There's a quite big irony with regards to the United States: It's one of the very few countries in this world where you can actually refuse to ID to the police unless they suspect you of a crime (that they can articulate). This is a direct consequence of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The irony comes from the fact that, at the same time, the United States is one of the very few free democratic countries in this world where the police is constantly demanding your ID for the most minor of interactions, even when they don't have the legal right to make such a demand.
(Indeed, in most other free countries, especially in Europe, the police very rarely demands your ID when they interact with you, even when the country in question is a full-on "stop-and-ID state", ie. the law gives police the right to demand your ID for whatever reason they want, in any situation they want, no reason need given. They would have the legal right to demand it, yet they very rarely do it, especially on the streets.)
At face value this irony is a bit strange: One of the few countries in this world where the police does not have the legal right to ID you for whatever reason they want, is also one of the most "papers, please!" countries among all free countries in the world (and, in fact, even if we include some not-so-free countries.)
It's also a bit strange how universal and pervasive this practice is in the United States. After all, the country is very, very large, and consists of 50 states that are to a large extent pretty autonomous, with their own local parliaments, their own local lawmakers, their own local laws, and to a large extent their own local culture with regards to sociopolitics. The phenomenon is universal across the entire country, regardless of how extremely "liberal" or how extremely "conservative" the state may be (both at the cultural and the governmental level). Even if the state is governed by the most far-leftist extremist liberal government, or the most far-rightist extremist conservative government, it doesn't matter: The cops there still behave in the same way, demanding your ID for each interaction, no matter how minor, even when both state and federal law says that they can't make such a demand.
The amount of insistence does depend largely on the individual police officer, but very, very rarely do you encounter a cop who actually respects your rights to not ID by not asking it at all, or even by just backing off immediately if you refuse (when the cop has no legal right to demand it). Most of them will demand it, many of them will be extremely insistent about it, and some may even outright arrest you if you refuse (making up some bullshit charges to justify it.) The vast majority of people just submit to the demands because they don't know better, and the vast majority of people who get falsely and illegally arrested usually don't fight it in court because they either don't know better or it's too much hassle and stress.
But one has to ask: Why is it so pervasive and universal in the entirety of the country? It doesn't matter where you are, even if you are on the opposite extremes of the country both geographically and politically, it doesn't matter if you are in a huge multi-million-citizen metropolis or in a back water town with a three-digit population: The exact same "papers, please!" attitude by cops will be there.
The cops don't do that on their own. It's not their own idea. They are instructed to do so, in training, in the academy, and afterwards. They might even be quite strongly instructed to do so by their trainers, their superiors and, by extension, their more veteran fellow officers.
But why? And why everywhere in the entire vast country?
Well, many have presented the hypothesis that this is actually coming from the federal government, most probably the FBI, the NSA or some other similar three-letter agency (but most probably the FBI). Such a federal agency is sending all police precincts memos that instruct them to do that.
And why? Because when the cops get your ID and "check for warrants" in their computer, your ID gets logged into a police database that's connected to the federal government, likely the FBI. This is not just a conspiracy theory, as there are several such databases, but most prominently the NCIC. Every time the cops enter your ID in their computers, it gets logged into that database alongside other info (location, date, etc.)
In other words, it's a form of mass surveillance, and that's the main reason why the FBI and/or other federal agencies are instructing all police precincts in the entire country to do this.
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