Checking IDs on the T

A friend of mine called me a little while ago and said that cops got on the trolley he was on in Park Street and checked IDs of people on the train. No word on what happens if you don't have an ID.

in Wichita for a couple of months now. I think it had more to do with the re-surfacing of the BTK Killer though than it did terrorism. More of a pain than anything else.

(In Wichita you can also get a ticket for not having ID even if you aren't driving.)

(In Wichita you can also get a ticket for not having ID even if you aren't driving.)

"No word on what happens if you don't have an ID"...

Or what happens if you have ID and refuse to show it.

What qualifies as ID?

Boston Globe link

I suspect things are going to get even more rigid during the convention.

considering we're not required to carry ID with us at all times, and if you're just taking a walk without your wallet and just use some change to hit the T, what happens when you've got nothing to produce? Hell, if you simply refuse.

More and more, this is seeming less and less like the country I've grown up in.

just what we need. how long before we have to go through the same security checks at airports just to ride a couple stops on the T? or get on the bus?

wherever we go. It's kind of scary. I'm not sure how checking IDs on the T will make us any safer.

When pulling over a car the legal justification is to make sure the driver has a license. When checking IDs for purchasing alcoholic beverages, the justification would be knowing that the person buying alcohol is legally buying it. Even then, the person breaking the law would be the person selling the drink not the person buying it!

But unless there is a legal age limit on who can ride the T, or if the T was strictly limited to U.S. citizens then there would be no legal foundation for checking the IDs of those who have paid for tickets. The only thing they could reasonably look for once..would be tickets. But to do this repeatedly would violate the Constitutional Rights of the ticket holding passengers.