Making an exception


The Colorado "papers please" case gets dismissed on a technicallity
I touched briefly on the Deborah Davis case here. A lady refused to show her identification on a bus passing through a federal reservation and was arrested. Well, the charges have been dropped against her, but the polices aren't going to be changed.

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.

Colorado is not one of the states that this will fly well in. Possibly only Idaho shows more individualism and sheer cussedness, with my own state of Arizona tying with New Mexico for a close third.

To me, the question really is presumption of guilt. We're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. If it's a public bus route, we shouldn't have to prove who we are just to be "allowed" to travel. We don't need permission, it is our right. Demanding papers assumes we are guilty until we prove that we are innocent.

It turns a fundamental right into a farce.

It doesn't matter how convenient it is, or how it protects us. An armed man demands us to prove that we have permission.

Not that we have rights, but that we have permission.

The only way it can work is if you buy into it and give away your freedom.

KYFHO.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - December 9, 2005 at 04:45 PM  Tag


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