Key word: Unreasonable.
All searches are reasonable by virtue that it is a federal agent doing the searching. If it were unreasonable he wouldn't be searching would he? /sarcasm
This thought process is similar to many countries legal systems. In those if you are brought before a judge, you are already guilty simply because the police arrested you, since the police never arrest innocent people.
In Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, the Supreme Court is poised to address the question of whether an individual has the right to refuse to identify himself to a law enforcement officer before arrest. This case implicates a plethora of privacy issues such as Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable government search and seizure, the right to anonymity, and law enforcement accumulation and use of personal information.
Procedural History
This case arises from the arrest of Larry Dudley Hiibel for refusing to identify himself to a law enforcement officer prior to arrest.
A Humboldt Country sheriff's deputy responded to a concerned bystander's phone call reporting that a man had struck a female passenger inside a truck. The officer arrived on the scene and was directed by the citizen to Hiibel standing next to a parked truck with his daughter inside. The officer observed skid marks which led him to believe that the truck had been pulled over "in a sudden and aggressive manner." After speaking to Hiibel and observing his behavior, the officer became suspicious that Hiibel might have been driving while intoxicated. Hiibel refused eleven times to provide identification and was subsequently arrested under Nevada Revised Statute § 171.123(3), which allows an officer to detain a person to ascertain his identity when there are circumstances reasonably indicating that person has committed a crime.
Hiibel was charged with and convicted of resisting a public officer in violation of state law, and he appealed the conviction. The Nevada District Court determined it was reasonable and necessary for the officer to ask for Hiibel's identification, and asserted that the public interest in requiring Hiibel to identify himself outweighed his right to remain silent. Hiibel filed a petition asking the Supreme Court of Nevada review the case, challenging the constitutionality of Nev. Rev. Stat. § 171.123(3).
The Nevada Supreme Court denied the petition, determining that the statute is consistent with the rights against unreasonable search and seizure protected by the Fourth Amendment because it "strikes a balance between constitutional protections of privacy and the need to protect police officers and the public."