This thread has recently become a very interesting convergence of those that purport to adhere to the intentions of the founding fathers of the country that started the whole Mouse craze, and those that actually do adhere to those intentions.
Woody is in fact correct, as usual, in that the rights of the individual citizen are of paramount concern, and that the invasion of one's personal space, even by something so seemingly harmless as being poked by another is indeed a violation of those rights.
It isn't up to the officer at the scene to determine what a citizen can or cannot do, that is up to the legislative branch of this country to define, and for the judicial branch to interpret.
The officer is there to enforce those laws to the best of their ability, but is by no means meant to prevent a citizen from defending any rights defined by the legislative branch, no matter what the officer's personal feelings on the matter are.
At the point that the officers that enforce the law begin to ignore "minor" citizen rights due to the overwhelming number of violations of "major" citizen rights, the continued downward spiral of decline of that civilization is almost inevitable.