AlanB

While I'll be honest that I didn't revue all of the cases cited there, in the case of the lady on the bus, she got away with things because there was no formal policy stated anywhere that one needed an ID to ride a bus.

In the case of Amtrak, there is a formal stated policy and therefore the exemption that allowed her attorneys to force the DA to drop charges would not work.

However, that is all academic since the conductor is the lord and master of the train. Fail to provide the ID, and you will find yourself being escorted off the train by the police at the next stop. You may eventually win a suit, you might not, but either way you won't be getting to your destination that day and you might very well spend the night in jail.

Even if the cop has heard of or seen the site that you linked to, it won't matter as the cop has no authority on the train. He/she must remove you if the conductor demands it. Once you're on the platform the cop can say "Oh that conductor is just crazy, go buy another ticket for the next train inside the station.” But they cannot overrule the conductor's decision on the train, even if the conductor is dead wrong and they know it.

Now all of that said, I will say that this is a stupid "feel good" policy no doubt thought up by someone who felt the need to justify their salary.

It's useless because no one at Amtrak, not one ticket agent or any conductor has received any training on how to spot a false ID. And with 50 States, each of which has multiple types of ID's/Drivers licenses, I'd defy anyone to really know that an ID is fake. Heck the reason that we changed the passport rules for Canada & Mexico is because the highly trained customs agents can't always spot a fake driver's license. So how anyone expects an Amtrak employee with zero training to spot one is beyond me.

Next, at least three of the terrorists who died after crashing into the World Trade Center towers had valid New Jersey drivers’ licenses. They obtained them falsely, but they were licenses printed by NJ DMV. So checking ID proves nothing and stops nothing. Maybe it makes a terrorist a bit more cautious, but it sure isn't going to stop them. And maybe during the process a cop might notice something that is wrong or that they seem nervous, in which case they investigate further, but then maybe they don’t notice it either. Almost certainly no untrained Amtrak employee is likely to notice anything funny.

Personally I’ve been asked for ID three or four times over the past two years while riding Amtrak. On one occasion, after noting that I was an AGR member, the conductor changed his mind. As if being an AGR member somehow makes me not a terrorist. On one other occasion I was asked by a conductor following the Amtrak/TSA policy and I complied. On the other two occasions the conductor was checking everyone’s ID, a violation of the policy since it isn’t random, which it has to be.

So I politely informed both of them of the correct policy and even showed them the printout of the policy that I carry with me. One apologized and said he was new and that he thought he had to check everyone and didn’t pursue his request to see my ID. The other pulled his superior act and still demanded my ID, saying that it was a special circumstance. I complied and wrote his name down and filed a complaint with Amtrak to correct his attitude and mistake, since he isn’t allowed to make policy on his own. Don’t know what came of it, and I haven’t seen him again so I can’t say if he got the message or not.

However as I said, I still complied with his request because in that moment he still could have put me off the train and I had no desire to make my point via that method, while watching my train leave without me at the next stop.