as77

So then it's biased. That's what I suspected, but it's good to see it explicitly stated. Thanks for the clarification.

It would help if the opening post was in English and was limited to about 3 sentences to explain what this is all about.

I can highly recommend this page:What Happens When I Am Stopped By The Police

But according to the OP, the FBI people said: "We talk to anyone with a GPS or PDA who has been in the vicinity of multiple federal buildings." So if you have a GPS or a PDA on you and you are near several federal buildings, you are suspicious. I don't know what the suspicion is but, you are suspicious.

Not true. The Terry stop is detention, too, based on reasonable suspicion. Only difference from an arrest is that it has to be short.

Have to make an arrest? Where did you get this information? This is the most bizzare thing I have heard in a long time. I was reading this legal stuff yesterday. Reasonable suspicion justifies a Terry stop, probable cause justifies an arrest. If a police officer has a probable cause I think his job is to make an arrest.

He meant 'reasonable suspician'. Yes, that would be the correct term. So, can someone tell me exactly what is the "reasonable suspicion" when someone walks with a PDA in hand? What is he suspected to be doing? If there is reasonable suspicion, the officer must be able to explicitly state what this suspicion is.

Aren't you confusing something? If you have a probable cause you have to make an arrest.

Well, if the MDT (whatever that is) does not respond that is your problem. I don't think I can be detained just because you guys have a lousy system that doesn't work. If you cannot check out my ID within 5 minutes then let me go. I have better things to do than waiting for your MDT that doesn't answer.

Anyway, after reading this thread, I decided not to go geocaching to DC... especially as I'm not even a US citizen, so in the same situation I would probably be arrested, interrogated for hours in a basement or something. I don't need that.

OK, but we don't have to speculate, let's create an artificial scenario. A guy with an electronic device (which could be a PDA or a GPSr) is walking up and down on the street near a federal building, often glancing on the device and he seems to be confused. That's all you see and you are a LEO. Do you decide to stop the guy, make him tell the story of his life, get his ID, call the info in, and generally hassle him for 20 minutes because you have reasonable suspicion that he is a terrorist and what he's doing is that he's collecting the coordinates of the building so that a few weeks later he can fly a plane into it?

I agree that this situation may be sufficient for an arrest. However, do you think that the simple fact that someone is walking on the street with a GPSr or a PDA is sufficient for a reasonable suspicion that he is up to no good? Is a 20-minute, tiresome interrogation justified?

As far as I know, special registration means that the individual has to show up in person for an interview with the authorities.

Exactly. I just don't see what they can learn from the answers to these questions. He was here before once, a week ago or he was here eight times in the preceding 2 years. What difference does it make? These FBI people must be stupid.

This is already happening. It is very hard to obtain a visa for citizens of the countries you mentioned (FBI background checks often taking several months are made) and even after they enter the US, they have to report on where they are and what they are doing periodically (every 30 days for some countries, every year for others; this is called "special registration"). And of course all foreign tourists are photographed and their fingerprints are taken. I don't think this system should be tightened even more.

Of course they don't. But then again, US citizens don't have a right to enter other countries either. Don't you think?

I took it to mean that they were wearing the windbreakers that seam to be in fashion. The custodial issue is the big one. I wonder if they had his license during the twenty minutes of questioning, talking amongst themselves, calling the issue in, et al. If they did, it would be reasonable to believe that one was not free to leave. A policeman can only ask your name if it is a Terry stop. If it is a Terry stop you cannot leave, you are temporarily detained. There is no question that the OP's case was like this.

Wow. Talk about racial profiling... I guess being a geocacher with a middle eastern look could be a pretty bad combination... Well, I do have a tremendous problem with people being asked questions because of their ethnic origin.

I just did some research and indeed the WTC terrorists bought Garmin GPS III Pilots to use on the plane, and Mohamed Atta spent a few days in Manhattan, and it is speculated that he might have used a GPS device to record the coordinates of the WTC. I guess they didn't buy the Mapsource City Select CD because if they had had that they could have just marked the destination based on the street address of the WTC... So now because of this everyone with a GPS is a terrorist suspect... great.

So what's the logic behind considering GPSrs suspicious? Did the terrorists of the WTC actually walk to the WTC with a yellow eTrex in hand to record its coordinates so that their buddies who flew the planes could enter the coords in their eTrexes and find the towers based on that?

I wonder if there is now a record filed at the FBI regarding the OP... Next time they do another Terry stop on him, he might get arrested because behaving suspiciously twice will be regarded as probable cause. And if this happens to a foreign tourist, next time he wants to enter the US they might deny his entry (or he doesn't get a visa in the first place) on the basis that he has an FBI record.

Not true. What happened here was a "Terry stop", which does mean detention. traeumer could not have walked away during the investigation. He was detained for 20 minutes based on "reasonable suspicion", which was not enough for arrest but it was sufficient for a Terry stop. A Terry stop should be limited in duration but there is no specified time limit. If it takes too long it turns into an arrest. I think 20 minutes is close to the upper limit of what was reasonable in this case.

Twenty minutes of interrogation is a bit too much. If they ask two questions and look at my ID, that's OK. But don't detain me for 20 minutes asking a lot of stupid questions. What if I have a plane to catch or something? It's crazy.

PDAs are suspicious, too? Wierd. And if I wanted to know the coordinates of federal buildings, I would just use Terraserver or online maps. No need to walk there with a GPSr. But yeah, the FBI is right, the terrorists might not have heard of Terraserver I guess this is the same category when people who apply for visas have to fill out a form asking questions like "Are you a terrorist?", etc.

I think we've beaten this to death.