JON P. WILCOX, J.
¶ 1. Terry Griffith petitions for review of a decision of the court of appeals affirming his convictions for obstructing an officer, possession of marijuana, and escape from custody. Griffith was convicted in the Circuit Court for Racine County, Emmanuel J. Vuvunas, Judge. On appeal, Griffith [51]*51argues that the police questioning that led to the obstruction charge constituted an unreasonable search or seizure. Griffith contends that all of his convictions should therefore be reversed.
¶ 2. Griffith was convicted for obstructing an officer after he gave a police officer false information during a traffic stop. Griffith was arrested at the scene of the traffic stop, but he escaped from the officers and fled from the scene. He was later identified as the escaped passenger and was apprehended.
¶ 3. At his trial, Griffith presented a defense of mistaken identity, arguing that he was not the passenger who fled from police. The jury found Griffith guilty.
¶ 4. In a postconviction motion, Griffith argued that he did not receive effective assistance of counsel because his trial attorney failed to raise a Fourth Amendment argument. Griffith's claim is that under the Fourth Amendment and Wis. Const, art. I, § 11, the officer lacked lawful authority to ask the passenger his name and date of birth. If the officer lacked lawful authority to pose these questions to the passenger, then the passenger did not violate Wis. Stat. § 946.41(l)(1995-96),1 obstructing an officer.2 If the passenger was not subject to a legal arrest, then the marijuana was not discovered during a lawful search incident to arrest. In addition, if the passenger was never legally arrested, then he did not "escape" from [52]*52legal arrest in violation of Wis. Stat. § 946.42(3)(a).3 In sum, Griffith contends that because the officer lacked lawful authority to ask his name and date of birth, all of his convictions must fail.
¶ 5. The circuit court rejected Griffith's argument. The court determined that Griffith's Fourth Amendment argument was without merit and that failure to raise a meritless argument did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. The court of appeals affirmed, and Griffith petitioned for review.
¶ 6. We agree with the circuit court and the court of appeals that Griffith's Fourth Amendment argument fails on the merits.4 Asking the passenger his name and date of birth during a lawful traffic stop was not an unreasonable search or seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. We therefore affirm.
[53]*53HH
¶ 7. Because Griffith's trial counsel did not raise any Fourth Amendment challenge, no suppression hearing took place in this case. Griffith also did not attempt to establish additional facts surrounding the traffic stop at his postconviction hearing. Thus, the only record of the events surrounding the traffic stop and the questioning of the passenger were established through testimony at Griffith's trial. The facts established at the trial are as follows.
¶ 8. On November 19, 1996, Investigators Bruce Larrabee and William Warmington were on patrol in the city of Racine. Larrabee and Warmington were detectives in the Street Crimes Unit of the Racine Police Department. They patrolled in an undercover car and wore plainclothes. Larrabee was driving.
¶ 9. Warmington noticed a white Pontiac Bonneville with Illinois plates. Warmington knew that the Bonneville belonged to Tyrone Malone and that Malone did not possess a valid driver's license. The Bonneville was parked with the engine running, and Warmington thought he saw Malone in the driver's seat. The detectives therefore called for another Street Crimes Unit detective, intending to stop the Bonneville when it left the area. Investigator Geller answered the call and said he would respond.
¶ 10. While Warmington and Larrabee were waiting for Geller, the Bonneville began moving. Warmington and Larrabee followed the car and radioed headquarters for a marked squad car to pull it over. Before the marked squad car arrived the Bonneville pulled into an apartment building parking lot and stopped. The detectives pulled in behind the Bonneville, blocked the exit, and approached the car, showing their badges.
[54]*54¶ 11. As Warmington and Larrabee approached, Malone started to exit the car through the front passenger side door. Warmington ordered Malone and all the other occupants of the car to remain inside the vehicle. Investigator Geller and two uniformed patrol officers in marked squad cars soon arrived. Geller and the patrol officers stood behind the Bonneville while Larrabee and Warmington contacted the occupants of the car.
