Police Want Expanded Arrest Powers

AUSTIN, Texas

Sobriety checkpoints. Expanded arrest powers. License plate readers on the highways.

Civil libertarians say personal freedom is under attack in the Texas capital.

The latest move came Wednesday in the Senate, which passed a bill giving the police much broader authority to arrest people. The legislation, approved on a 22-8 vote, would create the new crime of "failure to identify" after being detained.

It comes on the heels of legislation, already passed by the Senate, that would establish police roadblocks to crack down on intoxicated motorists, allow automated police cameras to take pictures of license plates on the highways and permit mandatory blood draws for certain people suspected of drunken driving.

Sponsors of the controversial bills coming out of the Senate say there are enough protections, such as the requirement that sobriety checkpoints be announced in advance, to ensure law-abiding citizens aren't hassled.

But taken together, the proposals represent a significant assault on civil liberties, critics say.

"Our concern is we could be taking a big step backward in terms of the rights of Texans to be left alone," said Rebecca Bernhardt, policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. "The question for Texans is: 'should folks who are following the law be interfered with'?"

The bill expanding arrest powers drew brief but sometimes heated debate in the Senate.

Current law makes it a crime when detained people intentionally mislead police about their identity. It's also a crime to refuse to provide one's identity after being arrested. But it's still legal in Texas for people to refuse to identify themselves as long as they haven't been arrested.

That would change under the bill approved by senators Wednesday. It would make it a crime to refuse self-identification if a person has simply been detained by police. Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, author of the measure, said police need the expanded authority.

"In this time of homeland security issues, if we have a police officer detaining someone ... it is in the best interest of the safety of that officer and our community to find out who that person is," Patrick said.

Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, initially opposed the bill, saying he had a problem with this "show me your papers thing."

"We still live in a free society. I don't want police officers to be able to pull you over and ask you to identify yourself just because that's what they want," Williams said. But Williams ended up voting for the bill after it was amended to say that the police officer had to be acting on a "reasonable" basis when making the arrest.

The amendment did not offer enough protection for opponents, who said the measure could lead to racial profiling or unjustified police harassment.

"We get into some real civil liberty concerns when we're allowing that broad power under detainment only," said Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth. "I think we're opening ourselves up to some unforeseen consequences."

Late last month, the Senate riled some civil libertarians when it passed two bills aimed at cracking down on drunken driving. They would allow police to set up sobriety checkpoints in large counties and cities and give law enforcement more latitude in forcing motorists to submit to mandatory breath or blood tests.

Then last week, the Senate unanimously approved a measure allowing the state police or federal law enforcement authorities to set up and operate "automatic license plate identification cameras" on public highways. The bill is supposed to be used for crime prevention but critics say the data and images gathered could be misused.

The bills would still have to be passed by the House and approved by the governor before becoming law.

Some critics also say the proposal to ban smoking in public places statewide is an assault on personal freedom, but that legislation hasn't reached the Senate floor yet.

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The failure-to-identify bill is SB1175

The sobriety checkpoint bill is SB298

The license plate camera bill is SB1426

The smoking ban bill is SB544