Kansas to fingerprint traffic offenders?

This story in The Star today doesn't say what happens to me if I refuse to be fingerprinted:

• If you are stopped by police in Kansas, don’t be surprised if the officer pulls out a little black box and takes your fingerprints.
• The gadget allows officers to identify people by fingerprints without hauling them to the police station.
• Over the next year the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will test 60 of the devices with law enforcement agencies around the state. State officials said similar tests are being planned for New York, Milwaukee and Hawaii.
• “This is definitely new,” said Gary Page, Overland Park Police Department crime lab. “It’s been talked about, but as far as I know they are not in use anywhere in the metro.”
• The tests in Kansas are part of a bigger $3.6 million upgrade to the KBI’s statewide fingerprint database, unveiled Tuesday by the KBI and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.

So  you're pulled over because your headlight's out. A warning, certainly. A ticket, maybe. Fingerprints?

Update: I spoke with Kyle Smith, an attorney and deputy KBI director:

"It doesn’t change the rules on when we can require somebody to produce ID," he said. "If we can require them to produce a driver’s license, we can require them to produce fingerprints. But other than that, it doesn’t change the rules.

Bottom line: "If he can write you a ticket, he can demand ID," he said.

Update #2: Heard back from Kyle Smith - fingerprint ID may not apply to routine traffic stops like headlight out...he's looking into it.

Bio-metrics ompany behind this

Update Sunday, March 26, 2006:

• Simple traffic stops will not be enough for police officers to demand on-the-spot fingerprint scans when portable devices are tested in the coming months, Kansas officials say.
• Star story: Mobile print policy clarified
  

Comments

Havent you all figured out that all this sex offender registry and stuff is just a prototype? They are using the "sex offenders" and "lynching" them, using them as guini pigs for tracking technology that all of us will soon be required to partake in.

John, Why would you tell the Cop to f off? Why are you mad at the cops? Are you so ignorant that you don't realize that the cops do not make the laws? And, if you want to tell a cop that, go ahead, it will give them something to laugh at in roll call the next day.

In Missouri, police cannot require fingerprints from you if you are not under custodial arrest for certain offenses.

Read RSMo. 43.503. It has juvenile in the name, but read subsection 2 and you will realize that it does not apply just to juveniles.

Now, when read in conjunction with 43.506 RSMo, you will learn that the enumerated charges are the only ones the police can require prints on.

The real problem here is not whether they can or cannot. The problem is they will act as if they can, and then write their report up that the person consented. This is the same thing that happens everyday on vehicle searches.

Since when does being pulled over by a traffic cop make you guilty. As I recall, the law states PLAINLY innocent until proven guilty. Now, if I am proven guilty of a crime, I will submit my fingerprints. Until then the cop will have to dust my ticket......If he can find a reason to cite me one.

[kcwatcher]

I'm all for law and order but the fingerprint thing is ridiculous.

Since we're not able (not willing?) to enforce our borders and since most states will hand out a driver's license to anything with a pulse (rendering the DL pretty much worthless as ID), the solution is to treat everyone like a suspect.

To the "nothing to hide" crowd... can you imagine the problems you'll have trying to correct a false hit from the fingerprint scanner? Biometrics may be pretty reliable but I wouldn't hang my life/liberty on it.

If you think getting a credit report error fixed is tough... and VISA can't hold you in jail until it is.

[Ian]

If the government wanted your fingerprints on file, it would have your fingerprints on file. I have yet to see a dark suited man with dark glasses and an earpiece following me or anyone else around picking up everything we just touched and dusting it for fingerprints.
Let's be a little more crazy, can we?

[Patriot]

Let them try and take your fingerprints and reject their request. Then take them to court in a jury trial and let the jury nullify the law. It is a bad law.

[Patriot]

Go to http://www.rbnlive.com and listen to the live radio feed to stay informed. Join others in this country if you love freedom on RBNLIVE.COM.

[Brian]

lets all be tracked by satelite. we can skip the finger print and have our speeding tickets emailed to us.
we will know who the murders are because we will know who was together when one heart stopped beating. we will be able to zap killers from space instantly by lazer. we can have a hearing with out them there..the satelite evidence will be overwhelming. and no one will ever fight a speeding ticket agian.

[Shocker Alum]

Personally, what's the big deal. You either have your driver's license or you don't. If you don't they will verify who you are by your fingerprint.

BUT,

Correct me if I'm wrong...they will only be able to verify your ID via fingerprints if your prints are already on file for a past crime.

Don't like it? Don't commit crimes and always have your license when driving.

Go Shox.

[Tom]

All that "stricter laws" means is that some government person has decided to remove more of our supposedly inviolable rights. It's amazing how many people fall for the excuses. Or is it?

[jp]

Sorry folks but I'm another one of those nasty conservatives (to a degree). I'm not going to name call because some of you are afraid fingerprinting would falsely incriminate you? But some of you people sound like you have covert agents following you in "black" helicopters etc...

We live in a world now where we have to protect ourselves from foreign and domestic terrorists and terrible criminals. Officers do need new tools to help them in the field.