¶ 12. Larrabee went to the driver's side of the car, while Warmington went to the passenger's side. Warmington began speaking to Malone, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. While speaking to Malone, Warmington looked over at the driver and recognized him as Damien Robinson. He asked Robinson when he had obtained a driver's license. Robinson replied that he had "lost them."
¶ 13. At some point, apparently shortly after he spoke to Robinson, Warmington also noticed a third person in the vehicle, sitting behind Robinson. Warm-ington thought he recognized the passenger's face but could not remember his name. Warmington's testimony about what happened next was as follows:
Q Did you ask the rear passenger for any identification?
A Yes, I did.
Q What occurred then?
A He did not have any identification. I asked him for his name, [he] stated his last name was Stevenson. I asked him to spell it. He spelled it Steven, ST-E-V-E-N. I asked him for his first name. He gave me the name of Rick. I asked him for a date of birth. He gave me a date of birth. . .At that time I asked him okay, how old are you. He stated he was 22. The [55]*55date of birth that he provided would have made him 23.
Q What happened next then?
A At that up point [sic] in time, I confirmed the information he had given me. I then—
Q When you say you confirmed the information?
A I asked him again to repeat the date of birth and how old he was. I then stepped back away from the car and said over the roof to Investigator Larrabee, who was on the driver's side, and advised him to remove the rear passenger from the left side, that the party was to be handcuffed, as the party was providing us with false information.
Larrabee removed the rear passenger from the Bonneville and placed him under arrest. While Larrabee was putting handcuffs on the passenger, the passenger made a move as if he was going to try to run. Larrabee then brought the passenger to the back of the vehicle near the other officers.
¶ 14. Warmington continued with the traffic stop. He asked Malone and Robinson for permission to search the car. They consented to the search. While Warmington conducted a consensual search of the car, Geller began conducting a search of the passenger incident to his arrest. During this search, Geller found marijuana inside a crumpled tissue in the passenger's front jacket pocket. Geller looked up at the passenger and said, "What do we have here?" The handcuffed passenger immediately bolted from the scene. Geller and the other officers failed to apprehend him.
[56]*56¶ 15. On December 5, 1996, a confidential informant identified Terry Griffith5 as the passenger who fled from the scene of the traffic stop. The police arrested Griffith at his sister's apartment on that date. Authorities later learned that Griffith had been an escapee from Kenosha Correctional Center since May 17,1996.
¶ 16. Griffith was charged with four offenses: (1) knowingly obstructing an officer while the officer was acting with lawful authority, in violation of Wis. Stat. § 946.41(1), as a habitual offender; (2) possession of a controlled substance, in violation of Wis. Stat. §§ 961.41(3g)(e)6 and 961.14(4)(t),7 as a habitual offender; (3) escape from custody after a legal arrest, in violation of Wis. Stat. § 946.42(3)(a);8 and (4) theft of the handcuffs, in violation of Wis. Stat. § 943.20(l)(a), as a habitual offender. Griffith pleaded not guilty to all of these charges.
¶ 17. At Griffith's trial, the prosecution presented the testimony of several officers identifying Griffith as the rear passenger in the Bonneville. The prosecution also presented evidence that Griffith had [57]*57escaped from Kenosha Correctional Center on May 17, 1996. Griffith presented a defense of mistaken identity, arguing that he was not the rear passenger. With regard to the theft charge, Griffith argued that whoever took the handcuffs did not do so with the intent to permanently deprive the officer of them.
¶ 18. On June 11, 1997, the jury convicted Griffith on the first three charges but acquitted him of the theft charge. The circuit court sentenced Griffith to one year for obstructing an officer, one year for possession of marijuana, and five years for escaping from the lawful arrest. Each of these sentences was consecutive to the others and consecutive to the sentence that Griffith was serving at Kenosha Correctional Center before he escaped from that facility.
