Posted on 12/08/2005 8:55:00 AM PST by JTN
Federal prosecutors have dropped charges against Deborah Davis, the 53-year-old Arvada woman who refused to show her identification to federal police officers on an RTD bus traveling through the Federal Center in Lakewood.
Davis' supporters, at first jubilant to learn Wednesday morning that she will not be prosecuted, were dismayed to learn hours later that officers of the Federal Protective Service still will ask passengers on the public bus to show their identification. The policy applies to all passengers, including those, as in Davis' case, who are traveling through the Federal Center and not getting off the bus there.
Federal officials said the Davis case was closed because of a technicality involving a problem with a sign at the Federal Center at the time Davis was ticketed. The sign was supposed to inform people that their IDs would be checked.
"The policy hasn't changed," said Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, of which the Federal Protective Service is a part. "There are no plans to change our procedures."
Davis' lawyers said the battle is likely to continue.
"We're very pleased that they dropped charges against Ms. Davis," said Davis' volunteer lawyer, Gail Johnson, of the Denver law firm Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, Jordan, Mackey & Foreman. "But sign or no sign, she and other Colorado citizens continue to have the constitutional right to travel by public bus without being forced to show identification to federal agents."
"I think if the government is going to insist on continuing to violate the constitutional rights of our citizens, then they're going to find themselves back in court on this one," Johnson said. "We're not interested in the Deborah Davis exception."
Johnson said lawyers from outside Colorado had volunteered to help represent Davis following nationwide publicity about the controversy, and that other bus passengers who refuse to show identification likely could find legal representation as well.
"There are plenty of lawyers in Denver who would be happy to help people," she said.
Davis had been scheduled to appear for arraignment before a U.S. magistrate judge in Denver on Friday. She could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
Bill Scannell, a spokesman for Davis and an activist who has helped publicize other challenges to government identification requests, said a rally outside the courthouse, at 19th and Champa streets, will occur at 8:30 a.m. Friday as planned.
He said Davis will speak during the rally and she and her supporters will ride through the Federal Center on the Regional Transportation District's Bus 100 - the one from which Davis was removed for not showing her ID.
Scannell called it "a victory ride," even after he learned that the policy has not changed.
"My anticipation is that the victory riders will be fully exercising their constitutional rights to travel freely in their own country on a public bus," he said.
Asked if some or all of the riders might refuse to show their IDs to Federal Center police, he said, "I think that's a fair assumption."
Zuieback, the spokeswoman for ICE in Washington, D.C., declined to discuss how federal officers would respond to any such refusals.
"We never speculate about what our response is going to be to a specific situation," she said.
She said the dispute isn't about the bus or its passengers, but about the security of a federal facility.
"It's not a city bus on a city road," Zuieback said. "It is entering a federal facility."
Two RTD buses, the 3 and the 100, pass through the Federal Center several times a day. Thousands of people work at the Federal Center, and thousands more visit some of its agencies, including a popular map sales office and a heavily used depository for genealogical information.
In addition, the road through the Federal Center leads from South Kipling Street on the east side of the facility to the Cold Spring park-n-ride at the Federal Center's northwest corner, a major connecting point for buses bound elsewhere.
RTD officials have said some passengers have complained in the past about the federal police ID checks, which began after the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City. The bus routes through the Federal Center had existed for many years before that.
"It's clearly not an ideal situation for RTD or our passengers, but it is controlled wholly by the federal police at that site," RTD spokesman Scott Reed said Wednesday.
"We hope there will be some resolution of this, and we are doing the best we can to comply with their regulations while providing a long- standing service to our passengers," he said.
Davis, who routinely rode RTD's 100 bus through the Federal Center to get to her job at a small business in Lakewood, said she first showed her ID to federal police who boarded the bus and asked to see all passengers' identification, but it bothered her.
She then spent several days telling the officers she didn't have her ID with her and wasn't getting off the bus in the Federal Center anyway. Officers eventually told her she had to bring her ID or she couldn't ride the bus.
