United States v Deborah Davis
In Denver, a 50-year old mother of four, with a son fighting in Iraq, has been arrested by federal police while riding a municipal bus across 'federal grounds', because she wouldn't show her ID when a guard demanded that all riders do so.
Dec. 9th, she 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.
http://www.papersplease.org/davis/facts.html
http://cbs4denver.com/local/local_story_333145833.html
She has been compared to Rosa Parks by some, and I think it's a proper to call her another Parks, although she probably will never recieve the kinds of accolades Parks did even though she deserves them too. Rosa stood up against those who would deny others their rights simply because they are of a different race.
Deborah is standing up for all of us that understand that our rights are unalienable and that we must defend them, or else we effectively don't have them at all. Unlike Rosa, who had the NAACP and lawyers backing her up before she even got on the bus that day for her pre-planned refusal, Deborah didn't have any group behind her and did it all on her own. Hopefully, the ACLU which she has allowed to defend her will not accept compromise with this as they have before with important rights cases.
If we don't make stands against tyranny while it begins to encrouch on our liberties, then we will have a much harder time fighting it later when things get so bad that we find ourselves in a police-state similar to Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill said it best: "If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
A good editorial from the Rocky Mountain News about it: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/cda/article_print/0,1983,DRMN_23964_4275958_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html
The last paragraph of the editorial is key to this controversy, and reads:
"Eighteen months ago, the Supreme Court said Americans no longer have an unqualified right to remain silent when questioned by police. They must provide their name when stopped for suspicion of a crime. But the court has never said Americans must identify themselves upon demand even when they're not under suspicion. Let's keep it that way."
Unless you are driving a vehicle, the cops should not be demanding your ID unless there is good reason for them to believe you were involved in a true crime. If some cop asks you for ID, you can ask "Am I a suspect in a crime?" They may not answer that, and pretend that you have to show ID no matter what. Technically, you do now have to show it if the cop says you are a suspected violater of a true crime. Merely asking "Am I a suspect" or verbally and calmly questioning the intrusion of your rights cannot be used against you and called a refusal. If they say something like "You don't have anything to hide do you?", respond with "What are you hiding, maybe the fact that you are in violation of your oath to defend the Constitution and my rights?"
This Nazi garbage will not stop unless we show them that enough of us won't take it and are willing to at least get arrested for the righteous cause of freedom.