¶ 19. Griffith sought postconviction relief on the basis that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel. Griffith contended that his trial attorney should have raised a Fourth Amendment challenge to Officer Warmington's authority to ask the passenger his name and date of birth. According to Griffith, once Robinson admitted he did not possess a valid driver's license, the investigation of suspected illegal activity was complete and Warmington had no lawful authority to ask these identification questions. Griffith claimed that his trial counsel's failure to pursue this argument deprived him of the effective assistance of counsel.
¶ 20. At the hearing on Griffith's postconviction motion, Griffith's trial attorney testified that she did not pursue this argument because she thought it lacked merit. Judge Vuvunas agreed and indicated that even if the attorney had raised this argument, it would have been rejected. The judge determined that trial counsel's performance therefore was not deficient.
[58]*58¶ 21. Griffith appealed. The court of appeals first examined whether trial counsel was ineffective in failing to challenge Warmington's lawful authority to ask the identification questions. The court agreed with the circuit court that the argument was without merit. The court then considered whether falsely answering identification questions constitutes a violation of Wis. Stat. § 946.41(1). The court stated that Wisconsin law was not settled on this point, and that failing to raise an unsettled point of law could not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel under State v. McMahon, 186 Wis. 2d 68, 84, 519 N.W.2d 621 (Ct. App. 1994). The court therefore affirmed Griffith's convictions.
¶ 22. This court accepted Griffith's petition for review.
HH I — I
¶ 23. The question whether police conduct violated the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures is a question of constitutional fact. State v. Kieffer, 217 Wis. 2d 531, 541, 577 N.W.2d 352 (1998). When a Fourth Amendment challenge is raised at the trial court level, the trial court considers the evidence, makes findings of evidentiary or historical fact, and then resolves the issue by applying constitutional principles to those historical facts. State v. Martwick, 2000 WI 5, ¶¶ 16-17, 231 Wis. 2d 801, 604 N.W.2d 552. On review, this court gives deference to the trial court's findings of eviden-tiary or historical fact, but determines the question of constitutional fact independently. Id. at ¶ 18; Kieffer, 217 Wis. 2d at 541.
¶ 24. Because no Fourth Amendment issue was raised at the trial court level, there was no suppression motion at which the trial court considered the evidence [59]*59of what occurred during the traffic stop and made findings of fact. However, the parties agree that the trial testimony provides a sufficient record of the eviden-tiary facts surrounding the traffic stop, and there is no dispute of material fact.9 We therefore accept the evi-dentiary facts established in the trial testimony. We independently determine whether under these facts the questioning of the back seat passenger violated the Fourth Amendment and art. I, § 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution.10
III
¶ 25. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause-" Article I, § 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution provides a nearly identical [60]*60guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. Griffith argues that Investigator Warm-ington committed an unreasonable search or seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment and art. I, § 11 when he asked the back seat passenger his name and date of birth during the traffic stop.
¶ 26. Police conduct that is not subject to the requirements of the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment is tested under the Fourth Amendment's general prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Terry v. Ohio. 392 U.S. 1, 20 (1968). To determine whether a search or seizure is "unreasonable," the court first determines whether the initial interference with an individual's liberty was justified, and then considers whether subsequent police conduct was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the initial interference. Id. at 19-20.
¶ 27. Griffith concedes that the initial interference with his liberty was justified in this case. He acknowledges that the police acted with lawful authority when they blocked the Bonneville from exiting the driveway of the apartment complex, and that a lawful stop of a vehicle is lawful as to any occupant of the vehicle. State v. Harris, 206 Wis. 2d 243, 260, 557 N.W.2d 245 (1996). He also does not challenge the officers' lawful authority to order the occupants of the Bonneville to remain inside the car as the officers approached. See Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 414-15 (1997)(holding that for safety reasons an officer making a traffic stop may order passengers to get out of a car). In short, Griffith concedes that he was lawfully seized when the officers stopped the Bonneville and ordered the occupants to remain in the car.
