Rocking the Bus

A Colorado woman takes a stand against arbitrary ID checks.

The first time she was asked to show identification while riding the bus to work, Deborah Davis was so startled that she complied without thinking. But the more she thought about it, the less sense it made.

That's how Davis, a 50-year-old Colorado woman with four grown children and five grandchildren, ended up getting dragged off the bus by federal security officers, who handcuffed her, took her to their station, and cited her for two misdemeanors. Davis, who is scheduled to be arraigned on December 9, is risking 60 days in jail to show her fellow Americans that they don't need to blindly obey every dictate imposed in the name of security.

The public bus that Davis took to her office job in Lakewood, Colorado, crosses the Denver Federal Center, a 90-building complex occupied by agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department, the General Services Administration, and the Bureau of Land Management. "The facility is not high security," says Davis. "It's not Area 51 or NORAD or the Rocky Mountain Arsenal."

Guards nevertheless board buses as they enter the complex and demand IDs from passengers, whether or not they're getting off there. According to Davis, the guards barely glance at the IDs, let alone write down names or check them against a list.

"It's just an obedience test," says Gail Johnson, a lawyer recruited to represent Davis by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. "It does nothing for security."

Ahmad Taha, supervisory special agent with the Federal Protective Service, which is in charge of security at the Denver complex, said guards there have been checking the IDs of bus passengers since 9/11. He declined to explain the security rationale for this ritual or to comment on Davis' case.

After complying the first day she rode the bus, Davis began saying she had no ID and was not getting off at the Federal Center anyway. One Friday in late September, a guard told her she would not be permitted to ride the bus anymore without ID.

Before taking the stand that led to her arrest, Davis says, "I spent the weekend making sure that the Constitution hadn't changed since I was in the eighth grade, and it hadn't….We're not required to carry papers….We have a right to be anonymous."

Last year the Supreme Court ruled that a suspect in a criminal investigation can be required to give his name. But it has never upheld a policy of requiring ordinary citizens to carry ID and present it on demand. Davis "wasn't doing anything wrong," notes Johnson. "She wasn't suspected of doing anything wrong. She was a completely innocent person on the way to work."

Johnson plans to argue that the ID requirement violates Davis' First Amendment right to freedom of association, her Fourth Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, and her Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of liberty (in this case, freedom of travel) without due process. A civil case raising similar issues in the context of airport ID checks is scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit the day before Davis' arraignment.

"Enough is enough," says Davis. "Our rights are being taken away a little piece at a time, and people are letting it happen."

Pulling out your driver's license may seem like a slight imposition, but the justification is even slighter. Since anyone can flash an ID, the procedure does not distinguish between people who pose a threat and people who don't. It does not even distinguish between people who are visiting the Federal Center and people who are merely riding a bus that happens to pass through it.

In a free country, citizens have no obligation to explain themselves to the government as they go about their daily lives. It's the government that owes us an explanation.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason and the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use. Sullum's weekly column is distributed by Creators Syndicate. If you'd like to see it in your local newspaper, please e-mail or call the editorial page editor today.