1) Unless he wanted to find out, he was stopping your wife for a traffic violation and you are not part of that process unless you contribute to him being less safe i.e. you were not cooperative. I would do the same as this trooper if I were simply writing a traffic citation.
2) NOTHING is needed to ask anyone any question. It is your answer and the level of detention that determines what is admissable or not. A police officer can ask you just about anything but the only things you are required to provide if you are the subject of an investigation are your identifiers i.e. full name, address, date of birth, and, if driving, driver's license and vehicle information.
Failure to provide any of those if you are the subject of an investigation or traffic stop will likely result in your arrest. Anything else you are not required to provide, although failure to provide some pieces of information or failure to answer some questions may result in you being detained far longer than neccessary.
Michael Brown
I agree with this statement in bold if you are a plain citizen but if you are approaching someone as a peace officer in official capacity, I was taught in Criminal justice, that an officer while in uniform was required to have some sort of probable cause.... In other words an officer is not supposed to be able to just walk up to some one sitting on a park bench and ask for name, address, etc.... if they have not committed any potential infractions creating some sort of probable cause???? Has this changed???
I just re-read your statement and being the subject of investigation means there was probable cause in initial interaction, so yes an officer can than approach and ask anything he/she desires..... correct???