[61]*61¶ 28. Griffith's argument is that this lawful seizure became unlawful when, having already determined that the driver had no valid license, Warmington asked the rear passenger his name and date of birth. According to Griffith, these identification questions were "nonconsensual," because a reasonable person in the position of the passenger would not have felt free to disregard the officer's questions. Griffith contends that under these circumstances, the identification questions transformed the reasonable, lawful seizure into an unreasonable, unlawful seizure.
¶ 29. In support of his argument, Griffith relies primarily on Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52-53 (1979). We begin our consideration of Griffith's claim by examining Brown to determine whether its holding controls Griffith's case.
¶ 30. In Brown, police officers in El Paso, Texas, were patrolling an area that was known to have a high incidence of drug traffic. Id. at 48-49. They observed two men walking away from one another in an alley at 12:45 in the afternoon. Id. at 48. The officers believed that the men had been together or were about to meet before the patrol car appeared. Id. The officers entered the alley and asked one of the men to explain what he was doing in the alley. Id. at 48-49. The man refused to answer their questions and said that the officers had no right to stop him. Id. at 49. The police frisked him but discovered nothing. Id. Nonetheless, the officers arrested the man for violating a Texas statute that stated that" '[a] person commits an offense if he intentionally refuses to report or gives a false report of his name and residence address to a peace officer who has lawfully stopped him and requested the information.'" Id. at 49 (citing 1974 Tex. Crim. Stat. § 38.02(a)). The State of Texas argued that the officers were justified in [62]*62stopping the defendant based on a reasonable, articulable suspicion that some crime had just taken place or was about to take place. Id. at 51.
¶ 31. The Supreme Court rejected the State's argument. The Court determined that none of the circumstances gave rise to any reasonable suspicion that the defendant was involved in criminal conduct. Id. at 51-52. The Court therefore held that the application of the statute to the defendant under the circumstances "violated the Fourth Amendment because the officers lacked any reasonable suspicion to believe appellant was engaged or had engaged in criminal conduct." Id. at 53.
¶ 32. Griffith contends that the holding in Brown applies to his case. He argues that under Brown he cannot be punished for giving false answers in response to identification questions during the traffic stop, because the officers had already established that the suspected crime had occurred and they had no reasonable suspicion that the back seat passenger had done anything wrong.
¶ 33. We cannot agree. The crucial factor in Brown was that the defendant was never lawfully stopped. Griffith, in contrast, was lawfully stopped as a passenger in a car that police suspected was being driven without a valid license. Thus, Griffith's reliance on Brown is misplaced because unlike the defendant in Brown, Griffith was the subject of an initially lawful stop.
¶ 34. Griffith's challenge is more analogous to a secondary issue in Brown: "whether an individual may be punished for refusing to identify himself in the context of a lawful investigatory stop which satisfies Fourth Amendment requirements." Id. at 53 n.3. However, this issue is not precisely the same as the issue in [63]*63Griffith's case, because Griffith did not refuse to identify himself; he gave false information. In any case, Brown did not answer this secondary question. Having determined that no lawful investigatory stop took place, the Supreme Court in Brown expressly declined to decide this issue. Id.
¶ 35. Griffith also claims that the questioning in his case was unlawful under Wis. Stat. § 968.24. Section 968.24 authorizes a law enforcement officer to stop a person when the officer reasonably suspects the person is involved in criminal activity. Griffith notes that § 968.24 authorizes an officer to request identification from such a person. He implies that because § 968.24 permits an officer to ask for identification under these circumstances, an officer may not ask for identification under other circumstances. We reject this interpretation of § 968.24. That statute does not prohibit law enforcement officers from asking individuals for identification. Instead, it authorizes an officer to demand a person's name and address under one particular circumstance — when the person is reasonably suspected of committing a crime. Section 968.24 does not govern the lawfulness of the request for identification in this case.
