Refusal to present ID sparks test of rights

Federal prosecutors are reviewing whether to pursue charges against an Arvada woman who refused to show identification to federal police while riding an RTD bus through the Federal Center in Lakewood.

Deborah Davis, 50, was ticketed for two petty offenses Sept. 26 by officers who commonly board the RTD bus as it passes through the Federal Center and ask passengers for identification.

During the Thanksgiving weekend, an activist who has helped publicize other challenges to government ID requirements posted a Web site about the case, which he said had logged more than 1.5 million visitors by lunchtime Monday.

"The petty offense ticket was issued by police on the scene," Colorado U.S. attorney's spokesman Jeff Dorschner said Monday. "The status of the matter is now under review."

A decision on whether the government will pursue the case is expected in a week or two.

Davis said she commuted daily from her home in Arvada to her job at a small business in Lakewood, taking an RTD bus south on Kipling Street each morning from the recreation center in Wheat Ridge, where she left her car. She said the bus always passed through the Federal Center and some people got off there.

Guards at the Federal Center gate always boarded the bus and asked to see all passengers' identification, she said.

She said the guards just looked at the IDs and did not record them or compare them with any lists.

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.

She said she arrived at work three hours late. She no longer has that job and did not identify her former employer.

The Federal Protective Service in Colorado referred inquiries to Carl Rusnok of Dallas, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the federal police. Both are part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Rusnok said the federal officers in Colorado told him the policy of checking the IDs of bus passengers and others entering the Federal Center began shortly after the April 1995 terrorist bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.

"It's one of the multiple forms of security," Rusnok said. "The identification is one means of making sure that, whoever comes on base, that you know that they are who they say they are.

"There are a variety of other means that bad people could take to circumvent that, but that's why there are multiple layers of security," he said.

Between 7,000 and 8,000 people work at the Federal Center in Lakewood and between 2,000 and 2,500 people visit it every day, Rusnok said.

"Security to protect the employees and the visitors is a high priority," Rusnok said.

RTD spokesman Scott Reed said federal guards only check IDs of bus passengers when the Federal Center is on "heightened alert," which may not be known to the general public.

"That is something we don't control," Reed said. "It is Federal Center property, and the federal security controls the ID-checking process. We try to cooperate as best we can and inform the public that this will occur."

Davis is to appear before a magistrate judge in Colorado U.S. District Court on Dec. 9.

"We don't believe the federal government has the legal authority to put Deborah Davis in jail, or even make her pay a fine, just because she declined the government's request for identification," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which has taken up the case.

"She was commuting to her job," Silverstein said. "She wasn't doing anything wrong. She wasn't even suspected of doing anything wrong."

"Passengers aren't required to carry passports or any other identification documents in order to ride to work on a public bus," he said.

Davis also is represented by volunteer attorneys Gail Johnson and Norm Mueller of the Denver law firm Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, Jordan, Mackey & Foreman, P.C. She also has the backing of Bill Scannell, an activist who has helped publicize other challenges to government requirements that people show identification. Scannell created a Web site during the Thanksgiving weekend about Davis' case: papersplease.org/Davis.

"This is just a basic American issue of what our country's all about," Scannell said. "It has nothing really to do with politics, and everything to do with what kind of country we want to live in."

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.

Davis said she showed her ID when a Federal Center guard asked to see it for the first couple of days she rode the RTD bus through the center. But it bothered her.

"It's wrong," she said Monday. "It's not even security. It's just a lesson in compliance - the big guys pushing the little guys around."

For a few subsequent days, she told the guards she wasn't getting off in the Federal Center and didn't have an ID. They let her stay on the bus.

Finally, on a Friday, a guard told Davis she had to have an ID the next time. Davis said she spent part of the weekend studying her rights and e-mailing Scannell.

That Monday, when a guard asked if she had her ID with her, Davis just said, "Yes."

The guard told her she had to leave the bus, but she refused. Two officers with the Federal Protective Service were called.

