Police chief says citizens could be subject to ID checks (Page 2)

You realize that "reasonable suspicion" has been defined by the Supreme Court, right?

This is from the wiki's

In Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada the Court further established that a state may require, by law, that a person identify himself or herself to an officer during a stop; some states (e.g., Colorado^[4]) require that a person detained provide additional information, but as of November 2010, the validity of such additional obligations has not come before the Supreme Court.

Don't know what that means, but it looks  to me like it's likely to go before the court.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!  That was awesome.  

I'm just going to play the devils advocate based on the info you provided. If it had not been an innocent father daughter argument and had been someone with predatory intentions towards a young girl and he had some physical or other control over the girl and the officer had just taken his word as to the relationship and it turned out bad for the girl we would all be criticizing the officer for his lack action..

Not outrageous at all....but I'm sure it may seem so to someone who doesn't routinely come across men and women fighting, in a situation where the woman is too afraid to tell the police what is happening in front of her attacker/abuser.

In a case like that, we don't much care what people who don't do what we do think....because our experience on how the majority of these things go tells us to, at the very least, investigate further to make sure everyone is OK.  

It is what it is.....the court got it right.

Still, that situation is alot different than just stopping someone the street and asking them for ID.

I'm pretty confident given the factors that the US S. Ct. says courts are to look at, one being how the officer is dressed and armed, that an officer dressed in SWAT gear carrying an assualt weapon and asking a person to come over and present ID, I'm VERY VERY confident that most courts would find that is not a valid citizen encounter.

You're wrong.  It's reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity.  The reasonableness isn't the subjective belief of the officer, it's the objective belief of its reasonableness.  (This is if you're talking about the stop being upheld.  If you're simply talking about the actual stop, there's a common saying in law enforcement: "You can beat the charge, but you can't beat the ride."

Considering the fact that we are headed in the direction of many Police Officers being dressed that way in their normal daily duties, at least in our large metropolitan areas......we'll see.    Obviously your point is valid, but as our police departments are allowed to be better equipped and better armed (see militarized), it'll be interesting to see what becomes "normal".  

One thing for sure, it won't be up to you and me. 

Well, I'm not going to quible with you, but " reasonable articulable suspicion" is a term of art, and has a meaning in jurisprudence. As a term of art, while you may think the meaning is nebulus, in criminal courts it's not. (Thus, you're actually wrong)  One of the best definitions I've seen is: "A “founded” suspicion is one which has some factual foundation in the circumstances observed by the [sic] officer when those circumstances are interpreted in light of the officer's knowledge. Mere suspicion ... is ... random selection, sheer guesswork, or a hunch; it has no objective justification." K.G.M. v. State, 816 So.2d 748, 753 (4th DCA 2002)
As it pertains to Florida, the "he was drunk", or "he was loitering" wouldn't fly, because neither are indications of criminal activity to justify an investigatory stop or a seizure. (As it pertains to automobile stops and the suspicion of being drunk there is a different standard that allows a stop of an automobile on something less than reasonable suspision of criminal activity, but that's an entirely different debate and discussion)  Again, you've edited the standard, it's not "suspicion of criminal activity" that's a leasor standard.  The standard is" reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity"  sometimes you will also see it referred to as "founded suspicion". 

If your argument at it's simplest is that police can abuse their power and stop someone for anything, of course they can, and some do.  However, my experience in the criminal justice system for almost two decades is that these situations are rare.  Additionally, there is a difference between a citizen encounter (where the police can walk up to anybody at almost anytime without a reason and start talking to them), a stop, and a seizure.  Each situation is different, and each has it's own requirements.

Also there's another factor that goes into this discussion and that's the idea of "pretextual stops", prior to the Wren case even if there was a reasonable articuable suspicion of criminal activity to justify the stop, if the stop was simply pretextual to effectuate a search/seizure the stop was pretextual and thus a violation of the Constitution.  However, the concept of pretextual stops has been largly watered down by the US Supreme Court.  Even so, the idea is still encompassed in the idea of reasonable articuable suspicion in that a "mere suspicion" is not sufficient, neither is "guess work", these are not sufficient to justify a stop.

And we're just talking about the initial stop, the issue of subsequent searches is a totally different discussion dealing with Frisks, plain feel, search incident to arrests, and while the analysis sometimes overlaps, it is a different and distinct discussion, with different legal criteria and requirements. 

Remember an investigatory stop, isn't an arrest.  And a valid investigatory stop doesn't mean that there is a necessary right to then search the individual.

So, yeah...you're wrong.

ChrisM is in way better shape than me!