Thursday, December 01, 2005

REFUSAL TO PRESENT ID SPARKS TEST OF RIGHTS

ARVADA WOMAN SAID 'NO' AT FEDERAL CENTER WHILE ON PUBLIC BUS By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News

"Federal prosecutors are reviewing whether to pursue charges against an Arvada woman who refused to show identification to federal police while riding an RTD bus through the Federal Center in Lakewood....

Davis is to appear before a magistrate judge in Colorado U.S. District Court on Dec. 9.

'We don't believe the federal government has the legal authority to put Deborah Davis in jail, or even make her pay a fine, just because she declined the government's request for identification,' said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which has taken up the case....

'She was commuting to her job,' Silverstein said. 'She wasn't doing anything wrong. She wasn't even suspected of doing anything wrong.'

'Passengers aren't required to carry passports or any other identification documents in order to ride to work on a public bus,' he said....

'This is just a basic American issue of what our country's all about,' Scannell said. "It has nothing really to do with politics, and everything to do with what kind of country we want to live in.'

Some supporters have called Davis 'the Rosa Parks of the Patriot Act generation,' a reference to the African-American woman who became a civil rights heroine after she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, Scannell said."
Read more.

SEE EARLIER POST: Ridin' the Bus with Doris

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