"Bush says invading Canada only way to free citizenry."
Damn right. Any nation where people are raised to speak French SHOULD get the Rome-and-Carthage treatment.
(Speaking of which...anybody notice France is a third-world hole with nuclear weapons? We need to do something about Chirac. If the man were any more of a menace to civilization, he'd be a Green, Democrat, or ChiCom.)
1) To avoid petty police officers singling you out (especially if you are out of state).. that is a legit legal reason
Singled out or not, it's really, really hard to make a radar say that you're driving 73 MPH when you're actually driving 46. There's an easy way to avoid this problem.
2) You should be able to have it because the GOVERNMENT does NOT own the road (taxpayers do) and they certainly don't own your car. They also do not have the right without warrant (probable cause) to interfere with or search your car. (Just because a police officer isn't searching your car, rather an electronic "detector", it is STILL an illegal search.
If you can find even one active statute or court ruling to support your claim here, I'll be extremely impressed.
It's not a search. There's a doctrine in US Constitutional Law called "plain view." That doctrine says that an officer is entitled to take enforcement action based upon any evidence which is in his plain view. Plain view means that he can see it from a place where he has a legal right to be, such as the shoulder of a public road.
And the Fourth Amendment doesn't ban "unwarranted" search. It bans "UNREASONABLE" searches. Exigent circumstances can overcome the warrant requirement, under certain conditions.
Oh, and it's not a search unless your "reasonable expectation of privacy" was invaded. In a moving motor vehicle on a public road, you have very little such expectation.
Besides, we haven't needed to ban radar detectors here in Colorado. I don't write speeding/careless off of radar anyway. Too much paperwork. A good stopwatch or pace is unbeatable in court anyway.
This is closer to the truth than you think. ASCAP tried to sue scouting organizations for using campfire songs without permission of the copyright holder. No kidding.
You've gotta be freakin' kidding. Got a pointer to this?
I'm a scout leader, and if they're really trying to pull this kind of happy horseshit then I'd really like to know the whole story.
What's the point of "rapid industrial growth" if noone can afford to buy anything?
Nobody can afford to buy anything? Does that mean your grocery shopping is done by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the US Agency for International Development? You live in a cardboard box? How are you posting on Slashdot? Did you bury a C64 in the back yard? Is Jon Katz about to write a feature piece about you?
"I can't afford to buy all or even most of the material stuff I want" is different from "I can't afford to buy oats and ramen, pay the electrical bill, or pay my rent/mortgage." If it's the latter, what are you doing on Slashdot? And how does either one impose an obligation on anyone else?
I think we'll all agree that domestic spending is the keystone of our economy. So how do unemployed, underemployed, and indepted people contribute? Henry Ford was smart enough to pay his workers well enough so that they could afford to buy a car. Do you see CEOs doing that today?
Actually, yeah, I do. Surprisingly few people in the US are working in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory for 11 cents per hour and 78 hours per week.
And bear in mind that US unemployment is just about 6%. Maybe that's a touch high, but you should also remember that for most of the post-WWII era, 6% was as good as it ever got.
Re:Restatement of the obvious
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Nuke-Lobbing
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Therefore, anyone NOT interested in dying in a nuclear war must have a No Nukes opinion, if not, you are welcoming the possibility of them being used.
So, if the US disarms, then enemies like China will follow suit?
I doubt it. The ChiComs are the biggest murderers left on the planet today. And they've already threatened nuclear bombing of the USA once in recent years. I'd rather not find myself at the mercy and dependent upon the good faith of a nation which thus far has not shown any.
You can beat your sword into a plowshare, but you'll be plowing for someone who didn't.
The key words in these draft bills is that these are in regards to the user acting "with intent to defraud" and is written to imply that it is the use of technologies "to defraud" that is the crime, not simple possesion.
Not in the Colorado bill. In ours, "A person commits a violation under this section if he knowingly [commits a prohibited act, which would take me about ten pages to transcribe and does appear to include the operation of an otherwise legal VPN or IP-masq firewall.]
Colorado residents: This late in the session, it shouldn't be too hard to make sure this thing dies. Call your state rep and senator (it's been introduced in both houses: you can get the numbers through www.vote-smart.org if you know your own ZIP code.)
Right now, it's in the State House Information and Technology Committee, and the (god only knows why) Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. You can gripe to their chairmen, Rep. Shawn Mitchell at 303-866-4667 and Senator Doug Lamborn at 303-866-4835. Sen. Lamborn is the bill's Senate sponsor, so I don't know how much good that particular phone call will do.
Does it ever occur to people that the government is not doing this to keep secrets, but that there just aren't enough resources to get it done? Anyone who has done classified work for ANY government knows that there is always a shortage of individuals cleared to do anything. Civilians contractors for this sort of work do not come cheap, because they know how hard it is to find people.
Seconded. Although, the classification rules don't help.
On my (police) department, the guy in charge of Intel and Planning tried to start getting information out of the FBI. Now, they're pretty good about turning stuff over when the case is filed (as required by law, FRCP 16 I believe) but that's useless to other agencies who need it sooner.
So they told him to get a security clearance. Okay, except it would take about two years and the application is longer than our Application for Employment, Background Investigator's Questionnaire, and retirement plan enrollment combined. I don't think a 45-year-old man wanted to make the time to track down the rest of the starting lineup on his high school JV football team so that the effi-bee-eye could go and interview them.
You COULD almost say that the FBI did it that way deliberately, so that local cops wouldn't be able to get into their files and see what absolute morons they are.
Part of this order, I believe, is concerned with a law concerning storage and transport of hazardout wastes. Under certain circumstances, people who store or move hazmats are required to make that information publically available. Now, when I spent my year in Intel and Planning, this was great stuff to have. I and my fire department colleagues knew what there was in town that could blow up, poison everybody, et cetera.
Now, think we'd have been able to do if we didn't actually have any useful information to work with. There's really no point to gathering info if you don't intend to pass it along to the other people with a need for it.
Is there information on this 25 year list, which would endanger the public if it was released? Possibly. And then there's just as likely information that would endanger the public if kept classified.
First, I think it's a fairer approach. As we all know, being pulled over for traffic offenses is biased.
Mostly in favor of the cops stopping drivers worth stopping. I'm not going to waste my time on a soccer mommy who's one second late on a light when I also see a redneck driving an uninsurable 1969 Dodge Dart, weaving and braking erratically. One's a under-$100 muni court ticket. The other one's probably a drunk. We don't get DUI fine money, but who gives a damn about that?