Finally, Davis refused on Sept. 26 to show her ID and was removed from the bus, handcuffed, placed in the back of a patrol car and taken to a police station in the Federal Center. She was later released after officers issued her petty offense tickets.
Zuieback said the ID checks are only one part of "many layers of security." She would not discuss the other parts.
"Looking at that ID, having that initial contact with an individual, does allow us to know that that person is who they say they are," she said.
Asked how officers know a person's ID is genuine, she said, "We have trained professionals doing that work."
Who are you?
• The Federal Protective Service says its policy of checking IDs of bus riders at the Denver Federal Center has not changed. Here are the RTD bus routes that enter the center on at least some runs (some routes vary with time of day):
3 Alameda Crosstown 5x Cold Springs Express 14 West Florida 100 Kipling Crosstown G Golden/Boulder
All pass through the Cold Springs Park-n-Ride at Fourth Avenue and Union Boulevard on the northeast corner of the Federal Center.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
The key is: the "ID check" is just looking at ANY common ID, and _not_ comparing it to any lists. Remember, all she had to do was show a driver's license from any state or any number of other common IDs (many easily forged). Remember, the ID was not actually compared to any list. Remember, acceptable ID in this case was not specifically intended for the facility in question, and the name thereupon was not checked against any "go" or "no-go" list. All an ID would prove is that she had an ID.
For every instance where an ID check worked (of course only for situations comparable to the bus case in question), I can give you 10 or more instances where it didn't work. A driver's license says nothing about one's criminal record. Underage kids fake or borrow IDs at an alarming rate. Identity theft is a huge underreported problem. A passport says nothing about why someone intends to pass. What's in my wallet says nothing about what I'm carrying - or why.
Funny, you can't seem to articulate why an ID check would work in this case.
Riding on public transportation does not automatically give the feds or anyone else in this country, carte blanch to check for ID.
But then I guess the sheeple in this country don't give a damn about freedom and self determination so long as Uncle Sugar is "protecting them."
"those who would give up freedom for security deserve neither." Ben Franklin
You're quite welcome
This does not contradict anything I said. I did not say that all passengers were getting off at the facility, that was obvious since the woman who refused to show her ID was not getting off there.
The government facility is part of that bus loop.
The bus loops are public transportation. They are designed to balance the needs of many different people but won't always meet the needs of each individual.
It still goes back to what good is coming from the way they are functioning now? Are they really securing the facility?
Your scenarios are great, but that isn't what is happening currently.
No ID, just make sure you have it next time.
"I've made my decision."
No, you haven't. The government bureaucrats have made it for you and you'll just bleat piteously a time or two and then move along with the rest of the herd. You should be a Canadian.
You could make that same argument about any public bus anywhere at any time. So would your solution be to check all IDs of everyone getting on a public bus? It would be ridiculous to do do, much as it is ridiculous to check the IDs (and nothing more) of anyone transitting the DFC on a public bus. It's overreach for a microscopic gain (if at all) in security.
Why not have them check shoe sizes instead of IDs? It would provide just as much security as checking IDs, perhaps even more so since you might catch a Richard Reid-type shoe bomber. Would you advocate them checking shoe sizes? It's not perfect after all, but if it catches just one terrorist maybe it's worth it. And any level of security is better than "doing nothing" right?
I live here and have been to the facility a few times so I am right with you on what you are saying.
But given that TSA still wants to strip search granny from time to time I have just come to expect the worst out of all government.
And which would terrorize the population more?
I am philosophically with you on this. The government simply gets sillier by the day and what was once hidden from public view is the public view today.
I agree with you and I don't expect the future to hold a better level of respect for mere citizens. I am beginning to understand what the slowly boiled frog feels like.
I was only trying to mimic government thought (or lack thereof).
"Is there anyone here who is on the side of the ID checkers who was never a government employee?"
*crickets*
Does a public bus transit the facility?