¶ 36. Thus, resolution of Griffith's argument is not controlled by Brown or by Wis. Stat. § 968.24. Instead, we must make an independent examination of whether the police conduct subsequent to the initially lawful stop transformed the reasonable seizure into an unreasonable one.
¶ 37. Brown sets forth the framework that guides our examination of whether the police conduct in this case constituted an unreasonable seizure:
[64]*64The reasonableness of seizures that are less intrusive than a traditional arrest depends " 'on a balance between the public interest and the individual's right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law officers.'" Consideration of the constitutionality of such seizures involves a weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty.
Id. at 50 (internal citations omitted).
¶ 38. When a person admits that he or she was lawfully seized during a traffic stop but argues that subsequent police conduct violated the Fourth Amendment, the reasonableness inquiry does not focus on the initial stop. Instead, the focus is on "the incremental intrusion" that resulted from the subsequent police conduct. Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 109 (1977). Thus, the issue in Griffith's case is whether the incremental intrusion that resulted from the identification questions was unreasonable. To determine whether the intrusion was unreasonable, we must weigh the public interest served by the questioning against the incremental liberty intrusion that resulted from the questioning. Wilson, 519 U.S. at 411-12; Brown, 443 U.S. at 50; Mimms, 434 U.S. at 109; and Terry, 392 U.S. at 20-21.
¶ 39. Griffith does not claim that it is always unreasonable for a police, officer to ask a passenger his name and date of birth during a traffic stop. He acknowledges that the Fourth Amendment is not implicated whenever "a police officer approaches an individual and asks a few questions. So long as a rea[65]*65sonable person would feel free 'to disregard the police and go about his business,'. . .the encounter is consensual and no reasonable suspicion is required." Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434 (1991). In the absence of any reasonable, articulable suspicion, police may ask questions, request identification, and ask for consent to search, "as long as the police do not convey a message that compliance with their requests is required." Id. at 434-35.
¶ 40. However, Griffith argues that under the particular circumstances of his case, asking identification questions was unreasonable. Griffith emphasizes two particular aspects of the surrounding circumstances. First, he asserts that the questioning went beyond the scope of the stop because at the time of the questioning, the driver had already admitted that he had no driver's license. Second, he asserts that the questioning was "nonconsensual," in the sense that no reasonable person under the circumstances would have felt free to ignore the questions or decline to answer. The only case Griffith cites that supports his proposition that under these particular circumstances the questioning was an unreasonable seizure is Holt v. State, 487 S.E.2d 629 (Ga. Ct. App. 1997).
¶ 41. We examine the facts that Griffith points to, as well as the rest of the surrounding circumstances, to determine whether the questioning transformed the reasonable seizure into an unreasonable one.
¶ 42. Warmington initiated the traffic stop of the Bonneville because he personally recognized the car as belonging to Malone, he knew that Malone had no license, and he thought he saw Malone in the driver's seat. Once the car pulled into a parking lot, Warm-ington and Larrabee blocked it from exiting. The [66]*66occupants of the car were directed to stay inside the car as Warmington and Larrabee approached. At some point three additional officers arrived on the scene and stood nearby.
¶ 43. Warmington and Larrabee approached the car and asked the driver and the front seat passenger for routine identification and licensing information. Apparently within moments of speaking to Robinson and Malone, Officer Warmington saw the back seat passenger and thought he looked familiar. Almost immediately, Warmington asked the back seat passenger his name and date of birth.
¶ 44. Although the passenger was already seized incidental to the lawful stop of the Bonneville, the officer's posing of these questions to the passenger did involve some incremental intrusion on the passenger's personal liberty. To determine whether this intrusion was unreasonable, we must weigh the relevant public and private interests.
