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.
So a local police dept receives a credible threat and stops a bus in a situation that we would consider to be reasonable, to do a search, and they have to convene a jury before they do this? I'm afraid I don;t follow you on this one...
By the way, that is Number One on Scott Adam's (of Dilbert) list of dumb Internet debating techniques.
I would counter by asking you if you feel empowered to ask anyone anywhere at any time for their ID? Is there anytime it would be "unreasonable" to ask for ID?
Agreed. Simple ID checks only serve to condition the public to the concept that they must submit to any government intrusion, no matter how small.
By JOHN McDONALD
The Orange County Register
ORANGE – An investigation into how a man was shot in the leg led to his arrest on suspicion of possessing stolen property and to evidence that he may have been part of an identity-theft ring, the Orange County Sheriff's Department reported.
Timothy Joseph Buckhalter was taken to a hospital Sunday because of a gunshot wound, sheriff's Sgt. Brian Schmutz said. Police were unable to talk to him because he was in surgery, so deputies went to his Main Street home and received permission to enter his room, Schmutz said.
"There were several computers with laminators, a stack of driver's license blanks, along with vials of embossing powder that (could) re-create the state seal as a watermark, just like a real driver's license," he said.
Investigators also seized stolen passports, checkbooks and credit cards, he said.
Police believe that Buckhalter accidentally shot himself in the leg but say he refused to admit it because he is on parole and is not allowed to handle a firearm. Anyone with information is asked to call investigator Chris Dunn at (714) 647-1894.
I haven't seen anything indictating that the DFC is checking shoe sizes. Do you have a link to such a story? Sure airports check shoes of boarding passengers, just as they check bags, clothes, purses, etc. I'm unaware they check shoe sizes. I've never seen a Brannock device at airport security.
never heard of Scott Adam, so I didn't steal anything from him. I could suggest to add to add some techniques to his list, however. Certainly, as I have suggested here many times, there is reasonable and unreasonable, regarding the ID/search issue. It's written clearly in the law, what constitutes seizure, etc.
Using vague generalized questions to make a specific point, meaning arguing from the general to the specific should be on this highly prized list.
ie; ID checks are the equvalent of no ID checks in terms of potential success at identifying perpetrators, and all ID checks are the same in all circumstances.
Shoe check, not shoe size check. I have said nothing about shoe sizes. I know you have, but I am not referring to it. You are nit-picking. I'll settle for type of shoe, as it states in the article the shoes were similar to richard reid's. Whether or not they were the same size, we don;t know and I don't care.
Why are you changing the situation? There was no credible theat here. They were not looking for a specific person in a BOLO or named warrant. Those circumstances would allow a search and ID check.
And yes, anyone at anytime can refuse a police search. If charged with refusing it, they can be tried by jury who will determine if the search was "reasonable." That's the way the criminal process works in this country. Unless you are also tossing out the Sixth Amendment along with the Fourth! We don't live in a country where you are automatically guilty when arrested because the police don't arrest innocent people. They have to be guilty or they wouldn't have been arrested, right?
what differentiates a 'simple' ID check from a 'complex' ID check?
The misperception here is that I am arguing that ID checks all by themselves will do the trick. I have said nothing of the kind. I maintain to do something is better than to do nothing. If you completely do nothing, then assuredly there is a 100% chance that nothing will be found. The fraudulent multiple ID problem should be better addressed, along with other measures, when reasonable and credible threat or legal suspicion exists, the ID's should be looked at as part of a larger inspection process. Sounds like the other argument is do nothing to anyone at anytime for any reason.
I have been constantly referring to a shoe size check. I know shoes are checked, that's why I used that example, duh! What's absurd is a shoe-size check as a security device, jus like asking for someone to produce a (fake or not, who knows) ID card provides no additional security. I already said a shoe-size check might provide additional security that an ID check wouldn't. So why are they not implementing it then? Because it's dumb. Checking someone's shoe size without checking their shoes is just as stupid as checking someone's ID card without actually checking it against an access control list or a watch list.
I've no problem with that, it's just that in this circumstance there was no "reasonable and credible threat or legal suspicion."
