Kender prevaricates

In the course of making the grandiose claim that he’d be out single-handedly arresting illegal aliens, Kender MacGowan made the assertion that

[I]t is the law of the land that citizens are legally obligated to carry identification that proves their legal right to be within the borders of this great country…

I challenged Kender via email to provide the legal basis for his claim, and he responded:

According to the SCOTUS decision in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, you can be arrested for failing to provide your name to an officer, and this includes failing to have ID if you are stopped.

(Emphasis mine.)

It seems that poor Kender is the living embodiment of the well-worn saying that a little learning is a dangerous thing. The Supreme Court, in Hiibel, did indeed affirm that a citizen is required to give his name to a police officer if asked. But on the question of carrying identification, the Supreme Court stated:

[T]he Nevada Supreme Court has interpreted NRS §171.123(3) to require only that a suspect disclose his name… As we understand it, the statute does not require a suspect to give the officer a driver’s license or any other document. Provided that the suspect either states his name or communicates it to the officer by other means — a choice, we assume, that the suspect may make — the statute is satisfied and no violation occurs.

Given the contents of the Hiibel decision, there can be no doubt that Kender was lying when he claimed that US citizens are legally obligated to carry identification. There is no such legal requirement. He provides yet another example of the tendency among radical right-wing bloggers to invent whatever “facts” are necessary to support their arguments, regardless of what the truth may be.

UPDATE 04/10/06 05:28 EST: Kender has responded by email. He is apparently still terrified by the thought of discussing his claim in public:

If you do not have ID on you when a cop stops you, for whatever reason, the cop may legally arrest you and hold you until such time as he ascertains your identity. This is completely legal. Which means that you must carry ID, and if you do not you risk arrest for nothing more than NOT carrying ID.

Note that he has abandoned any pretense at supplying factual support for his claim. We are apparently supposed to accept this claim as fact Because! Kender! Says! So! There is no law, nor any court decision, that supports Kender’s position. Kender is still lying, and he knows it.