Sunday, November 27, 2005

It Could Happen to You Too

KaneCitizen calls this story "something less than comforting." I say that's an understatement.
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.

Deb Davis will be arraigned on December 9, 2005 in U.S. District Court, and will be represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, who immediately arranged free legal representation.

Read the pertinent facts here for yourself, but keep this in mind, Deborah Davis was within her rights:
'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.

This is not the America I know and love.

3 comments:

KaneCitizen said...

Thanks for the linkback - I occasionally lean towards understatement.*



*This is also an understatement.

Anonymous said...

That's just shocking. What is meant to happen to the cause of freedom when there is no longer freedom to fight for?

Anonymous said...

As Jeralynn said at Talk Left, if we've come to this - the terrorists have already won.