"I boarded the bus and spoke with the individual, Deborah N. Davis . . . asking why she was refusing," wrote the first Federal Protective Service officer in an incident report posted on Scannell's Web site. The officer was not identified.

"She explained she did not have to give up her rights and present identification," the officer wrote. "I informed her she was entering a federal facility and that the regulations for entrance did require her to present identification, before being allowed access."

Eventually, one officer said, "Grab her," and the two officers took hold of her arms and removed her from the bus, Davis said.

Davis has four children, including a 21-year-old son serving in Iraq with the Army and a 28-year-old son who is a Navy veteran. She has five grandchildren.

I appreciate the discussion we are having.

If his opening statement to you was "do you want to get arrested tonight?", then that sets the stage for a confrontation, which is fine for Johnny Bad Guy, but not Joe Family Guy, that is usually a rookie mistake, not a detective, oh well, it happens sometimes.

As to laws on Federal Property on in DC, I would only be guessing. Your guess is as good as mine.

I do have a few long time friends that are Officers for a Transit Authority, that includes buses. Here in Texas, there all kinds of governments that have authority to pass laws that are unique to their area. For instance, a City will have City ordinances that are unique to just that City. Park boards may have Police Officers that not only are Texas Peace Officers, but they are hired to enforce rules of the park. You will see this on School P.D.s also. Transit Authorities are governed by elected or appointed officials that pass law enforceable ordinances also. On their buses they will have rules and laws. Rule violations may result in having riding privileges revoked, and violation of laws may result in citations or arrests.

In the post, from the line "Rusnok said the federal officers in Colorado told him the policy of checking the IDs of bus passengers and others entering the Federal Center began shortly after the April 1995 terrorist bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City."

I take that as showing ID is a rule, or a policy, not a law. From reading the story she refused to follow the rule (or policy). A guard is not able to enforce laws, only rules and policies, and she violated a policy. she didnt break the law until this point...

"The guard told her she had to leave the bus, but she refused. Two officers with the Federal Protective Service were called."

The guard represents the bus line, has authority to tell people to leave the bus. She refused. So she is now trespassing, that is a violation of law, so the guard called Officers, and she was arrested. The way I see it, she refused to show ID, so the bus refused to provide her with a service. She refused to leave, that when Officers were called in, because she refused to leave. Thats my take. Im to tired to read the whole thing again to see if there was anything else.

On the other link "Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats."

I dont know how they did that, I cant say enough about what a bad idea that is. I only know Texas law, not Florida. In Texas, you must have probable cause to a crime to check ID. Some States make an exception for that for certain traffic enforcement such as DWI checkpoints ect. They were checking ID's of bank and Hotel customers. Handing out literature is fine, if the property owners dont mind. Checking ID's of everyone going in and out in of a private business? No way. If the Bank, or the grocery store, or whatever business wants to see your ID, fine. Show the bank or the hotel your ID if they want that, or you can go somewhere that doesnt require you to show your ID. That is between you and the business. But LEO's asking for ID at random I personally see as going to far. I am comfortable with Texas law that gives LEO's authority to ID a suspect or witness to any crime great or small, but not like this Florida Chief that was choosing people at random in the name of security.

"They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

But i do not subscribe to the idea that our founding fathers wanted a society where a peace officer could not even ask a person who they are.

I disagree - if you have done nothing to warrant being under any kind of suspicion, I believe they would be adamantly opposed to this, because once you say it's okay to just ask for an ID at will, you open the door for a lot of abuse. They had no problem challenging authority, even to the point of fighting a war over it, and that spirit has unfortunately been lost over the centuries for the most part - people like me who think the government should be highly restricted in how it interacts with you are a dying breed.

I had the opportunity to visit East Germany several times before the wall came down, and even though I was with a group of western Officers that were heavily escorted (i.e. we couldn't just walk around and talk to people), I still saw the "Papers please" scenario played out, and I saw people afraid of the government.

I think we are sliding down that slope, and this isn't the best case to be fought, but I think these kinds of things need to be fought anywhere and everywhere. We don't need to wait until it's too late.

