Denver's Deb Davis drama develops

Looks like Drudge has discovered the Deb Davis story from Denver that we spoke of Sunday. However, they tag to the Rocky Mountain News. The RMN has quotes from a government spokesman, Carl Rusnok, of Dallas. Mr. Rusnok is a spokesman for ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement - which is responsible for security at federal locations.

The Federal Protective Service in Colorado referred inquiries to Carl Rusnok of Dallas, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the federal police. Both are part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Rusnok said the federal officers in Colorado told him the policy of checking the IDs of bus passengers and others entering the Federal Center began shortly after the April 1995 terrorist bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.

"It's one of the multiple forms of security," Rusnok said. "The identification is one means of making sure that, whoever comes on base, that you know that they are who they say they are.

"There are a variety of other means that bad people could take to circumvent that, but that's why there are multiple layers of security," he said.

First, we'd like to note that there is method to the madness of having a spokesman in Dallas try to explain what is happening in Denver. Rusnok can be hazy on details and have plausible deniability for anything that might give the government a black eye. Yet at the same time he sounds authoritative.

Second, unless they can trot out some happy civilian bus riders who can chirp that they've been asked periodically for identification since April 1995, that explanation doesn't hold spit (which is slightly more viscuous than water).

Third, if they are concerned with the identities of "whoever comes on base" then they should be demanding ID from everyone who gets off at the bus stops within the center, not on the through riders.

A spokesman for RTD - Rapid Transit Denver - makes sure that RTD is not held responsible by either side in this debate over how American citizens are to be treated while riding to their jobs on public transportation. Essentially worthless verbiage.

The newspaper notes that of the woman's four children, one son is a Navy veteran, and another, 21, is fighting in Iraq. She has five grandchildren. Check out her photo and ask yourself, does she look like she fits the profile of a national security threat?

Oh, one other thing. Deb Davis apparently lost her job after missing three hours due to her arrest. Some will say, "Yeah, but it's her own fault for being stubborn. She could've kept her mouth shut, handed over her ID and kept her job."

That was likely the prevailing view of most Germans in the early days of the Third Reich too. Just keep your mouth shut. Hand over your papers. Look straight ahead and pretend that nothing is happening to those Jewish people.

Sure wouldn't want to lose your job.