Reply #38: I think a traffic stop where a ticket is issued is a charge.

[Catrina]

The ticket only means that an officer is charging a driver with a violation, probably a misdeamor most of the time. Finger-printing is only allowed after an arrest. I have never heard a traffic stop called an arrest before. It is a detainment for as long as it takes for the officer to write or not write a ticket. Sometimes such a stop ends with no charge, or a warning.

This is how it happens, a little bit at a time, one more line crossed with 'logical' arguments offered to justify each new, unnecessary violation of civil liberties. The fact that there is no outrage over this yet, shows how conditioned we already are by the previous little steps.