Well, we've gotten away from the specifics of the case in question in order to discuss the larger issue of what is reasonable, yes? You trot out the specific case as it suits you, it seems. I never said there was any threat or suspicion, while qualifying that by saying none that we know of. There is a protocol for that particular bus going thru that particular location, right or wrong, and that is what we know. So it has been argued that the bus shouldn't go thru there, ID search is unreasonable, etc., etc. My position is that based on location and possibly the decision that this bus going through this location is to some degree higher risk than usual, along with facts that we may not know about, that the request to see ID was reasonable. It may very well not have been. I was not there, I don;t know the specifics of the decision to check that particular bus, and I would venture to say no one here does either. So, we have used this specific case as the genesis of a broader discussion. That is all....
We are both talking about shoes. You are talking also about shoe sizes, I am not. What's the problem?
I am talking about shoes, and to take it one step further (had to write that) shoe types. I have taken mine off on many occasions at aeroports and to my knowledge never had the size checked. I thought you were using this as an abstract example to make a point.
"I've no problem with that, it's just that in this circumstance there was no "reasonable and credible threat or legal suspicion."
You know, I;m not paranoid or anything, but any other time most here would be railing against the biased shoddy reporting in a lot of the msm items posted here. Why suddenly would you base your whole argument on a new article? Is there any chance that there may be some facts we don;t know about? Maybe, maybe not. I am not prepared to speak to the level of threat which may or may not have been present because I simply don;t know. I don;t know that anyone here has much more info than has been written in the article(s). Someone decided to check ID's on this bus. Why? There has to have been some reason for it. I will admit to the possibility that it was done by a bunch of knuckleheads, I just can;t come to that conclusion based on the article alone...
Have a good one. Time to wrap up things before tomorrow's snow storm.....
What constitutes a 'reasonable' ID check from an 'unreasonable' one?
I have said nothing of the kind. I maintain to do something is better than to do nothing.
But that's exactly what happened --nothing. For several days, she was allowed to continue riding the bus after failing to produce an ID on demand.
Why did the federal police officer allow this to happen. Why didn't he pull her off the bus and arrest her the first time it happened?
If he knew she wasn't a threat based upon earlier ID checks, then why did he suddenly assume she was a threat and arrest her?
The answer here is simple --social engineering.
The government wants compliance without argument and the easiest way to do that is to make an example of the one who stands up and refuses to comply.
Only this time, it didn't turn out quite like the government expected.
I differ from you in that I maintain that empty actions are worse than doing nothing because it leads to a false sense of security.
I continue to be amazed at the number of people on a conservative news forum who don't realize that terrorists are laughing at us abandoning our own (former) principles in order to "protect" ourselves against them.
To hell with it.
I would rather fight terrorists hand-to-hand than my own government.
Nothing about passing through an area containing a bunch of USDA, IRS, BIA, SSA, DEA, alphabetus infinitum employees and office buildings warrants this silliness.
I hope 500 people per day refuse to do this, but I know they will not. The terrorists have won (and they're not who most people think they are).
Yes, I need an ID to cash a check. They record the information. In the case of cashing a check, they can verify the info if needed. When paying at a store with check, they now type those numbers into their system and verify info; you get that number in there wrong, it won't accept it. In the case of opening a bank account, they verify the info.
This is not being done in the federal facility situation. They are just looking at the ID's and going on.
you are paranoid. You think people are out to get you. 'Social engineering' and all. Good luck to you.
Government can be evil, it can be intrusive, it can be many things. In this particular instance, it is an opportunity for people to find catharsis in airing their deap-seated paranoias. It is prevelant in this thread.
Simple. Citizen asked to show ID. Citizen lied. Citizen refused. Ok. After accumulation of subsequent events Citizen arrested, charges subsequently dropped. What is the moral of the story? Certainly it has nothing to do with ID checks. It has nothing to do with terrorism or the size of one's shoe. It simply happened. The value in the whole thing is that we all can vent our opinions and berate those we disagree with. Some here offer constructive observations. We should pat ourselves on the back. In other places, none of this would have happened, because the bus-granny would have been hauled away and shot, all us with our precious opinions would have to offer them up in secret meetings or else end up in a hole with granny. Instead we have a free country, a free forum where people can suggest ludicrous things like I am for a police state, I am a bleating sheep subject to the whims of big brother, etc. So, which do you prefer? We have a problem with islamic fanaticism, the plan is to create a caliphate, destroy Israel, conquer the middle east/europe from Africa to Singapore, and then in 30-40 yrs, expand to conquest of the entire world, and here we all are whining like babies because someone asked to see someone else's ID, and it hurts. I think we would be better advised to worry about the larger picture, don't you???
No.
If in the process, we surrender our spirit, our independent streak, and our freedom / liberty, the terrorists will have won.
Well put.
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