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We are ALL Suspected Terrorists. The color of your skin or last name doesn't matter one bit! Everyone no matter your color of skin are all treated like terrorists. I refuse to fly anymore because of that kind of treatment and my skin is WHITE and I'm a U.S. Military Vetern. F@#$ the TSA, F@#$ Homeland Security, F@#$ the airlines!

Also note that any politician who would support weakening security measures faces the small but very considerable political risk of being blamed for an attack after restrictions might be loosened - on top of whatever "weak-on-terror" mud-slinging the politician would have to face anyway. Since the measures have strong airline support and it's difficult to find someone principled enough to take the passenger's side, we all face a painful travel experience.

I'm equally resentful about the ID-checking requirement since all the 9/11 hijackers had valid ID and it still wouldn't be hard to get a fake ID past the TSA. That requirement has a similar history of having nothing to do with security and a lot with not being able to sell your ticket to someone else and reducing the pricing power of airlines.

what if the t-shirt says "I am a terrorist"

Had he just coughed up his license he probably could have got the store manager at least a ticket.

Now he'll have merely a highly-publicized lawsuit. Oh darn?

Also, the guy in this case wasn't completely right. For some interesting recent commentary there's this supreme court case http://freetotravel.org/hiibel.html

Not sure what your point here is. Hiibel v Nevada says in accordance with Nevada law he was required to tell the officers who he was if they had "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity. This fellow (a) was not in Nevada, (b) the officer had no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity by him (he was the one who called 911 for help!), and (c) he did indeed tell them his name, which the store clerks could have easily verified if there was any doubt.

At a minimum, if you do not provide a government issued ID they police can detain you until they are sure you are who you say you are.

Only if they have reason to detain you in the first place. If I'm walking down the street, the cops can't simply ask for my ID and then detain me for not having any. After Hiibel, they can only if they have reason to think I committed a crime, and if state law allows it.

You don't get to just tell the cop "I'm George Bush" and expect him to take your word for it.

But he didn't claim to be George Bush. He gave his real name, which the officer had no reason to doubt, and which the store could easily verify. And he was not even the one being accused of assault (or anything at all), so his identity shouldn't matter.

So in his effort to make a point about circuit city, he called the cops on the emergency line.

If being detained against your will isn't an emergency, I don't know what is. I've called 911 for far less, when told to by cops. It's not some magic number you can only dial if you're dying.

Rather than sticking to the issue of being prevented from leaving (his entire family, no less, so multiple counts) he pissed off the one guy who could have written a ticket and arrested people to try and make a second point that he may have been technically correct about, but not in principal.

Assuming you mean "principle" -- what principle exactly are you thinking of? "You're only allowed to defend one right per 24-hour period"? Your comment about "pissing somebody off" is hilarious -- it reminds me of John Adams in "1776", when congress won't vote on independence for fear of pissing somebody off: "This is a revolution, dammit! We're going to have to offend SOMEbody!"

I'm all for standing up for your rights, but the guy in this case was an idiot.

Most importantly, he picked two fights at once, and one was with the wrong people. If he wanted to show the store manager a lesson, he should have given the cop is drivers license. Did he have to? No, however he wanted the cop to help him. Cops spend so much time dealing every day with lying scumbags they have a very short fuse for people they feel are playing games with him. Had he just coughed up his license he probably could have got the store manager at least a ticket.

Also, the guy in this case wasn't completely right. For some interesting recent commentary there's this supreme court case http://freetotravel.org/hiibel.html, http://www.papersplease.org/hiibel/, http://www.law.duke.edu/publiclaw/supremecourtonli ne/commentary/hiivsix

At a minimum, if you do not provide a government issued ID they police can detain you until they are sure you are who you say you are. You don't get to just tell the cop "I'm George Bush" and expect him to take your word for it.

So in his effort to make a point about circuit city, he called the cops on the emergency line. Rather than sticking to the issue of being prevented from leaving (his entire family, no less, so multiple counts) he pissed off the one guy who could have written a ticket and arrested people to try and make a second point that he may have been technically correct about, but not in principal.

In short, this is one of the worst examples of how to "fight the system" I have ever seen.

Um, no, you are most certainly NOT required to carry ID or a driver's license. You are required to carry a driver's license when you are driving, but that's it. If I'm a passenger in a car, or walking down the street, there is no requirement for me to have identification.

Also, Declan's article was misleading on this point:

Steinhardt predicts the federalized IDs will be a gold mine for government agencies and marketers. Also, he notes that the Supreme Court ruled last year that police can demand to see ID from law-abiding U.S. citizens.

Police can demand all they want, but you have no obligation to show them ID. The case was about a man's refusal to identify himself, not refusal to show ID. You are required to identify yourself, but that can be as simple as saying "my name is [insert name here]." If a police officer wants to take you down to the station because you won't present an ID card, that's false arrest.

But to answer your question, why do I care? The first reason is that having to present this ID to board an airplane is a hindrance to both interstate commerce and freedom of assembly (note the environmental activists who were prevented from flying due to the secret watch list). But John Gilmore does a much better job explaining this point.

It's modded funny, but it's not really far from the truth.

Interstate travel in the US already requires full identification, logged permanently by the government -- that is, if you want to travel at a tolerable speed. Unless you're wealthy enough to afford a personal jet, you can't fly without the equivalent of showing a passport. (see freetotravel.org)

This situation is only getting worse. Even interstate buses and trains now usually require ID for ticket purchases.