¶45. On the public interest side, we conclude that permitting law enforcement officers to request identifying information from passengers in traffic stops serves the public interest in several ways that are reasonably related to the purpose of a traffic stop.
¶ 46. To begin with, there is a public interest in completing the investigation of the traffic violation that justified the stop in the first place. The record does not support Griffith's assertion that the police had already completed their investigation when they asked the back seat passenger for his name or date of birth. It is true that before Warmington asked the back seat passenger any questions, Robinson had already admitted that he had "lost" his license. However, Robinson's response was ambiguous; it would establish a violation [67]*67of either Wis. Stat. § 343.05(3)(a)11 or Wis. Stat. § 343.18(1).12 There is no mention in the record that the officers attempted to determine Robinson's exact driving status at that time. Thus, the officers may have wished to obtain information from the rear passenger to complete the investigation that justified the stop in the first place. It is reasonable that they would begin by asking the passenger his name.
¶ 47. Moreover, even if the officers had already determined that some particular violation had taken place, it seems reasonable under the circumstances that they would seek some additional information, such as whether anyone in the car was licensed to drive. The officers knew that Malone had no license, and Robinson admitted that he did not have a license either. Since neither the driver nor the front passenger could legally drive the car, there was some need to determine how the car would be removed from the apartment parking lot. There is a public interest in determining whether a car must be towed at public expense or may be driven away by a private party. Permitting police officers to talk to passengers during a traffic stop will further this interest.
[68]*68¶ 48. We also agree with the State that there is a general public interest in attempting to obtain identifying information from witnesses to police-citizen encounters. If witnesses are willing to identify themselves, they may later be able to assist police in locating the person who violated the law. If questions later arise about police conduct during the stop, passengers may be able to provide information about what occurred during the stop. Passengers are free to refuse to provide identifying information, but if they are willing to provide it, obtaining such information serves the public interest. Permitting officers to request passengers to voluntarily provide identification serves the public interest.
¶ 49. In sum, on the public side of the balance, we conclude that asking the rear passenger for identification furthered several legitimate public interests and was reasonably related to the purpose of the stop.
¶ 50. On the private side of the balance, we examine the additional intrusion into the passenger's personal liberty that resulted from the officer's request for identification.
¶ 51. We are not persuaded by Griffith's assertion that under the circumstances of this case the identification questions were so intrusive that they were "nonconsensual," in the sense that no reasonable person would have felt free to ignore the questions. All of the events in this case took place in public view, in the parking lot of an apartment complex. The record suggests that the entire encounter, from the time that the officers blocked the exit of the parking lot to the time that they asked the back seat passenger for identification, took only a few minutes. The officers spoke with Robinson and Malone, received information suggesting that neither of them was licensed to drive the [69]*69car, and then asked the passenger some questions about his identity.
¶ 52. The passenger had every right to decline to answer, and his refusal to answer could not have resulted in a prosecution for obstructing an officer. Henes v. Morrissey, 194 Wis. 2d 338, 353-54, 533 N.W.2d 802 (1995)(explaining that Wis. Stat. § 946.41 does not criminalize refusal to give information). His refusal to answer also would not have given rise to any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 437 (noting that a refusal to cooperate, without more, does not furnish the objective justification needed for a detention or seizure).
¶ 53. Of course, as the State acknowledges, a reasonable person in the position of the passenger would have felt somewhat less free to ignore the officer's questions than would a person who was not temporarily detained at the time of the questioning. Griffith also emphasizes that this was an unusual traffic stop because it was conducted by plainclothes detectives in an unmarked car and three additional officers arrived at the scene. However, any time that a police officer requests information from an individual, the individual is likely to feel some pressure to respond. Nonetheless, an officer's mere posing of a question does not constitute a "seizure" under the Fourth Amendment. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 434. Under the circumstances of this case, we are not persuaded that the simple questions "What is your name?" and "What is your date of birth?" were so intrusive that they transformed the otherwise reasonable seizure into an unreasonable one.