In addition, I can't count the number of times attractive female (just) friends of mine have cried/clevaged their way out of various traffic tickets.
You'd be shocked at how rarely that works, at least here in the western US. Showing flesh and turning on waterworks are guarantees of turning a warning into paper, with just about everyone on my department. You really want to beat a ticket from me? Be insured, keep your license and plates current, and don't lie to me or play head games, and my business card will be the only piece of paper you get from me.
It's also very easy to beat a traffic ticket by pleading not-guilty, moving the court date several times, and counting on the cop not to show, thus winning the case for lack of evidence.
It doesn't work anyway. Court clerks are wise to it, to the point that it's a bitch getting a re-schedule of a trial date. The right to trial doesn't imply anything about a right to weasel out by causing a trial to be delayed forever.
Cops *have* died during traffic stops, either by being shot (purposefully) or by being run over (accidentally). So, traffic stops are dangerous from the police perspective, and probably creates some citizen-police tensions as some police are on guard during them.
About a quarter of all line-of-duty slayings in the US occur on traffic. Being hit by cars isn't included in that stat.
Video minimizes unnecessary, dangerous, and potentially explosive contact.
Not to mention utterly-necessary contact. What do you think happens on a stop?
I've already run your plate by the time you know I'm behind you. When I light you up, you're probably nervous. "Is he going to hang paper on me? Shit! Did I pay the last one? Do I really get a phone call if he arrests me for not paying the last one???" Or words to that effect.
We're evaluating: Does he have sixteen used car stereos in the back seat? Eyes clear or bloodshot? Is that bottle's label for Aquafina or cheap vodka? Does he maybe even have a pretty good reason for driving 20 over, one that would get him out of a citation? (Yes, it happens. I'm willing to be convinced.) Is his license suspended? Is this an insurance proof, or just an agent's business card? (Both a big deal: insurance cheats are a pretty big reason for the rest of our rates being so high.)
Cameras can't evaluate. They don't exercise judgement. People can. A drunk driver (revoked as a habitual traffic offender) with five stolen TV's in the back will get a mail-in ticket, assuming his license plate is actually valid with correct information. He'll wipe his ass with it. What to do then? And the average person like you or me will be annoyed, write a check, and probably not experience the emotional trauma of the stop, which is what usually negatively reinforces the unacceptable behavior (the traffic violations) anyway.
If governments need to do revenue collection, I can think of an easier way. Punitive taxes on immigrants from California, for instance. The cameras SUCK for law enforcement or public safety purposes, though.
I would guess these will be like police radios now, use lead acid batteries that can take the huge number of recharge cycles.
Our radios don't use lead-acid. They use NiCad or NiMH. For what it's worth.
That way you just put the gun and the radio in a charger stand at the end of your shift and pick them up the next day.
Not quite. When we go off shift, we transfer our sidearms from our duty holster to a concealment holster, as we're encouraged to carry 24-7.
Here in the states though I doubt they will catch on. Police officers lives depend on their sidearms every time they go out, jamming a bunch of unproven electronics into a violent container doesn't sound like my idea of high reliability. Unless these are field proven by something like the isrealie police I don't think many departments here would buy in.
Nobody will buy in, even if the Israelis endorse it. No American cop will touch it. We're neither impressed nor even much amused by Israeli firearms training and doctrine: They teach their police cadets and armed private citizens to carry WITHOUT a round chambered-an utterly stupid mode of carry for a defensive weapon. A pistol should be ready to go INSTANTLY when it clears leather, as you tend to have almost no spare time to react in a defensive situation. Certainly no spare time to load a weapon or change a battery.
This making this yet another bad idea from the rest of the world. Maybe they should let the Swiss, Austrians, Germans, and Italians make the defensive pistols and be quiet otherwise. (I wish certain American manufacturers could take that hint!)
At least one who isn't otherwise involved. Maybe we don't all have degrees, but we do have very well-calibrated bullshit detectors.
If his first instinct, upon hearing anything, is to say "Try again, you lying piece of sugar-honey-iced-tea," he's arguably your best friend when dealing with an expert witness.
Someone mentioned the "too good to be true" principle. Let me offer a counter to that:
Let's say that I can have a SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse-Examiner) nurse take a rape kit from a victim. Let's then say that the assailant left certain body fluids behind.
Now, let's say that I have a suspect. Wouldn't it be nice if we could draw blood from him, compare it to the evidence left behind in/on the victim, and know with reasonable certainty whether hehad sex with the victim.
In my own lifetime, this was considered too good to be true. Today, genetic comparison is a fairly common part of sex crime investigation. It lets us nail the guilty to the wall, and helps us to exclude the innocent from suspicion more quickly. Sounds like a benefit to everyone.
Too good to be true? No, getting paid more than the BFI or Waste Management garbage collectors would be too good to be true.
If you don't know what you're talking about, don't post. In the US, if the defendant wins the prosecutor CANNOT appeal its loss. Never. Nada. Zip. Once a defendant is found "not guilty" he is not guilty of that charge forever.
Close, but not quite. If the judge declares a mistrial, then the whole thing can be done over. That takes serious attorney or juror misconduct, and AIUI has to be declared before the jury's verdict is actually read.
The cops in the Rodney King case were found innocent by a jury in California. That was never and could never have been appealed. They were charged under a different jurisdiction, by the feds, which means double jeopardy didn't apply.
Yes and no.
The US Supreme Court still needs to clarify this. However, the legal justification for the second trial was that the cases were not only brought by different jurisdictions, but for violation of substantively different criminal statutes. The CA state charge, I believe, was assault or something like. The Federal charge was "violation of civil rights under color of state authority, resulting in bodily injury."
There have been cases where similar situations in other states have had the Federal case dismissed on Double Jeopardy grounds.
Leaving aside the actual facts of that case. The Federal trial was a political show trial. It would probably have been tossed as DJ, were it not for the riots and the resulting desire to throw a few people in jail to appease a hungry mob.
Marx' "reviolution" fails in the modern society because the workers aren't politically motivated to revolt, they just watch TV...
..And because it's a sick and sad joke to try to sell things for prices other than what people will actually pay for them.
..and because most people don't want to make as their first priority, cooperation for some vague "greater good." They'd rather see themselves and their families comfortable first, and THEN worry about what the rest of society is and isn't doing.
..and because most people don't want their lives or livelihoods under control of their collective or their neighbors or whatever, but would rather run their own lives.
