[Fegasderty]

Whats the problem with showing your ID. That's what an ID is there for. It's not like she was asked to strip on the bus.

But legally there would be no prohibition from doing so either.

[TorryJens]

Funny, when I was moving to America's most Liberal State, California, my first experience was to be stopped at a checkpoint and have the contents of my entire moving truck searched for foreign fruits, plants, and animals (nice names for Illegal Aliens) and this was before 9/11. I'm 30 and I still get carded for alcohol. I would think that when using public transport such as planes, subways, and now buses, sometimes you give up your privacy (or ID) for the benefit of society. I don't like it, but thats the way it is.

I was stopped at the California border in 1970 long before illegals was an issue. It's always been an agriculture issue. Same thing as entering the US or Canada.

You were carded for an active motive. You were attempting to purchase something be it alcohol tobacco or firearms. Is an id check because you walk past the liquor store a reasonable act?

Riding a bus is not an active motive. The rider has no control over the bus route and it was done because the bus line happens to go through Federal property where the government can supercede your civil rights at will. Would you like to submit to a urine sample as well?

The government has to demonstrate that a lack of privacy actually is a public safety issue. That's more or less implied in Supreme court cases such as Griswold.

[Ifroham4]

See in my mind what we've lost is any rational sense of the balance between public policy and private rights. I wear a card key, I understand the necessity of these things. I probably wrote some of the more restrictive rules your ISP uses to enforce security. I am in short, the 'NO' guy. But those things have clear boundaries.

The people who say "What's a little inconvenience?" I say "Why are we even talking about whether this is even an issue?" At what point are we willing to stop and have a public forum about who's interest is being served?

[9mm_fan]

I will gladly begrudge myself of a few seconds to reach into my pocket and pull out ID if it means I and America can be that much more secure...
On the other hand, does anyone think that this will turn into McCarthyism? "Are you now, have ever, or will refuse to show your ID?"

[Beerinkol]

So where is the cross over point? All we ever hear is a vague justification because we're 'at war'. Of course it's an undefined undeclared war against an unknown enemy in an unknown location for unknown period of time and no way to ascertain whether we've won, lost, retreated or just quit. It's essentially a licence to declare permanent war and an openended curtailment of many civil liberties for an open ended period of time.

[NeroASERCH]

But that's just it. Who's interest, if anyone's is actually being served? We submit to governance under the belief that government will enforce the law with only sufficient force to do its job and no more and the 4th ammendment (and by implication the power of the state is limited under the 3rd ammendment as well) actually stand for something, not merely for something convenient. If it is convenient and therefore defacto legal to search people on Federal property because it's convenient (which under Federal law only restricts access specifically with notification not generally) then it's easily extensible to search people on any property at any time for any reason. In other words if the law does not restrict the government because it's just easy to do whatever proscriptions are in the law then the 4th ammendment really doesn't mean anything. The Federal government is supposed to have the burden to demonstrate that some public interest is served by this exception.

For example is there a difference between asking for that information and doing something with it? Can the government punch your SSN into a handheld device on the bus and record where you were and when? Can it check for bench warrants and supercede the local law enforcement powers? Can it simply use this as an intimidation on its face with the assumption that simple intimidation is itself a public good? These are fundamental questions that define the limits of liberty.

[LottiFurmann]

http://www.papersplease.org/davis/index.html


Meet Deborah Davis. She's a 50 year-old mother of four who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Her kids are all grown-up: her middle son is a soldier fighting in Iraq. She leads an ordinary, middle class life. You probably never would have heard of Deb Davis if it weren't for her belief in the U.S. Constitution.


One morning in late September 2005, Deb was riding the public bus to work. She was minding her own business, reading a book and planning for work, when a security guard got on this public bus and demanded that every passenger show their ID. Deb, having done nothing wrong, declined. The guard called in federal cops, and she was arrested and charged with federal criminal misdemeanors after refusing to show ID on demand.

On the 9th of December 2005, Deborah Davis will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in a case that will determine whether Deb and the rest of us live in a free society, or in a country where we must show "papers" whenever a cop demands them.

DEB DAVIS LIKES to commute to work by public bus. She uses the time to read, crochet or pay bills. It's her quiet time. What with the high price of gas, she saves money, too: a week's worth of gas money gets her a month's worth of bus rides.


The bus she rides crosses the property of the Denver Federal Center, a collection of government offices such as the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, and part of the National Archives. The Denver Federal Center is not a high security area: it's not Area 51 or NORAD.

On her first day commuting to work by bus, the bus stopped at the gates of the Denver Federal Center. A security guard got on and demanded that all of the passengers on this public bus produce ID. She was surprised by the demand of the man in uniform, but she complied: it would have meant a walk of several miles if she hadn't. Her ID was not taken and compared to any "no-ride" list. The guard barely glanced at it.

When she got home, what had happened on the bus began to bother her. 'This is not a police state or communist Russia', she thought. From her 8th grade Civics class she knew there is no law requiring her, as an American citizen, to carry ID or any papers, much less show them to anyone on a public bus.

She decided she would no longer show her ID on the bus.


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Read the rest and sleep tight.