This writeup on Gilmore v. Ashcroft is kinda interesting too as is FreeToTravel.Org that includes an FAQ from John - all of this has been around for a while, but I guess the mainstream media just "re-discovered" John's story - don't think there has been any significant change in over a year (?)

This writeup on Gilmore v. Ashcroft is kinda interesting too as is FreeToTravel.Org that includes an FAQ from John - all of this has been around for a while, but I guess the mainstream media just "re-discovered" John's story - don't think there has been any significant change in over a year (?)

Gilmore has a website, http://www.freetotravel.org/ with more info and court documents regarding his case against the US government.

Ironically, the original goal of FreeS/WAN was not support of VPNs. It was to implement John "Suspected Terrorist" Gilmore's goal of "encrypting 5% of the Internet by Christmas". The idea was that if two systems went to talk to each other with an ordinary net connection, and both happened to be running FreeS/WAN or compatible software, they would automatically and transparently negotiate IPSec encryption and use that for the connection. This is what they called Opportunistic Encryption. The goal of the project was to get some substantial fraction of internet traffic to be encrypted by this mechanism, thereby increasing privacy and decreasing the effectiveness of net-wide surveillance and monitoring tools.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Are either of these new FreeS/WAN offshoots, or any other comparable project, trying to achieve Opportunistic Encryption? Or are they just for VPNs?

EFF filed a brief because they believe in privacy and anonymity.

(Also, working with me has educated them on some issues around ubiquitous ID demands. Turns out that most of these ID demands are backed by big databases; the ID is used as a key to search them. E.g., a cop radios in your license number and they tell him things about you from the NCIC database. Or the cop uses the multi-state MATRIX web access from the laptop in the police car. Or the TSA's CAPPS-2 looks up your credit records to suspect you if you don't have any credit -- and cross-checks them against your ID when you show up at the airport.)

Let's take a minute and clarify the most important unspoken point here::: We are not the ones who are responsible for the brutal and horrible terrorist acts. Harrassing us and our equipment isn't going to reduce anyone's chances from being victimized by these psychos.

I'm with you there. If you haven't already, check out freetotravel.org which points out these kinds of things and more.

If bozos living in caves manage to get together the resources to mount massive terrorist attacks upon the civilized world (and who believes that bozos in caves are the ones actually doing this?)

Deluded millionaire religious fundementalist bozos in caves, but still bozos in caves.

then the AID shipments and relief work will be suspended for a year. Soldiers will actually shoot the doctors who refuse to comply.

I've switched my thinking on this one. Up til a couple weeks ago, I was right there with you. Now, I believe that the goal of these people is the destruction of the west and it's replacement with a theocratic islamic state based on sharia. These people don't want our aid payments, they want us bowing to mecca, veiling our women, censoring our "godless" entertainment, and wiping out all competing religions.

my .02 euros.

Since we're all suspected terrorists anyway.

(Also this is a very good follow-up read if you're interested. This has also been posted on /. before (link). And there's also more links.)

I, for one, welcome our new Ashcroft overlords.

"Did you read that article on politechbot.com that they wouldn't let some guy wearing a little button that read "Suspected terrorist" fly on an airplane?"

Some guy being John Gilmore:

http://freetotravel.org/terrorist.html

You're right: there are 300 million suspected terrorists. But their names don't need to be stored - they took a hint from verisign, and just used a wildcard.

Select * from americans where police_badge = NULL;

"I'm sorry, sir, you are not allowed to travel. No, we cannot tell you why, that would be a violation of security; we can only tell you that you are not allowed to travel."

Why do you say next year? Surely you mean this year?

CAPPS II will [reduce] the number of people who [are] are misidentified as potential terrorists.

How can you correctly identify "potential" terrorists? This is meaningless "brown alert" blurb. You either are or you aren't. What exactly is the penalty for being one? How can you prove that you're not a "potential" terrorist? Is a "potential" terrorist different from a "suspected" terrorist?

Look, it's a perfectly simple proposition. How many actual terrorists has CAPP I caught, and how many actual terrorists will CAPP II catch? "Potential" my huge hairy arse.

Stupid stewardesses who assume a wristwatch can doom an aircraft at takeoff and landing. Can't bring a dang fingernail clipper onboard.

It also appears that wearing a button that says "Suspected Terrorist" may lead to being treated as a terrorist.

John gilmore is suing for the right to travel anonymously(sp).

From the website:
He does so "because he believes persons have a right to travel by air without the government requiring that they relinquish their anonymity. No security threat is as important as the threat to American society caused by erosion of the right to travel, the right to be free from unreasonable searches, and the right to exercise First Amendment rights anonymously."

Check out the FAQ's, which are well written and explain the other reasons - including being subject to secret laws - he is opposing this.

John gilmore is suing for the right to travel anonymously(sp).

From the website:
He does so "because he believes persons have a right to travel by air without the government requiring that they relinquish their anonymity. No security threat is as important as the threat to American society caused by erosion of the right to travel, the right to be free from unreasonable searches, and the right to exercise First Amendment rights anonymously."

Check out the FAQ's, which are well written and explain the other reasons - including being subject to secret laws - he is opposing this.