So true. So true. Contrary to popular beleif, most students do BETTER academically when participating in sports. You'll be healthier later in life, and feel good about yourself. Remember, The Race is long, yet in the end it's only with yourself. So what if you're the slowest on the track team... if you can improve yourself, you have still won.
There actually was a study on that- cardiorespiratory training actually seems to postpone or prevent senility. Improved circulation means improved circulation in the brain. And resistance training (done sensibly!!!) does wonders for improving bone density.
Learning a foreign language will always end up helping you in the end. Thankfully, most US schools mandate students to learn a foreign language nowindays.
No, US public schools don't mandate students learning anything. They mandate students attendance at classes in various subjects, which explains why so many Americans speak only English, take horoscopes and creationists seriously, believe what they hear about the justice system in the parking lot at Phish concerts, can't work with (or remember, if they ever knew) the Pythagorean Theorem, etc.
It's astounding how often these classes are ignored. These skills can be applied elsewhere, and gives you additional talents which most people lack. These skills are highly undervalued in toda's world. They will end up helping you in the long run (change your OWN oil, install the new toilet YOURSELF, etc), not to mention saving you money.
It's not just that you don't have to pay someone to do it for you. It also helps when there's nobody willing or able to do it. Teaching kids to plant vegetables, shoot animals, tear down and rebuild barns and lawnmower engines, etc., will make them able to be far more independent than all of the so-called "college track" classes on the planet.
Here's something I disagree on. Try to support the arts in every way you can, and go out and be artistic on your own. You never know where you'll end up
Learn an instrument. Supposedly it'll help with math.
However, there is one nation that is planning on using bio-terror weapons. And that is the United States:
Let me clue you in on something:
The gases whose use is contemplated are mainly oleoresin capsicum mixtures. They're PEPPER! Cops all over the world carry the shit, even in England!
I get sprayed with the crap every year for requalification purposes. I'm not sure I understand the controversy. Okay, it sucks being sprayed. It also washes off, and has been linked to fewer deaths than empty-hand non-striking less-than-lethal control holds.
And you're calling this a TERROR weapon? Would it be kinder to just play Dodge-the-Lead with Iraqi soldiers? (Also known as just shooting them, rather than trying to leave them relatively unharmed.)
So, you can try to pass non-lethal pepper spray off as being the same as ricin or VX, but it won't fly.
In this modern world, it is weakening the system of checks and balances that has kept us away from World War III for 50+ years. The French feel that if this war with Iraq goes forward, it will lead to 100 years of new wartime.
It may also be that Hussein owes French companies about sixty billion dollars US, for ventures undertaken since the last war twelve years ago, including a few chemical plants. (Hmmmm?) They may be afraid that a new Iraqi government may be unwilling to pay France for the NBC weapons that the last Iraqi government bought.
Who gives a rat's ass about France's opinion anyway? Everybody knows that when we stop wasting our money on defending Europe from itself, Germany will own the place again.
Can something similar be said of American conservatives?
Richard Nixon? Ronald Reagan? Trent Lott? Antonin Scalia? Orrin Hatch? Wayne Allard? Bob Beauprez?
It's a rarity here. Actually, the main reason our President uses George W. Bush is to be distinguished from his father, George H.W. (Herbert Walker) Bush.
The only other politician I can think of who uses three names is a former senator from Illinois, Carol Moseley Braun. But that may be hyphenated.
Another variation you see (usually in local politicians) in the western US is J. Middlename Lastname. Ed Abbey discusses this in most of his books about people in Utah. J. Robert Garn. J. Oral Hatch. J. Franklin Smith. Et cetera.
This is also one reason why The Sims Online is completely flopping. Sure, you might be able to get the in-game money to build a great house with lots of accessories, but not everyone can have 15 guests at all times.
I thought the Sims were tanking because of the number of people who built massive houses in the game, but lived in one-bedroom (no pets) condos in some NorCal hellhole in reality.
I don't exactly understand the controversy here. The internet in general serves a few purposes: entertainment, and research tool. It's not reality. It's a piss-poor substitute. It's a medium in which people write personal journals to be viewed by the public, rather than in a spiralbound notebook kept on the nightstand, and then are surprised that most of the public wants stuff that affects _THEM_ rather than some stranger's personal and private thoughts about why sharp cheddar is better than queso fresco.
If you want an audience, you have to do something to make people interested. If you want people to read a blog, make it worth reading. If you want people to view your website, make it worth viewing. Enough people seem to think that AOL, Yahoo, Google, etc. are worth using. If you want the public to beat a path to your door, you need to have something to convince them that you're more worthwhile.
Or, someone can try top-down regulation (Anyone who views AOHell instead of Frankie's Blog will be fined $50!) but that has potential for being bad goat-roping comedy as well as socialistic bullshit. I think I'd rather give up the internet entirely rather than having petty popularity contests enforced by law.
What about using electricty to stimulate the muscles? Might that work?
Unlikely.
You've probably seen the gadgets on television claiming to use electrical impulses to work muscles in ten minutes a day without effort.
They're nonsense. Electrical stimulation is occasionally used for physical therapy, but in those cases it's excruciatingly painful (it takes a LOT of electricity to make a muscle charley-horse itself enough to gain or maintain strength, which is what they do) and the only reason PT's really use them over resistance exercises is for patients who need to work the muscles but must not be allowed to move the joints.
Transducers in an astronaut's suit could produce similar resonant vibrations. These vibrations could simulate the stresses of g-forces by rapidly moving the astronaut a very small distance back and forth
Maybe it would work for bones. I doubt it, but maybe.
OTOH, I can already guarantee it won't do anything for muscle. The only way (yes, the ONLY) way to cause muscle to increase in mass (or to even retain mass) is to force it to work against resistance. That's why people wishing to increase strength lift weights.
Obviously, that's not an option in space. A decent weight set will weigh 400-500 pounds all told, when you have to lift it and pay the weight penalty, and then won't weigh anything at all in orbit. A 275-lb barbell is enough resistance at Earth-surface gravity that I won't try to bench it without a spotter. That same barbell would make for a pretty poor workout when it has inertia, but no actual weight.
Maybe this calls for one of the rubber band contraptions. Bowflex, SoloFlex, and the like are not that great-the best thing to do with them is to call them pop-art coat racks. However, in the absence of gravity they might be the only real option.
Which brings up another question: Has NASA ever put returning astronauts on anabolic androgens? (What the uninformed call 'steroids?') The one legal use they have in humans in the US is to speed recovery from injury, and they might play a part in recovering from long orbits and the resulting bone and strength loss.
