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Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

The US tries not to be a papers please police state where it's a crime not to carry papers with you and present them on demand. We consider systems like that to be totalitarian and despotic based on our past experiences observing and waging war against hostile oppressive nations with such systems.

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> We consider systems like that to be totalitarian

Who is "we"? Non-citizens of the USA are required to carry their immigration status documents with them, [1] and checkpoints within the 100-mile border zone (where 2/3 of the population lives [2]) are one place where they must be presented. If you are a US citizen without proof, and are stopped, and the official thinks you are lying, I believe you are going to have A Bad Day.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-right...

[2] https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

Well, in most cases "we" means the permanent legal inhabitants, not tourists. Legislation is not created by tourists.

Permanent legal residents are required to carry their IDs.

> If you are a US citizen without proof, and are stopped, and the official thinks you are lying, I believe you are going to have A Bad Day.

e.g. US citizen Valeria Alvarado was shot and killed when she panicked and tried to get away from plainclothes CBP agents.

He/she is not making this up. This is pretty much exactly how I think. When somebody says, “don’t want to be arrested by a bot? Just carry you papers!”, that sounds like absolutely evil tyranny to me.

The US requires permanent residents to carry their green cards at all times.

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