I will agree with some of you to a point. Minor traffic infractions don't warrant being fingerprinted but when an officer makes a stop and they have the ability to run a warrant check and discover criminal warrants or during the stop make a criminal arrest you are going to be fingerprinted anyway. I say give them the ability to do it in the field but regulate how they are able to use this tool.

[ron]

brian and reality check are dead on right here. this is the government once again taking a little more freedom away.
remember when you mearely got a ticket? then it went to socalled voluntary searching of your vehical if the police felt like it. of course if you refused they would take you to jail and search anyway. then it went to again socalled voluntary breathalyzers and sobriety checks if the officer decided it was necessary(or according to your skin color or tone of voice depending on the officer. and again if you didnt submit you get taken to jail. now its up to fingerprinting at the discretion of the cops. and of course with the patriot act if the government just decides to they can circumvent all of out rights anyway. its madness to think that anything about this country is free.
And if you think the government cares about keeping you safe then you lying to yourself and might as well go bury your head in the sand. if they were then there wouldnt be thousands of illegal immigrants swarming over the rio grande each year unchecked. if they were then they would be sending the armed forces after the people who actually attacked our country not protecting oil fields in iraq.
if you keep letting laws like these get passed you will eventually figure out what some of us here are talking about. only by then it will be far to late.

[jp]

wrong

There are a TON of you, who have posted on the blog, that apparently need to remove themselves from society, and relocate somehwere of the grid; possibly in rurual Idaho. Otherwise the men in black and their black helicopters will undoubtedly get you. I've never seen such a collection of consipiracy theorists. Perhaps you should not even get a driver's license, but upon being stopped by an officer you should just declare yourself a king or queen, present your sovereign nation ID card saying you are not subject to laws of the US; which have been enacted by democratic means.

Driving has, over and over again, been considered a privilege by our courts. It's not a fundamental right. You pay taxes on your car, you register the car, when you accept a driver's license you are in fact giving your implied consent to subject yourself to the laws of the road. Like it or not.

These laws were established, ruled upon and are enforced under the same laws of the land that you use to attempt to prove the establishment of a big brothe state that you claim is eroding your personal freedom. And in all seriousness who among you have truly been the victim of a goverment consipiracy? I've never met anyone who has that I wouldn't consider patently crazy.

Part of the beauty of the consitution is that it's a very fluid document that's open to interpretation and to change. The founders themselves understood this and thus built in ways to change it through policitcal process.

I personally don't really care, one way or another, if they ask for my fingerprints, hair sample, saliva sample, or whatever else they might come up with. I've got nothing to hide. And if it would facilitate and officer's job in any manner I would voluntarily co-operate. I don't need them to pass a law telling me to do something like that.

[BigAL]

ip...you're an idiot!

[Big AL]

To Tom, Brian, ip and all the other idiots... Driving a car doesn't cancel out your civil liberties!
You're nothing bunch of jack-booted NAZI's. Don't forget to say "Heil Hitler!" each and every day.

[Patriot]

Another method of resistance is: Don't let them take your finger print because it is yours and they don't have jurisdiction. Force the court to prove that they have jurisdiction. Clue: They can't. No court in the land can prove that you are the one that signed a drivers licence. No court can prove that you are a US citizen either. (Unless they get you to say something to admit it). If the court can't prove jurisdiction over you, they can't enforce any traffic laws or any ticket.

[Robin]

I just wanted to let you know that biometrics is already filtering in on my occupation. I am a nurse, and work all over in both KS and MO. We had to submit fingerprints to access the medication machine to pull medications for each patient. And at another place, our ID tags are scanned at every doorway we cross so that they know exactly where we are at all times or if we exit the building. I am not saying whether this is right or wrong or if i agree or disagree with it. Just wanted to make you aware that it is probably coming to other occupations as well.

[Valorie]

I would have to be suspicious of anyone in "law enforcement" gathering personal identification data in a routine traffic-related stop.The claim that this expensive experiment in data collection was not going to be stored makes the "experiment" seem foolish. Do any of we adults really believe the data is not being at least "evaluated", as a crude study of some sort?
Sooooo, tell me Officer, how do you plan to dispose of those so-called accurate identity indicators, my personal fingerprints?!?!

[jp]

To Big Al who called me and several others idiots...oh well...at least I won't feed your psychosis! It's obvious your overly paranoid. Maybe you need you medication dosage adjusted. I'm not worried about losing my "civil liberties" by allowing someone to identify who I am.

Here's another one for you...You're the bigot for even suggesting that because we freely express our OPINIONS that we are Nazis! A right, I might add, that I and I'm sure numerous others here have fought for so that you can express yourself the way you choose. You just choose to be nasty about it. A good thing you can hide out in this blog because I guarantee you wouldn't have the "cajones" to say anything like that to my face. (An American who has every right to express himself as you do!)

IP I Agree with you 100%

[jp]

Hi Valorie,
What makes you think when you're pulled over by an officer or stopped by an officer who requests your name that they're not trying to gather personal infomation data to try and accurately identify you? Besides, when a police officer asks you for your ID you are REQUIRED to provide it.

The means to ID you in a fingerprint database already exists with the KBI and FBI as long as you're in the database.