So how exactly do they propose to check up on me anyway? On what legal basis can they force me to let them into my business to perform an "audit" to their satisfaction? Who the hell do these people think they are anyway?
I'm not sure how it would work in the US. There's enough commonality between the US and UK civil law that I'll chance a guess:
You buy software, under circumstances which cause you to actually sign a contract. Say, a support agreement. Buried in that contract is a clause allowing the provider or its representative to conduct audits to ensure copyright compliance. Wham, you've just agreed to let them in the door to pull this crap for the duration of the contract.
If you don't let them in, they come back with a court order and a deputy sheriff (in state courts) or Deputy US Marshall (in Federal courts) to enforce same. Or so they threaten.
If the only such agreement is a clickthrough/shrinkwrap license, then they will have one hell of a time getting in the door if you tell them 'no.'
As the UK has "loser pays" in civil litigation, I'm going to guess that the BSA is a little less free with bullshit lawsuit threats against UK businesses. I could be wrong, though.
What I would do: If they have a warrant, comply with it but make sure that you have cameras or at least audio recorders running. If not, tell them where to go. Either way, your attorney (solicitor?) should probably be brought into the loop ASAP.
I think you're missing the point rather. I'm clearly not suggesting that ID cards replace normal policing methods.
You also haven't told me how they even enhance normal policing, never mind how they enhance normal policing enough to justify the encroachment on one's right to travel in privacy.
In the UK, you're not required to carry ID, there is no 'one card' and not everyone has a driving licence. Even if you do, you aren't forced to have it when driving a car, for example.
Then that's a separate issue you need to take us with whoever writes your traffic code.
With a proper ID card, through which one can access unified sources of information, all that info you mention about outstanding warrants can quickly be accessed by the police.
I already have that. Anything with name and date of birth is enough to check wants. Driver's license will do it. Come to think of it, simply asking someone for that stuff, with the bullshit detector turned up works fairly well.
At the moment in the UK, if the police stop anyone they feel suspicious about, there is no official way of identifying that person quickly.
Funny, I'd have thought that someone would have set up something like NCIC by now.
And FWIW, part of having a free society means that we, the po-leese, can't always work at maximum effectiveness. Life requires trade-offs, and I frankly am not in the least willing to sacrifice my freedom and privacy as a citizen in order to make it easier to do my job as a public official. The alternative is to live in a hole like China, the USSR, or Germany.
Note: This does not necessarily reflect any consensus in my profession. About the only real agreement among most of the 800,000 of us (in the US) is that gun control is stupid, shift commanders are assholes, and caffeine is proof of a merciful god.
What 'good German' attitude? I was merely pointing out that the Germans get on well, are a free society
A 'good German' is someone who is quite happily to sacrifice someone else's freedom and someone else's privacy. Just to clue you in: it's a Godwin invocation.
and have ID cards, which they get along fine with, without anyone bursting into tears about civil liberty.
And only elsewhere in Europe would Germany be called a 'free' society. We've been over firearms ownership and unpopular political opinions in the press before. What about the fact that it's almost impossible to get an illegal search suppressed? The notion that there's very little recourse against a cop who actually does violate one's rights?
Of course you 'go out and talk to people', although I'm confused about the talking sweater. Try tracking down the slightly bigger criminals or tracking international fraud without access to more sophisticated channels of info. Why shouldn't those multiple channels be combined practically?
That's how we track down everybody. I don't see how you can have someone bigger than a murderer, or a rapist. Nor has it yet been explained to me just how a compulsory national identification will make it easier to solve any crime. I've been doing this crap for going on fifteen years. I wish someone would have told me that a magical ID card would make criminals walk up to my car just as I'm about to get some more coffee, and confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. I'd also like to know how a new ID card will make have of the wife-beaters in this town stop outright and the other half try to find better lies than "she fell down the stairs." Will it also make the victims stop recanting, after the process is nearly complete and just before the trial?
Come to think of it, will a national ID card tell me whether someone's illegally carrying a concealed weapon? If they're carrying legally, I can find that out with driver's license info, and I don't worry about it anyway: none of them have ever threatened or attacked me. Will it tell me if they're tweaked to hell and gone? Will it make tire tracks not wash away in the rain? Will it make fine young people who have been mislead by consumerist society into selling meth not run, thus making us chase them? Maybe I run a 24-minute 5K and bench 275 on a good day, but my knees are forty years old and the rest of me isn't that far behind. I'm a little bit old to be playing 'tag' with teenagers.
Will it tell me that someone's license is revoked for drunk driving and he has three bench warrants and a restraining order out? Will it tell me that he's been stopped for this same thing seven times in the last year? Will it tell me that he has a history of being verbally abusive with all cops and physically uncooperative with the ones he thinks he can take? The info on the front of his driver's license will tell me that. Come to think of it, so will the fact that we tend to be trained observers and aggression cues aren't difficult to pick up anyway.
As for the sweater: Sometimes, logoes, words, or graphics are printed on them. Even in the advanced and enlightened UK where you successfully avoid all the worst of US culture, you may have seen it.
There are plenty of things we could do in both countries to fight terrorism: Making visa/asylum procedures more than the joke they currently are is a pretty good start. But branding and ear-tagging our own people like so many cattle strikes me as at best unhelpful.
When I got my Colorado driver's license, I was required to place my finger on a digitizer just before my picture was taken. Colorado has my fingerprint associated with my name, address, social security number, weight, hair color, eye color, picture, etc...
In theory, it's to make sure that one person doesn't have two different licenses under two different names. In practice, the image quality on the livescan print is so crappy that I wonder that it works at all.
If I were collecting prints to identify people later, as in a police state, I'd take a lot more than one index. There's a reason why booking cards are so big.
As is made clear in my post, you don't have to register where you live in the UK, but you do in Germany - so what? How does this affect my 'liberty'?
Why is it any of anyone's damn business who lives where? What if someone wants to be left the hell alone? What if they're not interested in being harassed by anyone with second- or third-hand access to the registry? (Yeah, I know, it's supposedly restricted. And this is the real world, and that's bullshit.)
They have this info anyway - how do you think they investigate criminals?
We go out and talk to people: "Okay, what did you see? And then what? Could you tell what his sweater said? What did the tattoo look like? And he headed which way? All right, here's my card. That number on the back is for my pager. If you see him again, call us right away." Combined with gathering physical evidence (often over-rated, but sometimes it helps) it's amazing what we can do without having a complete registry of where everybody is and where they've been.
Finally what countries have you been visiting that you don't want the police to know about?
