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Your papers, please "Your papers, please" (or "Papers, please") is an expression or trope associated with police state functionaries demanding identification from citizens during random stops or at checkpoints.[1] It is a cultural metaphor for life in a police state.[2][3] The phrase was popularized as the first line in the classic 1942 movie Casablanca which depicted life in Vichy-controlled Casablanca during World War II. The film opens with a scene of police officers searching a hotel for refugees fleeing from Nazi-controlled territory. The first line of the film is spoken by a police officer to a civilian he stopped on the street: "May we see your papers, please?" The civilian produces a document, but a second police officer declares that it "expired three weeks ago" and begins to tell the civilian he is under arrest. The civilian attempts to flee the police but a gunshot is heard and the civilian falls to the ground.[4] Use in the United KingdomIn 2009, the Conservative Party leader David Cameron used the trope with a German accent whilst criticising the idea of ID cards in the United Kingdom by asking a Q&A session "Where are your papers?".[5] A report from Big Brother Watch, a London-based nongovernmental privacy advocacy group, says police use of facial recognition technology in public spaces is like people being "asked for their papers without their consent".[6][7] Use in the United StatesThe phrase has been used disparagingly in the debate over Real ID and national ID cards in the United States.[8][9][10] It has also been used to refer to interactions with citizens during police stops[11][12] and immigration enforcement.[13] Arizona's controversial SB 1070 law requiring people to carry identification was dubbed the "Papers, Please" law.[14] The phrase has also been used by the press in relation to a February 2017 incident in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents searching for a suspect demanded identification from passengers exiting a domestic flight.[15][16] In January 2018, bus passengers allege that Border Patrol agents boarded a Greyhound bus in Florida and demanded U.S. identification or a passport from all of those on board.[17] A lawsuit against Glendale, Arizona police officers alleges that a passenger in a car was tasered on the genitals after he asked an officer why he needed to identify himself during a 2017 traffic stop.[18] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the phrase was used to refer to vaccine mandate policies enacted in places like New York City.[19][20] See alsoReferences
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