On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, Steve Furlong wrote:
On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 14:18, Steve Schear wrote:
Did you carry and present ID?
No. Once it was requested (strongly requested, just short of a demand with threats), but when I demanded his justification he backed down. In NY, at least at the time, citizens were not required to carry or present ID, nor identify themselves on demand without cause. I believe that is no longer the case.
Correct. A client/friend recently spent 9 hours in jail for failure to carry a wallet. He was doing something mildly suspicious, but not illegal. NYC has a very entrenched industry dealing with "processing" people the cops pick up. This has only gotten worse since Bloomberg and his "quality of life" racket. Breathing Without ID is essentially a crime that costs a day of your life, not less than ~$200, and a lot of humiliation. I thought the San Francisco cops were bad, before I moved here. (My friend was even told by the cops what to expect, and how best to optimize for getting out quickly. Kafka would have trouble doing better.) There was a mildly publicized incident in another part of Brooklyn recently where someone was ticketed after their child's balloon popped in public. A noise infraction. Quality of live, indeed. "There are no quotas, but if you don't meet them, you're on report." I'd prefer a good old fashioned Mafia protection scheme. At least that would be straightforward. -j -- Jamie Lawrence jal@jal.org It it ain't broke, let me have a shot at it.