It's literally a fourth amendment right. I'm not cool with any of my rights being infringed upon. No one should be ok with this.

When assessing the degree and quality of liberty in a country, one of the factors considered in academic political science is the requirement of personal identification by law enforcement. It [used] to be a trope of Hollywood cinema that takes place in the Eastern Bloc (Warsaw Pact countries) that ordinary citizens and obvious tourists were routinely harassed by law enforcement for their papers, a stark reminder that here in the states you can even cross state lines without identifying yourself.

It's getting more interesting as law enforcement is pre-emptively collecting biometric data on school kids and other vulnerable demographics.

Currently wending through state courts is the controversy of using biometric data to identify suspects, which may be regarded as an [unreasonable] search from which we (all, citizens or otherwise) are supposed to be protected, according to the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

In this specific incident, the NYPD is notoriously racist and aggressive, so this may be contempt of cop while black As the adage goes, you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride. This assures these young men will have a bad week regardless of their guilt of any wrongdoing.

…it soon became evident that this net was cast too wide for any private agency. Not merely was my own mail opened, but the mail of all my relatives and friends—people residing in places as far apart as California and Florida. I recall the bland smile of a government official to whom I complained about this matter: "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear."

• Upton Sinclar, The Profits of Religion (1917)_

As others have said we are not required to provide ID unless there is a cause. Stopping 2 people without stating why means no cause and they have the right to say no and it should end with ok have a nice day, but our rights are tested more and more. Some good news is its generally an easy case for a lawyer to pickup and win meaning they could get a payout from the city. The sad news is generally nothing will be done about the cops who abuse their job and cause the tax payers more money in lawsuits that should never happen.

We are not. And I can describe having a spine for you, but I can't have a spine for you.

They know they're being racially profiled and didn't feel like playing along and making life easier for the cops.

Because people want to be left alone without being harassed for no reason by dirty cops looking to increase their arrest stats and get more promotions.

It's awful not being left alone. For example, I know someone on lemmy who was viewing this sublemmy, didn't do anything, got banned, and was so upset he actually died. The point is, people should be able to be left alone and do what they fucking want people being assholes.