[IP] When police ask your name, you must give it, Supreme Court says (fwd from dave at farber.net)

[Bill Stewart]

At 12:04 AM 6/22/2004, Justin wrote:

>On 2004-06-21T22:38:01-0700, Steve Schear wrote:
> > Not a problem.  Its legal to use any name you wish, including those that
> > use gyphs and sounds which cannot be represented by standard Roman and
> > non-Roman alphabets (as is common in some African tribes).  So, those that
> > wish to avoid this data base nightmare can legally adopt name which does
> > not conform.

It's legal to _have_ any name you wish, but in some states you can
just use the name you want, and in other states you have to legally change 
your name.
California's DMV changed their policies five or ten years ago -
this used to be one of the places where changing your name on a whim was
not only freely accepted, but just about mandatory in Hollywood,
but at least the DMV now requires you to legally change your name
(not sure if the rest of the law requires it.)

>Don't citizens have to have an english-alphabet transliteration of their
>name to use for legal purposes (birth certificate, green card, social
>security record)?

No legal requirement that I'm aware of, nor is literacy mandatory.
Some individual types of paperwork may require that
(wouldn't surprise me if the INS thugs did, for instance,
though their standard rule in the past was that they'd assign you an
inaccurate transliteration...)  but that doesn't mean they all need the same.
You're not required to get a birth certificate, though if your kid's born
in a hospital they'll tend to issue one whether you ask for it or not.
I never applied for a social security number, so I haven't seen the forms
(my parents had already done that for me, and I assume that the number I
memorized in ~2nd grade was correct, though I've long since lost the paper.)

>Is there a list of the other 20 states with stop-and-identify laws?

Go read the Supreme Court majority opinion - the states are mentioned there,
though the opinion doesn't say exactly what each state requires.
California, BTW, isn't on the list.

>The DMV differentiates same-name people by SSN, right?

It tries :-)  It also tries to differentiate by address.
Most DMVs aren't very good at record-keeping, and the last two
states I've lived in have each spent ~$50 million on huge
computer modernization processes that have failed miserably...

>Is it very far-fetched to imagine that state courts and
>federal appeals courts will uphold state laws requiring
>SSN disclosure for identification purposes?

State laws requiring SSN disclosure for driver's licenses were
illegal under the Privacy Act of 1974, and then legalized
for limited uses in ~1986, and the Feds have made them
all but mandatory.  They're also mandatory for income-taxable business,
except when you can use a Taxpayer ID Number instead.

>After all, the Supreme Court didn't rule this way for fun;

You're overestimating the morals of the more conservative members
of the Court, though "fun" requires a sense of humor which
may be lacking in Rehnquist's case.....  (Some of them do have fun -
Scalia recently went hunting with Cheney, for instance,
and Thomas got raked over the coals at his acceptance hearings
because of the fun he'd had harassing Anita Hill.
And one or two of the liberals are a bit on the odd side as well.)

>Maybe the 9th circuit will be safe from mandatory SSN disclosure during
>Terry stops, but I doubt any other circuits will be.  The Supremes can't
>want to hear another case of this sort in the near future.  They just
>cranked up the temperature; if they crank it up again too soon the frogs
>may notice they're about to boil.

They didn't take this case just because they wanted it to -
they took it because Gilmore and Noise and friends helped Hiibel
and the Nevada Public Defender get it there.
They aren't likely to hear another case soon that isn't edgy like this,
but the FBI, Homeland Security thugs and their antecedents have been
pushing for more and more government control over citizens,
so any available edge is likely to get pushed.



Bill Stewart  bill.stewart at pobox.com