Posted on 11/30/2005 11:34:30 AM PST by JTN
The first time she was asked to show identification while riding the bus to work, Deborah Davis was so startled that she complied without thinking. But the more she thought about it, the less sense it made.
That's how Davis, a 50-year-old Colorado woman with four grown children and five grandchildren, ended up getting dragged off the bus by federal security officers, who handcuffed her, took her to their station, and cited her for two misdemeanors. Davis, who is scheduled to be arraigned on December 9, is risking 60 days in jail to show her fellow Americans that they don't need to blindly obey every dictate imposed in the name of security.
The public bus that Davis took to her office job in Lakewood, Colorado, crosses the Denver Federal Center, a 90-building complex occupied by agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department, the General Services Administration, and the Bureau of Land Management. "The facility is not high security," says Davis. "It's not Area 51 or NORAD or the Rocky Mountain Arsenal."
Guards nevertheless board buses as they enter the complex and demand IDs from passengers, whether or not they're getting off there. According to Davis, the guards barely glance at the IDs, let alone write down names or check them against a list.
"It's just an obedience test," says Gail Johnson, a lawyer recruited to represent Davis by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. "It does nothing for security."
Ahmad Taha, supervisory special agent with the Federal Protective Service, which is in charge of security at the Denver complex, said guards there have been checking the IDs of bus passengers since 9/11. He declined to explain the security rationale for this ritual or to comment on Davis' case.
After complying the first day she rode the bus, Davis began saying she had no ID and was not getting off at the Federal Center anyway. One Friday in late September, a guard told her she would not be permitted to ride the bus anymore without ID.
Before taking the stand that led to her arrest, Davis says, "I spent the weekend making sure that the Constitution hadn't changed since I was in the eighth grade, and it hadn't....We're not required to carry papers....We have a right to be anonymous."
Last year the Supreme Court ruled that a suspect in a criminal investigation can be required to give his name. But it has never upheld a policy of requiring ordinary citizens to carry ID and present it on demand. Davis "wasn't doing anything wrong," notes Johnson. "She wasn't suspected of doing anything wrong. She was a completely innocent person on the way to work."
Johnson plans to argue that the ID requirement violates Davis' First Amendment right to freedom of association, her Fourth Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, and her Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of liberty (in this case, freedom of travel) without due process. A civil case raising similar issues in the context of airport ID checks is scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit the day before Davis' arraignment.
"Enough is enough," says Davis. "Our rights are being taken away a little piece at a time, and people are letting it happen."
Pulling out your driver's license may seem like a slight imposition, but the justification is even slighter. Since anyone can flash an ID, the procedure does not distinguish between people who pose a threat and people who don't. It does not even distinguish between people who are visiting the Federal Center and people who are merely riding a bus that happens to pass through it.
In a free country, citizens have no obligation to explain themselves to the government as they go about their daily lives. It's the government that owes us an explanation.
She wasn't driving.
I don't see anything in that instruction about driving.
Thanks for the ping. I'd seen an earlier story on this event, it's an interesting one.
modern-day Rosa Parks,
Yeah, I'm sure that most, if not all bus riders get on the web and check all this out for every route they might take.
Please tell me the value of 'carding' bus passengers traversing the area.
If there was a special ID required and registration for those without the ID (like many military bases and private companies) I could see it.
A Rosa Parks wanna-be?
So there is no place to get of this bus except on the facility.
Why not? and why does demanding all IDs and ignoring all but the indicated subset make it OK? especially when the 4th Amendment plainly states that's not OK?
I'm noticing that the only ones not supporting the Constitution here are those supporting her arrest. If there's a Constitutional justification for this, I'd like to see it.
Does anyone know if citizens approached by a law enforcement officer have to provide their name or ID if requested?
No.
Only drivers are required to have drivers licenses. If someone isn't driving and doesn't have a driver's license, it seems absurdly harsh to arrest them.
As I said in Post #77, it does not appear possible to "traverse" the facility by bus. Once you enter, you have to exit the bus while still on the facility.
But, even so, asking for and getting IDs from riders on a bus will demonstrate to a guard who is a regular and who is a stranger after about a week.
Your hatred of the ACLU (which occasionally defends liberties) has blinded you to the principle of a limited government.
So will getting on and looking around. It's indicated he wasn't actually looking at the info on the IDs, so let's just drop that pretense.
But in most places, there is no requirement for voter ID. And courts have supported the laws which prohibit any system of meaningful verification of who's voting and how many times.
Unfortunately, the answer is yes.
Check it out for yourself.
But a newspaper would never get anything wrong, would it?
And that addresses the thread's subject how?
Only connection I see: if courts have repeatedly struck down something as reasonable and arguably Constitutional as Voter IDs, then surely the 4th Amendment really does mean what it says in this case: demanding ID without cause, and arresting those who don't comply, is unconstitutional.
The courts have ruled against these because of their implementation.
Wrong. She refused to leave the bus. It's on her website. Other facts are that she orchestrated the whole episode after conferring with Dem operative Bill Scannell, she knew ahead of time that she would be asked to leave the bus if she had no ID, she had been lying to the security detail about not having ID, there are other buses that would have taken her to her location that did not pass through the fed check area, she never identified her employeer, she suddenly does not have that job anymore. This reminds me of an ADA setup. Bill Scannell using a Deborah Davis shill.
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