Border Check Point Officer vs Young Woman in Car 'IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS'

[struggle4progress]

7. As a general rule, I don't go to fizzy-drink ads for credible legal advice. My own advice,

as a non-lawyer, is not to be a jerk -- and don't yammer too much.

If they ask me to pull over while they investigate, I'll pull over so other folk could go by. She's right on the car search IMO, but she could have had that argument on the shoulder if necessary. I never heard anyone ask to search her car, so most of the yammering about that was pointless noise

I don't know for sure the status of a Federal request, to see the drivers license, but I'd expect that if push came to shove, the courts would hold that exhibiting a driver's license at an immigration checkpoint was a de minimis intrusion, and part of a reasonable attempt to check that people were providing coherent self-accounts. Certainly, if state or local authorities show up because you're blocking the road, the fact that you're behind the wheel is going to create an immediate impression in almost anyone's mind that a license request is reasonable -- and they're NOT then going to take the view that you can show then your license but only with your name covered up

I myself never seen a driver's license that shows citizenship status, though I suppose some states might include that info now -- but if so, I will think it odd, as US citizenship is a Federal status, not a state status