Is it a law that you have to carry state ID with you at all times?

Mr. Obvious wrote:

People who don't carry their driver's license on them while driving can be cited. I can't believe we had multiple people admit to that. Yes, that's a law.

Other times, no.

In many states you have 48 hours to produce a driver's license. You still get ticketed for not having it with you at the time you were driving though. Some states will reduce your fine if you show your license within 48 hours. Others will not.

malmo wrote:

You are wrong. It's unconstitutional for any State to make such a law.

On the other hand, you may find laws like this on the books, as there are many arcane and unenforceable laws that haven't been stricken from the record -- but in the United States, no law enforcement officer can ask for ID without probable cause of a crime.

Not necessarily. At least two of those states (Florida and Georgia) use a "loitering law" to be legal in it, making it a completely legal "stop and Identify" law, just the act of standing around in public is grounds for detaining by making standing around technically illegal. And according to Terry v. Ohio, the police don't need 'Probable Cause', just what they call "reasonable suspicion", in any of those states.

However, the term "unconstitutional" means little to me, as the authors of the constitution would probably believe most of the laws of our country these days to be "unconstitutional". "Unconstitutional" is merely how the current supreme court interprets it...

I've heard ID is required in NYC

I never need identification. I carry two fists, a roundhouse kick, and a beard. And I get through airport security that way if I want.

M.C. Confusing wrote:

However, the term "unconstitutional" means little to me, as the authors of the constitution would probably believe most of the laws of our country these days to be .

People who talk about what "the authors of the constitution" meant should be careful. I mean, there were a lot of people at the Convention, and many of them disliked each other personally and politically. They compromised over a lot of things because there were a number of opinions. And there were a number of notable political thinkers who weren't there. We also tend to forget about what a lot of the people writing the Constitution wanted. They'd have put in property requirements to vote and hold office but they couldn't agree on what they should be--too much regional variation in property ownership--and they left it out assuming that the states would come up with appropriate restrictions. Madison wanted to get rid of state governments and redraw regional boundaries; he also wanted to give Congress a veto over any state law. Among the other things that "the authors of the constitution" wanted was protection for slave owners and a legislative body that was unelected and could prevent the elected body from doing what it wanted. Many of "the authors of the constitution" owned humans and believed that women shouldn't participate in civil society. They lived in a place where a number of states had established churches and where religious dissenters were subject to criminal personalities and other restrictions (Maryland didn't allow Jews to hold state office until the 1820s, for example). None of this means we should write off what the framers thought and said, even the slave owners, just a reminder that what people though in the 1780s isn't necessarily the best guide to how people should live in 2010.

Sorry for the rant. As for the question, if you're a US citizen, you don't have to carry any ID with you. Didn't we use to make a big deal about how evil the Soviet Union was, with the secret police always demanding peoples' papers?