Alex, if Officer Friendly stops you, it's not because he's interested in you doing 'a thing' legally. He's stopping you because he thinks you did something illegal. He's conducting an investigation to justify his detainment of you.
If your answers don't provide a basis for probable cause and the officer is somehow sure you must be in violation of some law he thinks he remembers, or that one of his coworkers told him was illegal, all it means is that he's not asking the right questions. It means he thinks he needs more answers from you until he latches onto one that gives him either probable cause or a lead in establishing probable cause. You cannot make yourself more innocent by cooperation.
Officer Friendly is just looking to do his job
Officer Friendly is just looking for suspicious conduct
Officer Friendly is just looking for probable cause to make an arrest
Officer Friendly is just looking to put a criminal in jail
Officer Friendly is looking at you
OMG! I hadn't even thought of that angle! "Reasonable mistake of law" the courts now call it--ever since
Heien in (North Carolina?) Cop gets off the hook for a "reasonable mistake of law"; you get to pay attorneys fee's, lost salary, and so forth. Christ!! Not only do you have to watch out for ways your words could be used to imply breaking an actual law, you gotta watch out for ways your words could be twisted to imply breaking a law the cop mis-remembers or was wrongly told by a colleague!
Hey, wasn't there a case several years ago out of Georgia or something, where a cop jacked up an OCer, but the cop had only recently moved to that state, and misapplied the law of his former state to the new state? I think the courts ruled in the cop's favor saying it was not unreasonable to make that mistake??
Oh, brother. My mouth is now double-compound-triple-welded shut if approached by a cop:
Cop: "What are you up to?"
Citizen: No offense, officer. I know you're just doing your job, but Iain'tgotnuthin'tosaywithoutmyattorney. And, Idon'tconsenttoanencounterwithyou. AmIfreetogo?
Many thanks to Jeff Hayes for quoting Fall's earlier post just above. Somehow I missed it the first time.