Why is it any of their damn business?
Jeez. I'm an officer. And I still find your submissive "good German" attitude highly disturbing. If not vaguely sickening.
In the whole of the US, apart from while driving, requiring ID is considered the same as any other search and seizure. Therefore a warrant and/or "probable cause" is required to compel someone to present ID.
One: The standard is called "reasonable suspicion." RS is required to stop someone, or to detain for a "reasonable period for investigatory purposes. There's no bright-line rule about how long is "reasonable," but the courts are pretty flexible and are extremely unlikely to hold less than 30 minutes as unreasonable unless there's no basis for the stop in the first place. It's a pretty minimal standard: Walking down the street, handing something to the driver of a car, and walking away can easily qualify. RS also authorizes the officer to require ID, to use that force which is reasonable to effect the stop (including handcuffing when the subject gives indications of either fight or flight), and can justify a protective search for weapons, if the officer reasonably suspects the suspect may be carrying them. The relevant case law is Terry vs. Ohio, and the Court has pretty much sustained itself on that one. (The case you cite actually affirms Terry as to the "reasonable suspicion" standard. If you had actually read it, you'd have seen it.)
Two: ID can be required for administrative purposes (access to secure facilities like courthouses) and by any private entity for pretty much any private purpose.
Three: When I contact someone for a violation, where it goes depends a lot on whether or not he's identified to my satisfaction. If he doesn't have any form of ID, or gives me another reason to believe that he won't show up on his court date, then he's not going to be released from the scene on a citation. He MAY be released on no bond, but only after a ride and the booking procedures. The law does not obligate me as an officer to just take strangers at their word, and frequently requires that I not do so.
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Damn right. Any nation where people are raised to speak French SHOULD get the Rome-and-Carthage treatment.
(Speaking of which...anybody notice France is a third-world hole with nuclear weapons? We need to do something about Chirac. If the man were any more of a menace to civilization, he'd be a Green, Democrat, or ChiCom.)
Singled out or not, it's really, really hard to make a radar say that you're driving 73 MPH when you're actually driving 46. There's an easy way to avoid this problem.
2) You should be able to have it because the GOVERNMENT does NOT own the road (taxpayers do) and they certainly don't own your car. They also do not have the right without warrant (probable cause) to interfere with or search your car. (Just because a police officer isn't searching your car, rather an electronic "detector", it is STILL an illegal search.
If you can find even one active statute or court ruling to support your claim here, I'll be extremely impressed.
It's not a search. There's a doctrine in US Constitutional Law called "plain view." That doctrine says that an officer is entitled to take enforcement action based upon any evidence which is in his plain view. Plain view means that he can see it from a place where he has a legal right to be, such as the shoulder of a public road.
And the Fourth Amendment doesn't ban "unwarranted" search. It bans "UNREASONABLE" searches. Exigent circumstances can overcome the warrant requirement, under certain conditions.
Oh, and it's not a search unless your "reasonable expectation of privacy" was invaded. In a moving motor vehicle on a public road, you have very little such expectation.
Besides, we haven't needed to ban radar detectors here in Colorado. I don't write speeding/careless off of radar anyway. Too much paperwork. A good stopwatch or pace is unbeatable in court anyway.
You've gotta be freakin' kidding. Got a pointer to this?
I'm a scout leader, and if they're really trying to pull this kind of happy horseshit then I'd really like to know the whole story.
Nobody can afford to buy anything? Does that mean your grocery shopping is done by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the US Agency for International Development? You live in a cardboard box? How are you posting on Slashdot? Did you bury a C64 in the back yard? Is Jon Katz about to write a feature piece about you?
"I can't afford to buy all or even most of the material stuff I want" is different from "I can't afford to buy oats and ramen, pay the electrical bill, or pay my rent/mortgage." If it's the latter, what are you doing on Slashdot? And how does either one impose an obligation on anyone else?
I think we'll all agree that domestic spending is the keystone of our economy. So how do unemployed, underemployed, and indepted people contribute? Henry Ford was smart enough to pay his workers well enough so that they could afford to buy a car. Do you see CEOs doing that today?
Actually, yeah, I do. Surprisingly few people in the US are working in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory for 11 cents per hour and 78 hours per week.
And bear in mind that US unemployment is just about 6%. Maybe that's a touch high, but you should also remember that for most of the post-WWII era, 6% was as good as it ever got.
So, if the US disarms, then enemies like China will follow suit?
I doubt it. The ChiComs are the biggest murderers left on the planet today. And they've already threatened nuclear bombing of the USA once in recent years. I'd rather not find myself at the mercy and dependent upon the good faith of a nation which thus far has not shown any.
You can beat your sword into a plowshare, but you'll be plowing for someone who didn't.
Not in the Colorado bill. In ours, "A person commits a violation under this section if he knowingly [commits a prohibited act, which would take me about ten pages to transcribe and does appear to include the operation of an otherwise legal VPN or IP-masq firewall.]
Colorado residents: This late in the session, it shouldn't be too hard to make sure this thing dies. Call your state rep and senator (it's been introduced in both houses: you can get the numbers through www.vote-smart.org if you know your own ZIP code.)
Right now, it's in the State House Information and Technology Committee, and the (god only knows why) Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. You can gripe to their chairmen, Rep. Shawn Mitchell at 303-866-4667 and Senator Doug Lamborn at 303-866-4835. Sen. Lamborn is the bill's Senate sponsor, so I don't know how much good that particular phone call will do.
Seconded. Although, the classification rules don't help.
On my (police) department, the guy in charge of Intel and Planning tried to start getting information out of the FBI. Now, they're pretty good about turning stuff over when the case is filed (as required by law, FRCP 16 I believe) but that's useless to other agencies who need it sooner.
So they told him to get a security clearance. Okay, except it would take about two years and the application is longer than our Application for Employment, Background Investigator's Questionnaire, and retirement plan enrollment combined. I don't think a 45-year-old man wanted to make the time to track down the rest of the starting lineup on his high school JV football team so that the effi-bee-eye could go and interview them.
You COULD almost say that the FBI did it that way deliberately, so that local cops wouldn't be able to get into their files and see what absolute morons they are.
Part of this order, I believe, is concerned with a law concerning storage and transport of hazardout wastes. Under certain circumstances, people who store or move hazmats are required to make that information publically available. Now, when I spent my year in Intel and Planning, this was great stuff to have. I and my fire department colleagues knew what there was in town that could blow up, poison everybody, et cetera.
