Refusal to present ID sparks test of rights

The Rocky Mountain News ^ | November 29, 2005 | Karen Abbott

[CedarDave]

Interesting conflict of priorities. The right to be secure in your own person vs. requirements to fight the war on terror. Constitutional experts weigh in here...

[Past Your Eyes]

Link to thread from a couple days ago.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1528984/posts

[airborne]

I'm no expert, but to me this is like searching the 83 year old grandmother at the airport.

Is Denver so crime free that they have time to do this?

[Clock King]

When she refused to show her ID, she said, officers with the Federal Protective Service removed her from the bus, handcuffed her, put her in the back of a patrol car and took her to a federal police station within the Federal Center, where she waited while officers conferred. She was subsequently given two tickets and released.F-ing ASSH*** control freak COPS!

[CedarDave]

Thanks for the link. Did a search and didn't see the current article posted. Individual rights vs. the greater needs of society. She may lose, and maybe should, but she took a stand where it counted, and good for her. It opens the forum for debate on our most basic freedoms.

[jjmcgo]

I love it. The report says "she became belligerent" and then an officer yelled "Grab her."
Who was being belligerent?
Seems the muni bus goes through fed property. Why don't the feds card those who get off the bus, thus stepping on fed property, as opposed to those who don't?
Americans have always opposed a national ID card. When Social Security was being proposed, its proponents made sure to tell everyone it was not going to be used as a form of ID.

[Larry Lucido]

Never mind the WOT. This is going to come up more and more with respect to immigration. We can have privacy, or we can have a national ID system, but not both. I'm still on the side of privacy.

[faloi]

It's sad there needs to be a debate. We are talking about harassing someone for no reason. She wasn't acting suspiciously, she wasn't entering any posted high security areas. She was riding a bus. Last I checked I didn't need to go for any security clearance to ride normal public transportation.

[Emmett McCarthy]

It's exactly like that. This kind of crap is about compliance, not security. An actual terrorist would have his phony ID all ready to show.

[glorgau]

Last I checked I didn't need to go for any security clearance to ride normal public transportation.

Check again in about 10 years - you'll have to register to breathe air.

[SolidSupplySide]

Some supporters have called Davis "the Rosa Parks of the Patriot Act generation," a reference to the African-American woman who became a civil rights heroine after she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, Scannell said.

This is a little excessive. Now I'm sympathetic to Ms. Davis. But Rosa Parks not only stood up to unwise legal requirements, Ms. Parks had to transform the hearts and minds of the segrationist south.

Ms. Davis, I hope you win your case. But you are dealing with a few idiotic bozos with a little too much power. You are not standing up to an evil decades-old social structure. Rosa Parks is in a class to herself.

[HOTTIEBOY]

However redundant showing IDs is, if a suicide bomber knows that fed police board the bus, they might pick another target. I don't have a problem showing my ID. I don't have anything to hide.

[antiRepublicrat]

Doesn't she know that "Papers, please" was ruled constitutional not long ago?

[Clock King]

If it comes to that, we'll have a civil war by then and real terror.

[John Jorsett]

I've read several articles on this incident and in none of them have I heard a good argument for why it was important for authorities to see her ID. The 9/11 hijackers had ID good enough to get them on a plane, so it doesn't look like insisting on ID is much of an obstacle to an evildoer on a bus. This blind insistence on ID is a bit too much like an interior passport for my taste.

[headstamp]

Tha ACLU is supposedly representing her;


http://www.papersplease.org/davis/index.html

[NathanR]

And if you forget your wallet, but have enough cash in your pocket to pay the bus fare? Then what??

Homeless people who often ride buses, often don't have ID either.

Just another reason not to ride the bus.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which has taken up the case.

How come it is that the ACLU is called in on these type of things? I see both sides of the debate, and in time of war come down on the side of caution, but why these ass clowns get involved EVERY single time is beyond me.

BigMack

[CedarDave]

And as the security guard approaches the person on the bus and asks for the ID, the homocide bomber blows up himself and surrounding persons.

[tfecw]

Yeah this is why I don't like the "if you don't like the security at the airport, don't ride" argument, which was then extended to the "if you don't like the security at the NYC subway, don't ride." Looks like buses in Denver are out as well.

I also don't like getting blown up when I'm on the subway, bus or airplane. It's a tuff one though, but I think i like what Mr. Franklin said on the matter