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Originally Posted by ThunderBalls
In my opinion it is and here's why. In a free society government agents should never have the authority to stop people at random (don't fool yourself, thats exactly what most traffic stops are) and question people on where they are going or where they just came from. The more people accept it the more it happens and it inches towards fascism. It is none of the govts business where I've or anyone has been.
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First off, he didn't stop me at random. He saw my tags expire in that month so he punched my license plate number into their system and it showed that they were in fact already expired so he then pulled me over. That is a legitimate stop. I was in violation of a law he was stopping me for it.
He never asked me where I was coming from, but as I said above he did ask me where I was going. I don't know what his intentions were with the question. I happen to know and am friends with a bunch of cops so I know a lot of times the seemingly innocent question isn't so.
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Why would it have been different if he wanted to search? Why would you care...you have nothing to hide.
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You are right, I had done nothing wrong and therefore he had no reason to search my car. Had he decided he wanted to do that for whatever reason I would have told him that I was not consenting to the search. Had he decided to get a warrant or if he told me he has probable cause I would have insisted that he wait to conduct the search until I had legal council present to observe it.
It is one thing to bite you tongue and not be a smartass when asked a question that is meaningless to you. It is another all together to have your constitutional rights violated. Again, in life you have to choose your battles. Searching my car (or house or anything) for no reason is one that I would choose to fight.