proper documentation, well, maybe back in 1898 but not in our lifetimes

[Connonym]

17. but to search w/o just cause?

That blows my mind. They right gets all hung up about their right to guns and other, more important rights they just throw them away.

[dysfunctional press]

22. what search? the OP said that it was a document check...

that's not a "search".

[Kutjara]

14. Of course it is. What, you think you live in a free country or something?

sheesh.

[LostInAnomie]

15. Depends on the state you're in.

Some states have made it illegal for police to set up check points. I think Indiana passed a law against it a few years ago, but the police depts. found a loop hole. They can set up check points as long as they do not actually physically stop anyone. They simply police cars on both sides of the road with their lights flashing, and police officers in the middle of the road flashing flashlights into the cars that pass by. This of course causes the cars to slow down and traffic begins to back up. While traffic is backed up the police walk up and down the rows of cars looking for any reason to pull over the drivers. When they find a reason, they radio ahead to a officer down the road who then pulls over the driver when they pass by.

It's bullshit.

[DarkmoonIkonoklast]

19. Whatever is not prohibited is mandatory.

[hickman]

20. I believe this was part of Reaganomics.

I think it's supposed to lower your taxes somehow. Every time Paris Hilton's trust fund gets beef up your safer and you can take the spouse and kids to Disneyland maybe. I don't know how it works.

[noonwitch]

23. Yes, when you are driving.

It is pretty much always considered legal for a cop to pull over any driver to check id at any time. Driving is a privilege, not a right.

[bridgit]

24. yes...

[legally blonde]

25. yes, it's legal

it's wrong, but it's legal. But they HAVE to stop EVERYONE. They do it under the pretense of checking IDs, but usually they are looking for drunk drivers and drugs.

In MO (along I-44, a known route for drug traffickers), they used to set up signs for a "road check" with "drug dogs" a few miles up the road. Meanwhile, cops were waiting at the next exit (that you would only take if you lived in the area) to nab people trying to avoid the road check and drug dogs. They can't do that anymore (as far as I know).

[philosophie_en_rose]

26. Checkpoints are legal.

But it seems that your checkpoint was run by racists.