Posted on 11/29/2005 4:30:03 PM PST by SoothsayerToo
The ACLU of Colorado announced today that its attorneys will defend Deborah Davis, a Denver-area passenger on a public RTD bus who declined to produce ID and was subsequently arrested, handcuffed, and removed from the bus on September 26 by Homeland Security officers at the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood. Ms. Davis is scheduled to appear in federal district court on December 9 to face criminal charges stemming from her failure to show ID.
“Ms. Davis was not getting off the bus at the Federal Center and had no intention of entering any federal building,” said Gail Johnson, an ACLU cooperating attorney who will defend Ms. Davis in court. “Our client believes that the federal government had no right to demand that she produce identification as a condition of riding to work on a public bus that happens to pass through the Federal Center. She is willing to risk going to jail in order to take a stand as a matter of principle.”
(Excerpt) Read more at aclu-co.org ...
Your papers, please.
The enemy of your enemy is your friend.
The key is probable cause. Just being a passenger on a bus does not meet this test.
I agree with you on that point.
I still do not like the ACLU but this case in Denver is interesting.
This is not a case of "just being a passenger on a bus". This was a bus route specifically to enter federal property where you are required to show ID.
The route was made to accommodate people going to the federal center. She could easily have taken alternate route that didn't pass through the facility. She made a choice, knowing all that.
Had she been sitting on a park bench minding her business I'd agree. She was refusing to show ID, would have to exit the bus before it went on the grounds and refused (became belligerent I think was the term).
This was not a case of probable cause. According to the account I read, the feds got on the bus, she was not getting off on fed property, she was on the bus reading, she had shown ID before and says she had simply had enough. They asked everyone on the bus for ID, she refused. I agree with her. If she was trying to get into a fed installation, sure, but she wasn't. BTW, simply asking for ID isn't probable cause either!
The feds do NOT have the right to ask for ID when you are on a public bus regardless of where it is. Check the ID of passengers disembarking from the bus on fed grounds, sure, check IDs while people are on the bus? NO. We are letting our freedoms slip away under the guise of security and the security sucks on top of that. Where is the ID check when Illegasl come through and don't have it. What happens? they slap them on the ass and let them go, but this citizen is arrested simply because she refused, legally IMO, to show ID and argued with the officers that she didn't have to show it. I hope she rips them a new one.
I think RTD should change thier route so the federal workers have to meet the bus on the street. As this was once the case. Then this sh-t won't happen. It reminds me of a police state and we are fast becoming the property of the state.
Yeah well what they never tell you in these propadanda blasts is the story behind the story. With the exception of a few (and I do mean a few) honest mistakes, most cases where someone is asked to produce ID or is screened extensively is likely in response to some specific intelligence or other tell tale stuff. The radicals purposely do things to provoke a response from law enforcement and DHS in order to become test cases for the Communist, undermining vermin of the ACLU.
Maybe there was probable cause. Where is law enforcement's side of the story?
Heh.
Funny how the same people that think the feds have no right to ask for ID for people entering federal property... are the same people that would be first in line to berate the feds for lax security when a suicide bomber takes out an FBI office building.
Here is a personal story.
I have been asked (demanded) on my own property to show my ID. Under threat of arrest. Exact words he used were 'do you want to get arrested tonight' He used it several times. I informed the plainclothes cop who pulled up in an unmarked black pickup truck to show me his id first. His buddy walked just behind him with him shining a flashlight in my eyes. I told him he was on my private property and that I wasn't breaking any laws to get arrested. "do you want to get arrested? Show me your ID". I then insisted he get off my property or show me his ID, this pissed him off more. More bluster and threats, not even telling me why he was there. Finally he flashed his id, And I mean a classic flip I couldn't see it. He then asked me for mine. I told him it was in the house and asked him why he was here. He asked me again if I wanted to get arrested. He called for back up, suddenly with in 5 minutes there were 4 cops. I went to my house and returned with my ID, my neighbor waited with the cops with his plastic rake in hand. When I showed my id to him he took it in the truck and wrote me a ticket for an 'illegal burn' which is a 2500 fine and up to 6 months in jail. I had a fire in my stone lined fire pit. I told him it wasn't illegal and I had cleared it with the fire department prior. Which I had. He told me I got the ticket because of my attitude. I looked at him and shook my head, told him he would loose the case and his buddy cops told me to get back in the house if I knew what was good.
I was planning to fight the ticket, however, a week later he called me on a Sunday night and told me that he looked up my record, and I don't have one. He said I didn't do anything wrong and apologized. He told me he tore up the ticket. He also told me that if I had a record he would have felt justified and gone ahead I would have lost the case because of my record.
Out of control if you ask me.
My neighbor who happens to teach ethics to homeland security and other foreign governments police forces was appalled. Needless to say I was looking forward to my day in court with this over zealous ass, but I accepted his apology.
Papers (not even a please) on your own property, right here in Virginia in 2005.
They might actually be right on this one occasion.
I don't like Hitler either.
>According to the account I read, the feds got on the bus, she was not getting off on fed property, <
She was already on Federal Property according to the story.Sounds like a complex with controlled entry not just one building.
They do not even ask for our ID when we vote.
I don't have to rethink it. Just because the feds do it, doesn't make it legal. You might try reading the constitution once in a while it is a great eye opener.
"He told me he tore up the ticket."
First, I'm not sure I would have trusted him and just not shown up.
but in any case, at that point you might have wanted to appear in court anyway - I wonder if there is any law about cops who issue tickets and then just tear them up ?
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