¶ 54. This does not end our inquiry. Even if the questions themselves are not unreasonably intrusive, [70]*70questioning can transform a reasonable seizure into an unreasonable one if it extends the stop beyond the time necessary to fulfill the purpose of the stop. See United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 684-85 (1985). "[I]f an investigative stop continues indefinitely, at some point it can no longer be justified as an investigative stop." Id. at 685. To determine whether the stop was unreasonably prolonged, the court must consider the law enforcement purposes to be served by the stop and the time reasonably needed to accomplish those purposes. Id.
¶ 55. We have already noted that the record does not establish that the investigation of the traffic violation was complete when the questions were posed to the back seat passenger. Moreover, even if the officers had already obtained all of the necessary information to establish the traffic violation, it is clear that the time needed to ask the identification questions was very brief.
¶ 56. The court of appeals has held that the brief period of time it takes to ask a question does not unreasonably prolong a temporary detention. State v. Gaulrapp, 207 Wis. 2d 600, 609, 558 N.W.2d 696 (Ct. App. 1996)(holding that a detention was not unreasonably prolonged by the asking of one question). We agree with the court of appeals that this conclusion is implied by the United States Supreme Court's holding in Ohio v Robinette, 519 U.S. 33 (1996). See Gaulrapp, 207 Wis. 2d at 608.
¶ 57. Robinette considered whether "a lawfully seized defendant must be advised that he is 'free to go' before his consent to search will be recognized as voluntary." Robinette, 519 U.S. at 35. After stopping a vehicle for speeding, an officer issued a verbal warning, returned the driver's license, and then asked whether [71]*71the driver was carrying contraband. Id. at 35-36. The driver answered no and then consented to a search of his car. Id. at 36. The search turned up illegal drugs. Id. The driver was charged and convicted of possessing a controlled substance. Id. The Ohio Supreme Court overturned the defendant's conviction on the grounds that under federal and state constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures, an officer must always inform a person that he or she is free to go before attempting to obtain consent to a search. Id. at 36 (citing State v. Robinette, 653 N.E.2d 695, 696 (Ohio 1995), rev'd, Robinette, 519 U.S. 33).
¶ 58. The United States Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Ohio Supreme Court. Robinette, 519 U.S. at 40. The Court rejected a per se rule requiring officers to inform motorists that they were free to go before asking for consent to search. Id. at 39-40. Instead, the Court held that the voluntariness of consent to search is always a fact-specific question to be determined from the totality of the circumstances. Id. at 40.
¶ 59. Gaulrapp involved a situation similar to Robinette. The driver in Gaulrapp was stopped for having a loud muffler. Gaulrapp, 207 Wis. 2d at 603. After obtaining identification and discussing the problem with the muffler, the officer asked the motorist whether he had any drugs or weapons inside the vehicle. Id. The motorist said that he did not, and the officer asked for permission to search the vehicle. Id. The motorist consented, and the search turned up drugs. Id. at 603-04.
¶ 60. The defendant in Gaulrapp conceded that the initial stop was lawful but argued that the detention became unlawful when police went beyond the initial purpose of the stop and asked him about drugs [72]*72and weapons and for consent to search. Id. at 606. The court of appeals noted that the argument that consent is invalid if the request to seárch is unrelated to the scope of the initial detention is difficult to reconcile with Robinette s holding that the defendant's consent to search might have been valid under the circumstances. Id. at 608. The court therefore concluded that the questions posed to the defendant in Gaulrapp did not unreasonably prolong the seizure. Id. at 609.
¶ 61. Griffith makes an argument that is analogous to the defendant's argument in Gaulrapp. Griffith contends that the identification questioning was unreasonable because it occurred after Robinson admitted that he did not have a license. We agree with the court of appeals' conclusion in Gaulrapp that the length of time required to ask a question is not sufficiently intrusive to transform a reasonable, lawful stop into an unreasonable, unlawful one.
