“A Modest Proposal” — the author's title is the strongest indication this is a parody, and not everyone will get the reference.
Dickey's not the first journalist to make this point, which, stated concisely, is that nobody would accept a law like this if it applied universally, because it would mean they could spend a night in a city jail for forgetting their wallet. They're only OK with Arizona's law because they haven't thought it through.
Quite a strange issue (for me), really. I like these articles pointing out interesting differences that would otherwise never occur to me. Like there might be a country where such proposal actually parodies something. :-)
You can be arrested for refusing to identify yourself to a police officer, and you can certainly be arrested for driving without ID, but you aren't required to carry papers simply to walk down the street.
We like it that way.
Case in point: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/418746_video.html
You do have to identify yourself; presumably, if you're carrying ID and refuse to show it simply to be a dick, you're inviting trouble. But you'd have grounds for a complaint if you were detained and then arrested because you genuinely didn't have an ID card.
24 states have such a statute. My new home state, California, has none.
I find if you clearly & politely ask what you are legally required to do, most cops will honestly tell you.
In most places I've travelled, "Your papers please" is not so subtle code for "bribe me before I impose some arbitrary penalty". Except when it isn't, in which case to suggest such an accommodation results, at minimum, in a good going over and the imposition of some arbitrary penalty. Thankfully I only fly over Arizona so I'll never have to decide.
Can we have some new cliches? These things are so last year.