Monday, November 28, 2005

Showing ID on a bus

Deborah Davis, on her way to work, refused to show an ID on a public bus. Now she's been arrested.

Thank goodness she's being defended by the ACLU.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 1:41 PM

2 Comments:

At 4:24 PM, Blogger Robin Edgar said...

Robin Edgar, during his "alternative spiritual practice" of protesting against UU injustices, abuses, and hypocrisy in front of the Unitarian Church of Montreal refused to remove his picket signs from public property. Now he's been hit with a $141.00 fine and has had most of his picket signs seized and destroyed by two overly-aggressive, civil rights challenged, Montreal police officers. Thank goodness he's being supported by Mouvement Action Justice in his formal complaint to the Police Ethics Commission.

 
At 12:16 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The pictures of the pretty flags at the visitor's entrance to the Federal Center are nice, but they didn't show pictures of
the eight-foot chain link fence with barbed wire that surrounds the complex, and they didn't show the vehicle checkpoint where all visitors' cars are searched and checked underneath, and they didn't show the four-foot high sign stating that, to gain entry, all persons must present valid identification and submit to a vehicle and/or physical inspection.

This place has 28 federal agencies, an Army Reserve facility, and 6,800 employees on a daily basis. That makes it the largest concentration of government agencies outside Washington D.C., and that means it makes sense to take precautions to protect it.

She was free to go after refusing her to show her ID. There is no law that says a Cop (or anyone else for that matter) can't ask you to show ID. And you have every legal right to refuse that request. It's known as a 'consensual exchange.' She was asked to leave the bus three times. The refusal to follow the directives of the Federal police (that's who arrested her, not the security guard) is what caused her arrest.

The ID check requirement has been in place since at least 9/11, possibly back as far as Oklahoma City. As long as you have the right to refuse to show your ID, your Constitutional rights have not been violated. Davis excercised that right. What she didn't have was the right to enter the DFC on HER terms. It's Fed property, they make the rules.

Here's the kicker: If the guards at the DFC take your ID and check it for warrants, arrests, or against a no-fly/no-ride list, at that point they would be violating your 4th amendment rights. Why? Because it's no longer a consenesual exchange and is now an investigation without probable cause. Checking Davis' ID is legal; comparing it against a list is not.

Once she entered DFC property, regardless of if she were in a car, on foot, on a pogo stick on or piggyback, she's under Fed jurisdiction and subject to their rules.

Davis' web site is incredibly one-sided and has more spin than a Maytag on rinse cycle. The bolggers are using this as their sole source of information and just lapping up the rhetoric as if it were the gospel truth, especially the biased descriptions of the incident used on the site. Based on what I've read on the various blogs, most people read the headline and a paragraph or two and don't read any further. They then hop on the blog sites and start screaming bloody murder about how we're turning in Nazi Germany. Well, there's no comparison. We can always say no to producing ID and walk away. But by doing so, we may not be able to avail ourselves of all modes of transportation or enjoy access to every venue. Has everyone forgotten the Madrid train and London bus and subway bombings already?

Take a look at these and see what you think:

The latest ruling on the John Gilmore case, very similar to Davis' and also found at the "papers, please" site:

http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200403/msg00226.html

Colorado Supreme court ruling on an ID as a 'consensual exchange':

http://www.csp.state.co.us/academy/ar202.htm

Regulation on following "signs & directions":

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/12feb20041500/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2004/julqtr/pdf/41cfr102-74.375.pdf

Ruling on the validity of ID checks upon entering Federal property:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1130157956384

People need to stop, look at BOTH sides and then think. Move past the "my son is in Iraq" and "her arms were wrenched behind her" (when doesn't that happen during an arrest?) pity angles, and get to the LEGAL issues, the ones the courts will decide: 1) What, is any laws were broken, and by whom; 2) What, if any, Constitutional rights were violated.

 

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