Now, think we'd have been able to do if we didn't actually have any useful information to work with. There's really no point to gathering info if you don't intend to pass it along to the other people with a need for it.
Is there information on this 25 year list, which would endanger the public if it was released? Possibly. And then there's just as likely information that would endanger the public if kept classified.
Mostly in favor of the cops stopping drivers worth stopping. I'm not going to waste my time on a soccer mommy who's one second late on a light when I also see a redneck driving an uninsurable 1969 Dodge Dart, weaving and braking erratically. One's a under-$100 muni court ticket. The other one's probably a drunk. We don't get DUI fine money, but who gives a damn about that?
In addition, I can't count the number of times attractive female (just) friends of mine have cried/clevaged their way out of various traffic tickets.
You'd be shocked at how rarely that works, at least here in the western US. Showing flesh and turning on waterworks are guarantees of turning a warning into paper, with just about everyone on my department. You really want to beat a ticket from me? Be insured, keep your license and plates current, and don't lie to me or play head games, and my business card will be the only piece of paper you get from me.
It's also very easy to beat a traffic ticket by pleading not-guilty, moving the court date several times, and counting on the cop not to show, thus winning the case for lack of evidence.
It doesn't work anyway. Court clerks are wise to it, to the point that it's a bitch getting a re-schedule of a trial date. The right to trial doesn't imply anything about a right to weasel out by causing a trial to be delayed forever.
Cops *have* died during traffic stops, either by being shot (purposefully) or by being run over (accidentally). So, traffic stops are dangerous from the police perspective, and probably creates some citizen-police tensions as some police are on guard during them.
About a quarter of all line-of-duty slayings in the US occur on traffic. Being hit by cars isn't included in that stat.
Video minimizes unnecessary, dangerous, and potentially explosive contact.
Not to mention utterly-necessary contact. What do you think happens on a stop?
I've already run your plate by the time you know I'm behind you. When I light you up, you're probably nervous. "Is he going to hang paper on me? Shit! Did I pay the last one? Do I really get a phone call if he arrests me for not paying the last one???" Or words to that effect.
We're evaluating: Does he have sixteen used car stereos in the back seat? Eyes clear or bloodshot? Is that bottle's label for Aquafina or cheap vodka? Does he maybe even have a pretty good reason for driving 20 over, one that would get him out of a citation? (Yes, it happens. I'm willing to be convinced.) Is his license suspended? Is this an insurance proof, or just an agent's business card? (Both a big deal: insurance cheats are a pretty big reason for the rest of our rates being so high.)
Cameras can't evaluate. They don't exercise judgement. People can. A drunk driver (revoked as a habitual traffic offender) with five stolen TV's in the back will get a mail-in ticket, assuming his license plate is actually valid with correct information. He'll wipe his ass with it. What to do then? And the average person like you or me will be annoyed, write a check, and probably not experience the emotional trauma of the stop, which is what usually negatively reinforces the unacceptable behavior (the traffic violations) anyway.
If governments need to do revenue collection, I can think of an easier way. Punitive taxes on immigrants from California, for instance. The cameras SUCK for law enforcement or public safety purposes, though.
Our radios don't use lead-acid. They use NiCad or NiMH. For what it's worth.
That way you just put the gun and the radio in a charger stand at the end of your shift and pick them up the next day.
Not quite. When we go off shift, we transfer our sidearms from our duty holster to a concealment holster, as we're encouraged to carry 24-7.
Here in the states though I doubt they will catch on. Police officers lives depend on their sidearms every time they go out, jamming a bunch of unproven electronics into a violent container doesn't sound like my idea of high reliability. Unless these are field proven by something like the isrealie police I don't think many departments here would buy in.
Nobody will buy in, even if the Israelis endorse it. No American cop will touch it. We're neither impressed nor even much amused by Israeli firearms training and doctrine: They teach their police cadets and armed private citizens to carry WITHOUT a round chambered-an utterly stupid mode of carry for a defensive weapon. A pistol should be ready to go INSTANTLY when it clears leather, as you tend to have almost no spare time to react in a defensive situation. Certainly no spare time to load a weapon or change a battery.
This making this yet another bad idea from the rest of the world. Maybe they should let the Swiss, Austrians, Germans, and Italians make the defensive pistols and be quiet otherwise. (I wish certain American manufacturers could take that hint!)
If his first instinct, upon hearing anything, is to say "Try again, you lying piece of sugar-honey-iced-tea," he's arguably your best friend when dealing with an expert witness.
Someone mentioned the "too good to be true" principle. Let me offer a counter to that:
Let's say that I can have a SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse-Examiner) nurse take a rape kit from a victim. Let's then say that the assailant left certain body fluids behind.
Now, let's say that I have a suspect. Wouldn't it be nice if we could draw blood from him, compare it to the evidence left behind in/on the victim, and know with reasonable certainty whether hehad sex with the victim.
In my own lifetime, this was considered too good to be true. Today, genetic comparison is a fairly common part of sex crime investigation. It lets us nail the guilty to the wall, and helps us to exclude the innocent from suspicion more quickly. Sounds like a benefit to everyone.
Too good to be true? No, getting paid more than the BFI or Waste Management garbage collectors would be too good to be true.
Close, but not quite. If the judge declares a mistrial, then the whole thing can be done over. That takes serious attorney or juror misconduct, and AIUI has to be declared before the jury's verdict is actually read.
The cops in the Rodney King case were found innocent by a jury in California. That was never and could never have been appealed. They were charged under a different jurisdiction, by the feds, which means double jeopardy didn't apply.
Yes and no.
The US Supreme Court still needs to clarify this. However, the legal justification for the second trial was that the cases were not only brought by different jurisdictions, but for violation of substantively different criminal statutes. The CA state charge, I believe, was assault or something like. The Federal charge was "violation of civil rights under color of state authority, resulting in bodily injury."
There have been cases where similar situations in other states have had the Federal case dismissed on Double Jeopardy grounds.
Leaving aside the actual facts of that case. The Federal trial was a political show trial. It would probably have been tossed as DJ, were it not for the riots and the resulting desire to throw a few people in jail to appease a hungry mob.
Does that mean you bought the Sushi K Growth Stock?
There actually was a study on that- cardiorespiratory training actually seems to postpone or prevent senility. Improved circulation means improved circulation in the brain. And resistance training (done sensibly!!!) does wonders for improving bone density.
Learning a foreign language will always end up helping you in the end. Thankfully, most US schools mandate students to learn a foreign language nowindays.