¶ 62. In sum, on the private side of the equation, we find that the additional interference with the passenger's personal liberty that resulted from the identification questions was minimal. The passenger was already seized pursuant to a lawful traffic stop. The only change in the passenger's circumstances that resulted from the questioning is that rather than sitting silently while being temporarily detained, he had to decide whether to answer the officer's questions. The passenger probably felt some obligation to respond to the officer's questions, but he was under no legal obligation to do so and could not have been prosecuted for refusing to respond.
¶ 63. Weighing the public interest served by permitting police to request identifying information from passengers against the incremental intrusion upon [73]*73individual privacy interests, we conclude that the public interests are substantial and the interference with private liberty interests is de minimis. We therefore hold that the identification questions did not transform the reasonable search into an unreasonable one under the circumstances of this case.13
¶ 64. Griffith points to a decision of the Georgia Court of Appeals that contradicts this holding. See Holt, 487 S.E.2d at 632-33 (holding that an officer lacked authority to request identification from a passenger in the absence of a reasonable basis for believing that the passenger was engaged in criminal activity). Holt is distinguishable factually from Griffith's case because the driver in Holt had a valid driver's license and the officers had already issued a citation before they began asking questions of the passengers. See id. at 630. In addition, Holt's holding is based on the reasoning that a request for identification is an "interrogation" that is unreasonable in the absence of some justification beyond the reasonable suspicion that justifies the initial stop. See id. at 632. For the reasons already stated, we are not persuaded by this reasoning.
[74]*74¶ 65. We hold instead that when a passenger has been seized pursuant to a lawful traffic stop, the seizure does not become unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment or art. I, § 11 simply because an officer asks the passenger for identification during the stop. Passengers are free to decline to answer such questions, and refusal to answer will not justify prosecution nor give rise to any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. However, if a passenger chooses to answer but gives the officer false information, the passenger can be charged with obstructing an officer in violation of Wis. Stat. § 946.41(1).
IV
¶ 66. Griffith claims that our holding is inconsistent with the legitimate expectations of privacy of a free citizenry. He argues that our holding will subject individuals in automobiles to the unfettered discretionary decisions of individual police officers. He cites Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 661-63 (1979), in which the Supreme Court held that in the absence of reasonable suspicion, discretionary spot checks of driver's licenses and vehicle registration cannot be justified by the marginal public interest in roadway safety. He contends that an unreasonable seizure occurs when a police officer poses the question "What is your name?" to a passenger during a traffic stop, if the officer lacks any reasonable suspicion that the passenger is or has been involved in wrongdoing.
¶ 67. Griffith is certainly correct that an individual traveling in an automobile does not lose all legitimate expectations of privacy. He is also correct that individuals may not be subjected to selective, dis[75]*75cretionary intrusions upon their legitimate expectations of privacy.
¶ 68. However, we do not hold that officers may conduct discretionary investigative stops of vehicles in the absence of reasonable suspicion. We also do not hold that officers may make selective, discretionary decisions to request identification based on unconstitutional considerations. We only hold that neither the Fourth Amendment nor art. I, § 11 prohibits a law enforcement officer from asking for identification from a passenger who has been incidentally and lawfully seized in a traffic stop, when, as in this case, the passenger is free to refuse the request.
¶ 69. Any other rule would be unreasonable. Griffith acknowledges that a law enforcement officer who is walking down the street is free to pose the question, "What is your name?" to any passerby, so long as the officer does not send the message that the passerby must answer. Yet he seeks a rule that the same officer may not pose that question to a passenger during a lawful traffic stop, even if the officer does not require the passenger to answer the question. We reject Griffith's contention that the mere question "What is your name?" transforms a reasonable, lawful seizure into an unreasonable, unlawful one.14
[76]*76¶ 70. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the court of appeals.
By the Court. — The decision of the court of appeals is affirmed.