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December 04, 2005
Refusing To Show Your Papers
Deborah Davis Becomes Our Generation’s Rosa Parks
Deborah Davis, a 50-year-old mother of four, was riding the bus to work one morning in Denver when she discovered what happens to citizens who insist on their fundamental right to travel.
A security guard boarded Davis’ public bus and demanded that all passengers show their ID. This was not the first time Davis had been asked to produce identification en route to work. The Route 100 bus transits through the Denver Federal Center that includes the offices of the Veterans Administration, U.S. Geological Survey and part of the National Archives.
The Denver Federal Center is not a high security area and Davis’ ID was not compared against a “no ride” list. But the incident bothered Davis because she knew from her high school civics class that there is no law requiring American citizens to carry an ID or produce it on demand.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees federal police, passenger ID checks on Route 100 began after the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City. But forcing U.S. citizens to show an ID is a search without a warrant. It’s also an ineffective security tool. Faked and stolen IDs are commonplace and ID demands are manipulated by terrorists who select operatives that pass identity checks.
On this particular morning in late September, Davis decided that she was going to uphold her constitutional rights. When asked, she refused to show the guard her ID. When he ordered her off the bus, she refused explaining that she was simply trying to get to work.
The guard summoned a federal police officer who repeated the orders. Davis again refused and declined to hang up a phone call she had placed to a friend. “The whole thing seemed to be more about compliance than security,” Davis told the Denver Post.
What happened next is an example of what honest people like Davis endure in this country fifty years after Rosa Parks took her stand on a public bus. The police officer shouted, “Grab her!” and snatched the cell phone from her hand. He threw the phone to the back of the bus and with the other officer, jerked Davis to her feet. They dragged her out of the bus, handcuffed her, shoved her into the back seat of a police car, and drove her to a police station inside the federal center.
The policemen tried to figure out what to charge Davis with and finally ended up writing several tickets. They then removed her handcuffs, directed her to the bus stop and told her that if she ever entered the Denver Federal Center again, she would be arrested.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado immediately arranged to provide Davis with free legal representation. My brother, Jim Harrison, is one of several attorneys who will represent Davis when she is arraigned in U.S. District Court in Denver on December 9th. Davis, whose son is fighting in Iraq to allegedly defend American values, faces up to sixty days in jail.
Davis is expected to be charged with federal criminal misdemeanors involving admission to property and conformity to official signs and directions. The charges suggest that prosecutors will claim that people on the bus were on notice that they had to show ID. But Davis’ lawyers say no such demands were posted and Davis was not visiting the federal center, just passing through.
The day before Davis is arraigned, my brother will be arguing another right to travel case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of John Gilmore.
I was with Gilmore on July 4, 2002 when he attempted to fly out of San Francisco International Airport without showing an ID. When Gilmore asked to see the law demanding that he “show his papers” he was told that the law was secret.
Secret law is an abomination in a democracy. Gilmore has asked the courts to rein in this overreach of the executive branch. But a lower court has already ruled that Gilmore has no standing to challenge the ID requirement and rejected his assertion that the right to travel is supported by the 1st Amendment right to assemble and 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable search.
The appellate court decision in Gilmore’s case will show whether the judiciary is willing to enforce laws that don’t exist and ignore the constitutional rights of brave people like Deborah Davis. Are there any more bus riders in Denver willing to commit civil disobedience by riding Route 100 without surrendering their IDs?
Ann Harrison ah@well.com is a San Francisco-based journalist.
Posted by ann at December 4, 2005 11:30 PM
Comments
Great article !!
It is realy too bad our forefathers must be rolling in their graves. She should take it to trial and not let the bastards intimidate her in the circus also known as the justice system as they always try to have more forced coercion and compliance in a plea agreement. As if we would be in fear of our lives we count our lives as just a sacrifice to the uncivilized, barbaric, gestapo,
mentality which is held over the the innocent's head.
Posted by: Rob McGrail at December 5, 2005 07:01 AM