No, US public schools don't mandate students learning anything. They mandate students attendance at classes in various subjects, which explains why so many Americans speak only English, take horoscopes and creationists seriously, believe what they hear about the justice system in the parking lot at Phish concerts, can't work with (or remember, if they ever knew) the Pythagorean Theorem, etc.
It's astounding how often these classes are ignored. These skills can be applied elsewhere, and gives you additional talents which most people lack. These skills are highly undervalued in toda's world. They will end up helping you in the long run (change your OWN oil, install the new toilet YOURSELF, etc), not to mention saving you money.
It's not just that you don't have to pay someone to do it for you. It also helps when there's nobody willing or able to do it. Teaching kids to plant vegetables, shoot animals, tear down and rebuild barns and lawnmower engines, etc., will make them able to be far more independent than all of the so-called "college track" classes on the planet.
Here's something I disagree on. Try to support the arts in every way you can, and go out and be artistic on your own. You never know where you'll end up
Learn an instrument. Supposedly it'll help with math.
And that is the United States:
Let me clue you in on something:
The gases whose use is contemplated are mainly oleoresin capsicum mixtures. They're PEPPER! Cops all over the world carry the shit, even in England!
I get sprayed with the crap every year for requalification purposes. I'm not sure I understand the controversy. Okay, it sucks being sprayed. It also washes off, and has been linked to fewer deaths than empty-hand non-striking less-than-lethal control holds.
And you're calling this a TERROR weapon? Would it be kinder to just play Dodge-the-Lead with Iraqi soldiers? (Also known as just shooting them, rather than trying to leave them relatively unharmed.)
So, you can try to pass non-lethal pepper spray off as being the same as ricin or VX, but it won't fly.
In this modern world, it is weakening the system of checks and balances that has kept us away from World War III for 50+ years. The French feel that if this war with Iraq goes forward, it will lead to 100 years of new wartime.
It may also be that Hussein owes French companies about sixty billion dollars US, for ventures undertaken since the last war twelve years ago, including a few chemical plants. (Hmmmm?) They may be afraid that a new Iraqi government may be unwilling to pay France for the NBC weapons that the last Iraqi government bought.
Who gives a rat's ass about France's opinion anyway? Everybody knows that when we stop wasting our money on defending Europe from itself, Germany will own the place again.
Richard Nixon? Ronald Reagan? Trent Lott? Antonin Scalia? Orrin Hatch? Wayne Allard? Bob Beauprez?
It's a rarity here. Actually, the main reason our President uses George W. Bush is to be distinguished from his father, George H.W. (Herbert Walker) Bush.
The only other politician I can think of who uses three names is a former senator from Illinois, Carol Moseley Braun. But that may be hyphenated.
Another variation you see (usually in local politicians) in the western US is J. Middlename Lastname. Ed Abbey discusses this in most of his books about people in Utah. J. Robert Garn. J. Oral Hatch. J. Franklin Smith. Et cetera.
I thought the Sims were tanking because of the number of people who built massive houses in the game, but lived in one-bedroom (no pets) condos in some NorCal hellhole in reality. I don't exactly understand the controversy here. The internet in general serves a few purposes: entertainment, and research tool. It's not reality. It's a piss-poor substitute. It's a medium in which people write personal journals to be viewed by the public, rather than in a spiralbound notebook kept on the nightstand, and then are surprised that most of the public wants stuff that affects _THEM_ rather than some stranger's personal and private thoughts about why sharp cheddar is better than queso fresco.
If you want an audience, you have to do something to make people interested. If you want people to read a blog, make it worth reading. If you want people to view your website, make it worth viewing. Enough people seem to think that AOL, Yahoo, Google, etc. are worth using. If you want the public to beat a path to your door, you need to have something to convince them that you're more worthwhile.
Or, someone can try top-down regulation (Anyone who views AOHell instead of Frankie's Blog will be fined $50!) but that has potential for being bad goat-roping comedy as well as socialistic bullshit. I think I'd rather give up the internet entirely rather than having petty popularity contests enforced by law.
Unlikely.
You've probably seen the gadgets on television claiming to use electrical impulses to work muscles in ten minutes a day without effort.
They're nonsense. Electrical stimulation is occasionally used for physical therapy, but in those cases it's excruciatingly painful (it takes a LOT of electricity to make a muscle charley-horse itself enough to gain or maintain strength, which is what they do) and the only reason PT's really use them over resistance exercises is for patients who need to work the muscles but must not be allowed to move the joints.
Maybe it would work for bones. I doubt it, but maybe.
OTOH, I can already guarantee it won't do anything for muscle. The only way (yes, the ONLY) way to cause muscle to increase in mass (or to even retain mass) is to force it to work against resistance. That's why people wishing to increase strength lift weights.
Obviously, that's not an option in space. A decent weight set will weigh 400-500 pounds all told, when you have to lift it and pay the weight penalty, and then won't weigh anything at all in orbit. A 275-lb barbell is enough resistance at Earth-surface gravity that I won't try to bench it without a spotter. That same barbell would make for a pretty poor workout when it has inertia, but no actual weight.
Maybe this calls for one of the rubber band contraptions. Bowflex, SoloFlex, and the like are not that great-the best thing to do with them is to call them pop-art coat racks. However, in the absence of gravity they might be the only real option.
Which brings up another question: Has NASA ever put returning astronauts on anabolic androgens? (What the uninformed call 'steroids?') The one legal use they have in humans in the US is to speed recovery from injury, and they might play a part in recovering from long orbits and the resulting bone and strength loss.
So how exactly do they propose to check up on me anyway? On what legal basis can they force me to let them into my business to perform an "audit" to their satisfaction? Who the hell do these people think they are anyway?
I'm not sure how it would work in the US. There's enough commonality between the US and UK civil law that I'll chance a guess:
You buy software, under circumstances which cause you to actually sign a contract. Say, a support agreement. Buried in that contract is a clause allowing the provider or its representative to conduct audits to ensure copyright compliance. Wham, you've just agreed to let them in the door to pull this crap for the duration of the contract.
If you don't let them in, they come back with a court order and a deputy sheriff (in state courts) or Deputy US Marshall (in Federal courts) to enforce same. Or so they threaten.
If the only such agreement is a clickthrough/shrinkwrap license, then they will have one hell of a time getting in the door if you tell them 'no.'
As the UK has "loser pays" in civil litigation, I'm going to guess that the BSA is a little less free with bullshit lawsuit threats against UK businesses. I could be wrong, though.