The police have had the ability to ID you from the fingerprint database for some time. This just gives them the ability to do it remotely without having to take you to the police station or jail in order to do it. As I said previously, I believe this is a useful tool for law enforcement but I don't think a traffic stop warrants a fingerprint check as long as you provide the officer other means of "valid" identification.

But others pose a good question. It's just another means of identification. What are you really afraid of?

[mojo]

This is a fingerprint SCANNER, it is not a fingerprint taking machine. If you have not already been fingerprinted at a police station, it won't be able to tell who you are.

[ron]

ip, what the hell are you ,bush's add campaign writer? i am so sick of the BS excuse of we have to protect ourselves from terrorists. and like i said if the government was so worried about the damn terrorists it would be going after osama and not protecting iraqi oil fields. its sheep like you who got the worst president in history reelected.

for those of you saying "i have nothing to hide" -you are completely missing the point. they keep passing these laws hoping they get that exact response from the public.

Mojo-

You really think that they, the police, are going to despose of your finger print along with your information if they dont have you in their files already?

Are we all supossed to believe that the police are going to delete any of the finger prints taken?

No way! If you get pulled over and they dont have your finger print in the system you better believe that they will take your information and match it up to the fingerprint scanned on sight. If you really think that they wont you are living life with your head in the sand.

[ciajoe]

BEING FINGER PRINTED AT THE BANK

I would think it would be unconstitutional for any party to have to give his/her finger prints when attempting to cash a check at a bank.

The two times I've encoutered it, I felt like a criminal.

[Jake]

Ahhhh another disenchanted (Ron) liberal; you just don't get the mechanics of the "fingerprint identifcation machine." Don't worry, the machine cannot distinguish liberal from conservative....you're safe!!!

A brief scan of these posts leads a reasonable person to believe that many deadbeats on this site don't like authority. They want the cops around when they are in dire need of something but when everythings ok they want the cops to beat it! What a bunch of pukes.

Can't please everyone all the time! How that for summing up this stupid thread. Give your fingerprints or go to jail. Hows that!

[Rick]

I am amazed after reading through these blogs, the amount of fear that is coming from those who think they are losing their "Civil Liberties". I have never heard of so much self-centeredness in one place before. You are more concerned about "YOU" not being finger printed than giving the police the tools they need to help get the criminals off of the street. You are the same people who grip and complain when the police are not doing the job you think they should be doing in getting these people off of the street. I have never understood this mentality of people wanting the police to do their job and expect them to do it with their hands tied behind their backs.
I served my country too, and the last time I checked, Our freedom did not come free and it still doesn't.

Sounds like too many people on this blog nursed their mommy too long! Either that or they didn't get their butt spanked when they were a kid. Or they didn't have a father figure in their life.

The problem is most of these people don't know what its like to serve their county, their city or do anything for another person. They were born with a silver spoon in their mouth or food stamps in the mail box and don't know what its like to have to work for something. Their freedom is something the take for granted, now and always!

BEING FINGER PRINTED AT THE BANK

"I would think it would be unconstitutional for any party to have to give his/her finger prints when attempting to cash a check at a bank.

The two times I've encoutered it, I felt like a criminal."

Did you feel violated! Go live in another county then! This is the United States and this is reality.

[akakafka]

While i'm sure there are "black helicopter" believers in the Civil Libertarian crowd ... most are looking out for future generations. We don't believe the abuse will be widespread this week, or next, or even next year ... the concern is down the line.
Someone above spoke of Libertarian selfishnes. Au contraire ... the selfish party is the one that gives up rights for all future generations so that they can feel safer now.
Once we citizens give up a right (or conceed that we do not have a certain right in the first place), we never (or only very very rarely) get it back.

[Patriot]

Perhaps those that think it is always okay to go along with whatever government wants to do, should just give your fingerprint and volunteer for the mark on your right hand or forehead. You will make an excellent slave. May your chains lay lightly upon you, for your future is not good. You do your country a great disservice when you act in such a way.

For those that cherish their freedom (rights which come from God, some of which are listed in the Constitution) and are of the same mind as the founders of this nation, you have placed yourselves in good company and a rich heritage. You have many friends and we are proud to be counted with you as our fellow countrymen/women. Stand strong and fear not, for those that give up freedom for security or safety, will have neither.

"Au contraire"

Why don't we have all american vote on democracy or anarchy. Lets try anarchy for a while and see how these non-police, I'm violated, unconstitutional, silver spoons like it without the police for a day, week, or month. They'll be crying to have the police back. Why because they'll be victims.

[Rick]

Patriot,
You stated "rights which come from God, some of which are listed in the Constitution". I am a born again Christian and I don't remember reading in my Bible where God gave us rights. He gave us promises with conditions and free will to choose to or choose not to do them, but I am drawing a blank on the "rights" bit. Can enlighten me as to where you found this in the Bible?

You have the right to refuse to give your fingerprints, so refuse and then watch the cops hold you down and take them once you get to the jail. If you're all so concerned why aren't you complaining to the people making and passing the laws you feel uncomfortable with?

[Hakee]

Hi ! Your site is very interesting. Thank you.

[Ricko]

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