Brown v. Texas

Two police officers, while cruising near noon in a patrol car, observed appellant and another man walking away from one another in an alley in an area with a high incidence of drug traffic. They stopped and asked appellant to identify himself and explain what he was doing. One officer testified that he stopped appellant because the situation "looked suspicious and we had never seen that subject in that area before." The officers did not claim to suspect appellant of any specific misconduct, nor did they have any reason to believe that he was armed. When appellant refused to identify himself, he was arrested for violation of a Texas statute which makes it a criminal act for a person to refuse to give his name and address to an officer "who has lawfully stopped him and requested the information." Appellant's motion to set aside an information charging him with violation of the statute on the ground that the statute violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments was denied, and he was convicted and fined.

...

The application of the Texas statute to detain appellant and require him to identify himself violated the Fourth Amendment because the officers lacked any reasonable suspicion to believe that appellant was engaged or had engaged in criminal conduct. Detaining appellant to require him to identify himself constituted a seizure of his person subject to the requirement of the Fourth Amendment that the seizure be "reasonable." Cf. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 ; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873 . The Fourth Amendment requires that such a seizure be based on specific, objective facts indicating that society's legitimate interests require such action, or that the seizure be carried out pursuant to a plan embodying explicit, neutral limitations on the conduct of individual officers. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 . Here, the State does not contend that appellant was stopped pursuant to a practice embodying neutral criteria, and the officers' actions were not justified on the ground that they had a reasonable suspicion, based on objective facts, that he was involved in criminal activity. Absent any basis for suspecting appellant of misconduct, the balance between the public interest in crime prevention and appellant's right to personal [443 U.S. 47, 48] security and privacy tilts in favor of freedom from police interference.

observed appellant and another man walking away from one another in an alley in an area with a high incidence of drug traffic.

That is enough for me to accept it as proper for cops to inquire ID. I do not find that unreasonable in the least bit. This is a clean example of a beat cop doing his job.This is absolutely reasonable behavior by a beat cop. Recognizing his area of patrol and strange activity within it. This is not unlike what we need in Iraq today out of Iraqi soldiers. They can recognize the same type things and bring an added tool to catch terrorists.

"looked suspicious and we had never seen that subject in that area before."

There is the suspicioun needed when added CONTEXT of the area in question. You attempt to remove that context in order to cloud the issue.

This situation is precisely the difference between suspicion and probable cause.

"who has lawfully stopped him and requested the information." YUP.

and he was convicted and fined.

GOOD.

Are you tring to claim that his ID was 'siezed' when he was asked to produce it?

This fella would never have been arrested had he shown his ID. You seem to dismiss the entire reality of that issue. You want to hide, go for it and take note that you hide just like terrorists do, just like criminals do. You had better get busy making the claim that terrorists rights are being violated in fallujah when ID is required for entry.

You can deny the police and every other law enforcment entity you like sir. That is your right. But realize that standing mute does not shield you form detention or prosecution. You seem to think it does somehow. Just as you have the right to stand mute, law enforcment has the right to ask you questions.

If you chose to feel that police are your enemy, go for it. I sure am glad I have another choice. My question to you is why is it that you think law enforcment is your enemy, much less your number one enemy?

Another question I pose to you is HOW can they even begin to do the job they are tasked with when people like you make the claim that it is wrong for them to even ASK you a question about who you are?

At the very same time you are of the idea that they cannot watch you from afar. You will claim that is a violation of rights just as you do when they come right up and ask you. You will not allow them to listen to you, to watch you, to collect various types of data about you, you would even go so far to say that I violated your right to reasonable search if I told the cops who you were.

Sir, there is no right in the constitution to break the law. The laws were not designed, put in place,or ruled upon thru the constitution or thru the legislative branch or even the judicial branch in order for people to remain totally anonymous to all bodies 100% of the time. You seem to think that is the case, and it simply isn't so.