What I would do: If they have a warrant, comply with it but make sure that you have cameras or at least audio recorders running. If not, tell them where to go. Either way, your attorney (solicitor?) should probably be brought into the loop ASAP.
You also haven't told me how they even enhance normal policing, never mind how they enhance normal policing enough to justify the encroachment on one's right to travel in privacy.
In the UK, you're not required to carry ID, there is no 'one card' and not everyone has a driving licence. Even if you do, you aren't forced to have it when driving a car, for example.
Then that's a separate issue you need to take us with whoever writes your traffic code.
With a proper ID card, through which one can access unified sources of information, all that info you mention about outstanding warrants can quickly be accessed by the police.
I already have that. Anything with name and date of birth is enough to check wants. Driver's license will do it. Come to think of it, simply asking someone for that stuff, with the bullshit detector turned up works fairly well.
At the moment in the UK, if the police stop anyone they feel suspicious about, there is no official way of identifying that person quickly.
Funny, I'd have thought that someone would have set up something like NCIC by now.
And FWIW, part of having a free society means that we, the po-leese, can't always work at maximum effectiveness. Life requires trade-offs, and I frankly am not in the least willing to sacrifice my freedom and privacy as a citizen in order to make it easier to do my job as a public official. The alternative is to live in a hole like China, the USSR, or Germany.
Note: This does not necessarily reflect any consensus in my profession. About the only real agreement among most of the 800,000 of us (in the US) is that gun control is stupid, shift commanders are assholes, and caffeine is proof of a merciful god.
A 'good German' is someone who is quite happily to sacrifice someone else's freedom and someone else's privacy. Just to clue you in: it's a Godwin invocation.
and have ID cards, which they get along fine with, without anyone bursting into tears about civil liberty.
And only elsewhere in Europe would Germany be called a 'free' society. We've been over firearms ownership and unpopular political opinions in the press before. What about the fact that it's almost impossible to get an illegal search suppressed? The notion that there's very little recourse against a cop who actually does violate one's rights?
Of course you 'go out and talk to people', although I'm confused about the talking sweater. Try tracking down the slightly bigger criminals or tracking international fraud without access to more sophisticated channels of info. Why shouldn't those multiple channels be combined practically?
That's how we track down everybody. I don't see how you can have someone bigger than a murderer, or a rapist. Nor has it yet been explained to me just how a compulsory national identification will make it easier to solve any crime. I've been doing this crap for going on fifteen years. I wish someone would have told me that a magical ID card would make criminals walk up to my car just as I'm about to get some more coffee, and confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. I'd also like to know how a new ID card will make have of the wife-beaters in this town stop outright and the other half try to find better lies than "she fell down the stairs." Will it also make the victims stop recanting, after the process is nearly complete and just before the trial?
Come to think of it, will a national ID card tell me whether someone's illegally carrying a concealed weapon? If they're carrying legally, I can find that out with driver's license info, and I don't worry about it anyway: none of them have ever threatened or attacked me. Will it tell me if they're tweaked to hell and gone? Will it make tire tracks not wash away in the rain? Will it make fine young people who have been mislead by consumerist society into selling meth not run, thus making us chase them? Maybe I run a 24-minute 5K and bench 275 on a good day, but my knees are forty years old and the rest of me isn't that far behind. I'm a little bit old to be playing 'tag' with teenagers.
Will it tell me that someone's license is revoked for drunk driving and he has three bench warrants and a restraining order out? Will it tell me that he's been stopped for this same thing seven times in the last year? Will it tell me that he has a history of being verbally abusive with all cops and physically uncooperative with the ones he thinks he can take? The info on the front of his driver's license will tell me that. Come to think of it, so will the fact that we tend to be trained observers and aggression cues aren't difficult to pick up anyway.
As for the sweater: Sometimes, logoes, words, or graphics are printed on them. Even in the advanced and enlightened UK where you successfully avoid all the worst of US culture, you may have seen it.
There are plenty of things we could do in both countries to fight terrorism: Making visa/asylum procedures more than the joke they currently are is a pretty good start. But branding and ear-tagging our own people like so many cattle strikes me as at best unhelpful.
In theory, it's to make sure that one person doesn't have two different licenses under two different names. In practice, the image quality on the livescan print is so crappy that I wonder that it works at all.
If I were collecting prints to identify people later, as in a police state, I'd take a lot more than one index. There's a reason why booking cards are so big.
Why is it any of anyone's damn business who lives where? What if someone wants to be left the hell alone? What if they're not interested in being harassed by anyone with second- or third-hand access to the registry? (Yeah, I know, it's supposedly restricted. And this is the real world, and that's bullshit.)
They have this info anyway - how do you think they investigate criminals?
We go out and talk to people: "Okay, what did you see? And then what? Could you tell what his sweater said? What did the tattoo look like? And he headed which way? All right, here's my card. That number on the back is for my pager. If you see him again, call us right away." Combined with gathering physical evidence (often over-rated, but sometimes it helps) it's amazing what we can do without having a complete registry of where everybody is and where they've been.
Finally what countries have you been visiting that you don't want the police to know about?
Why is it any of their damn business?
Jeez. I'm an officer. And I still find your submissive "good German" attitude highly disturbing. If not vaguely sickening.
One: The standard is called "reasonable suspicion." RS is required to stop someone, or to detain for a "reasonable period for investigatory purposes. There's no bright-line rule about how long is "reasonable," but the courts are pretty flexible and are extremely unlikely to hold less than 30 minutes as unreasonable unless there's no basis for the stop in the first place. It's a pretty minimal standard: Walking down the street, handing something to the driver of a car, and walking away can easily qualify. RS also authorizes the officer to require ID, to use that force which is reasonable to effect the stop (including handcuffing when the subject gives indications of either fight or flight), and can justify a protective search for weapons, if the officer reasonably suspects the suspect may be carrying them. The relevant case law is Terry vs. Ohio, and the Court has pretty much sustained itself on that one. (The case you cite actually affirms Terry as to the "reasonable suspicion" standard. If you had actually read it, you'd have seen it.)
Two: ID can be required for administrative purposes (access to secure facilities like courthouses) and by any private entity for pretty much any private purpose.
Three: When I contact someone for a violation, where it goes depends a lot on whether or not he's identified to my satisfaction. If he doesn't have any form of ID, or gives me another reason to believe that he won't show up on his court date, then he's not going to be released from the scene on a citation. He MAY be released on no bond, but only after a ride and the booking procedures. The law does not obligate me as an officer to just take strangers at their word, and frequently requires that I not do so.