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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

> * Signs in the Hotel warn you that you DO NOT have a right to privacy, and you must register your passport or state ID

This applies in the US too in most cities I’ve done business in. Some hotels don’t enforce the ordinances, but the hotel is supposed verify who is staying at the hotel, along with license plate numbers of vehicles the guest has. Also, I wouldn’t want to stay in a hotel that doesn’t check rooms periodically (at least once per week), as that is a recipe for meth cooking and hoarders bringing pests into the building and numerous other problems.

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Hotels are not "supposed" to document license plates of guest vehicles in the US. No such law or ordinance requires this. If a hotel is doing that, it's for when you're parking on hotel property; most hotels charge for parking, or limit it to patrons. Most hotels don't check IDs when you check in, all they care about is having a credit card so they can charge you for "incidentals" like the aforementioned parking.

Yes, I thought it would be obvious that I'm referring to hotel guests having to disclose the license plate of the vehicle on the hotel property. And IDs are required at every hotel and it's stated on the websites of all the big chains. Either way, I've never seen a town's laws not require innkeepers to know who they're housing, which means checking IDs.

A quick google search shows many town ordinances such as this one:

http://carync.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_LegiFile.aspx?Frame=&...

>Guest register. Every innkeeper shall at all times keep and maintain on the premises of hotel a guest register in which shall be inscribed the name and home address of each guest and shall contain such guest's vehicle description and license plate state and number.

Your own link shows that such a requirement is at odds with the Constitution:

"On June 22, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in City of Los Angeles v. Patel that a Los Angeles ordinance requiring hoteliers to keep and maintain guest registries and to make them available to the police upon request violated the hoteliers Fourth Amendment rights. "

Yes, but the revised ordinance still requires a record of the information to exist. The crosses out portion is the one that gave any law enforcement the right to see it any time, but 9 times out of 10, a hotel is not going to refuse a police department’s request if they ask about someone staying at the hotel.

Hotels need to be on the good side of the police.

> This applies in the US too in most cities I’ve done business in.

That they note that you don't have a right to privacy is the only odd part. It's fairly common around the world to have to present your passport / passport details at hotels for their records. It's definitely not strange that China's hotels would require that.

Do the police show up if you don’t register in Other countries they do in China.

> Do the police show up if you don’t register in the United States?

I think that response is moving the goalpost.

I noted that it's common throughout the world that hotels often require passport details. Your response to that is to change the issue in question to the consequences of non-compliance and away from what you initially presented as the problem ("you must register your passport or state ID").

Goalpost? What is your goal? I was sharing my personal experience in traveling to China - being in a society with no notion of Human Rights, because someone asked.

Is your goal to argue? I don't get it.

>Goalpost? What is your goal?

His goal is to point out that you said "in China they tell you you need to register at hotels", and when he answered that that's the case in the US and other countries too, you expanded your question to "Does the police show up if you don’t register in Other countries they do in China".

That's normally called "moving the goalposts".

Now you're implying that they have some further motive, or just "want to agree".

Well, they wanted to point a flaw in your original argument (that implied it's somehow unique to China to have you register at hotels). Are they allowed to?

I’ve seen it in the fine print reserving the right to enter hotel room at any time. Police don’t need warrants for hotel rooms either.

More misinformation. Police most definitely need a search warrant for your hotel room, as they would for your home.

https://www.wklaw.com/do-police-need-a-warrant-to-search-my-...

That's interesting, but in practice, since the hotel has the right to enter the room at any time, and no hotel is going to piss off the police department (whom they also rely on to remove troublesome guests), the hotel can just let the police in.

https://www.meetingstoday.com/newsevents/industrynews/indust...

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