In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court in Ybarra v. Illinois held that “a person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person.” Indeed, it is one of the core requirements of the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and also the right to expectation of privacy that officers of the government need independent, particularized suspicion and cause as to the person they seek to search or detain.
In other words, if police want to stop you, they have to have some reasonable suspicion that you committed a crime or are in possession of a weapon. Even the watered-down “stop-and-frisk” standard of Terry v. Ohio required this “particularized” suspicion: “The ‘narrow scope’ of the Terry exception does not permit a frisk for weapons on less than reasonable belief or suspicion directed at the person to be frisked.”
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