I used to work at a federal facility that had a public bus transit it. There were two gates. Their was a bus stop at either gate. The bus would stop at one, people would get off, show their ID, then enter on foot. The bus would continue through the installation not stopping and exit the other gate where it would stop, again discharging any passengers who wanted to enter that gate. They would get off and show their ID, then enter on foot. The bus would continue on. At no time were the other passengers on the bus stopped, detained, or otherwise hassled about ID or anything else. Anyone could ride it.
No, I mean it gets looked at, person's face is compared with picture, ID looks just fine because it is in fact a perfectly legitimate ID.
As for other points...
Person is nervous? lots of people get nervous when their ID is checked by a cop.
Dress not appropriate? the guy in the cube next to me is wearing a knit cap - indoors in Georgia.
Etc. Might something be noticed? sure. We'll grant you that tiny chance that a threat might be uncovered. You're holding tight to the "but it might help!" mantra so hard that you can't see that (a) other methods are far more effective for less cost in both dollars and rights-trampling, and (b) getting around the cursory ID check is so stupidly trivially simple that an AQ agent might actually (as they've expressed interest in doing so) take it on as a challenge.
Definitely a valid question. I don't know the answer.
The woman who refused to show her ID has ever right to be unhappy about that requirement. However, she chose the wrong way to object to it.
The officers enforcing the procedure don't have the authority to change it. They have to do their jobs.
Maybe there is a good reason for them to require identification. Maybe they feel that the nominal benefit to security is a good balance considering the potential harm.
I agree that it doesn't seem like a particularly useful check, but I also don't know a lot about the facility and the route of the bus.
Even if it's a useless procedure that serves no purpose she doesn't have any excuse for how she handled it. This wasn't the first time she'd been asked to provide her ID on that bus route. She knew it would be required.
The only thing that refusing to comply could possibly result in was her arrest. The officers can't just say ok, we agree the procedure is stupid, we just won't require it of you. She put them in a situation where they had to arrest her. She inconvenienced everyone else on that bus. She wasted a considerable amount of our tax dollars on having the officers arrest and process her.
Why? Because she disagreed with the rule? Yes, but she could have complained about the rule without confronting the officers which had no ability to change it. Had she shown the officers a little respect and asked them how to properly complain about the procedure, they would likely have been happy to provide her with the information or tell her how to get it.
Instead, she lied to them about leaving her ID at home on at least one occasion and then finally just refused to comply.
I respect people's right to privacy, but I have little respect for people who put themselves in such situations, show such disrespect for people who's intentions are to help keep them safe, and then act like victims. The first time she rode the bus and was required to show ID she may have been a victim of a bad government procedure. After that she was a victim of her own choice.
Definitely a valid question. I don't know the answer.
The woman who refused to show her ID has ever right to be unhappy about that requirement. However, she chose the wrong way to object to it.
The officers enforcing the procedure don't have the authority to change it. They have to do their jobs.
Maybe there is a good reason for them to require identification. Maybe they feel that the nominal benefit to security is a good balance considering the potential harm.
I agree that it doesn't seem like a particularly useful check, but I also don't know a lot about the facility and the route of the bus.
Even if it's a useless procedure that serves no purpose she doesn't have any excuse for how she handled it. This wasn't the first time she'd been asked to provide her ID on that bus route. She knew it would be required.
The only thing that refusing to comply could possibly result in was her arrest. The officers can't just say ok, we agree the procedure is stupid, we just won't require it of you. She put them in a situation where they had to arrest her. She inconvenienced everyone else on that bus. She wasted a considerable amount of our tax dollars on having the officers arrest and process her.
Why? Because she disagreed with the rule? Yes, but she could have complained about the rule without confronting the officers which had no ability to change it. Had she shown the officers a little respect and asked them how to properly complain about the procedure, they would likely have been happy to provide her with the information or tell her how to get it.
Instead, she lied to them about leaving her ID at home on at least one occasion and then finally just refused to comply.
I respect people's right to privacy, but I have little respect for people who put themselves in such situations, show such disrespect for people who's intentions are to help keep them safe, and then act like victims. The first time she rode the bus and was required to show ID she may have been a victim of a bad government procedure. After that she was a victim of her own choice.
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