In the spirit of debate, I will say that you offer lots of opposition, claiming it is honest dissent. I will offer to you that honest dissent is qualified, and seperated from, baseline opposition by the presence of alternative solution. Seems to me the only thing you bring to the table is opposition with your reason being the defention of unreasonable as you see it. You do offer court decisions that favor your position from many years ago, while you ignore recent ones that do not. To honor one you must honor them all. Or you must honor none at all.

Now, you offer lots of opposition that hamstrings every ability of any law enforcment entity to actually gain the level of cause you demand. While in the abstract context of all people being right, proper and law abiding, you offer fair and valid points. When true context is added into the equation your dog ceases to hunt. People DO commit crime and that fact deems law enforcment neccesary.

With that fact established,the necessity of law enforcment, I ask you to rectify your position of not allowing law enforcment any tools to gain the cause you demand. This can be done by offering to me what tools you see as allowable to law enforcment in order that they may actually gain the cause you demand. When you do this, your opposition to the current methods used will be qualified. They will indeed, have a base on which to rest.

Context matters sir, taking things out of context and only seeing them as a singular entity often leads to a skewed view on the actual situation as it exists in reality.

So, if you care to discuss this on a reality based level, then by all means offer to me how law enforcment CAN gain the cause you demand at the level you demand it.

Are you of the character to simply offer opposition without solution or are you of the character that seeks to actually solve the problems you propose?

If law enforcment cannot ask you questions directly, if they cannot collect any data about you from any source, if they cannot watch you or listen to you, if they cannot talk to others about you, if they cannot even ID you, HOW DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO DO THEIR JOBS? How will they ever reach the level of cause you demand?

Tell me Sir, what you are for as it pertains to this issue. Not what you are against. I already know what you are against. I pose to you that law enforcment could not even begin to do their job if you were to have your way. Your position would see them completely ineffective in any way. So in reality your position would see this nation fall into complete and utter chaos.

Please tell me what tools you would consider reasonable for law enforcment to use in order that they may gain the level of cause you require.

How will they ever reach the level of cause you demand?

The courts have laid it all out very clearly.

It's called "articulable suspicion." If they have no specific, explainable reason to talk to someone, they can't force that person to talk to them.

In the Brown case, the conviction and fine was overturned.

You're going way off the deep end by claiming that I want to strip cops of all their tools.

They have the authority to watch me, to observe my behaviour, to gather whatever information they like. If that adds up to a reasonable suspicion that I have broken, am breaking, or am about to break the law, then they have the authority to detain me, compel me to identify myself, and investigate further.

But if there is NO reasonable suspicion that I have broken, am breaking, or am about to break the law, if there is NOTHING about my conduct that is, or appears to be, illegal, then in a free country I must, by definition, have the right to tell them that I don't care to talk to them.

Law enforcement has been able to do their jobs for hundreds of years without harassing innocent, law-abiding citizens on the basis of hunches, routine dragnets, and wild-ass guesses.

I'm not worried that they'll think of a way to continue to do their jobs without violating their oaths.

Here's an example of the kind of thing that can result when there's an absence of any restraint or accountability on the actions of police officers with respect to their interactions with the public:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/13272741.htm

---
On July 13, 1995, Judge Lazarus was listening to lawyers arguing a motion when two men in casual clothes entered the sequestered courtroom.

When Court Officer Gary Wakshul tried to stop them, one declared: "You can't do anything to us. We're... cops!"

Wakshul told the Police Department's Internal Affairs that Fleming grabbed his necktie with one hand and punched him in the face, knocking off his glasses. The other man, Officer Jean Langan, also punched Wakshul.

The Internal Affairs investigation found that Fleming and Langan, who had been working undercover with a narcotics unit, punched Wakshul and used profanity, though both denied it.
---

He also engaged in a public strip search of someone who was ultimately not arrested, and nearly paralyzed a 53-year-old pastor with a take-down maneuver who was eventually found not guilty on all charges. He's also been caught testilying.

He has cost the department about a million bucks in settlements, but he still carries a badge.

Is that the kind of person you want to give carte blanche to confront anyone they care to confront regardless of evidence or suspicion?

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