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John Gilmore Sues Ashcroft et al. for Freedom to Travel
ChTom writes "John Gilmore initiated a federal suit today in CA Northern District against Ashcroft, et al, challenging the air travel ID requirement:
http://cryptome.org/freetotravel.htm
(Mr. Gilmore is a businessman, civil libertarian, and philanthropist. He was the fifth employee of Sun Microsystems, an early author of open source software, and co-creator of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cypherpunks, the DES Cracker, and the Internet's "alt" newsgroups. He serves as a director on several for-profit and nonprofit boards. )"
It does occur to me that it wasn't so long ago we criticized the Soviet Union for their inhumane policy of questioning any traveler they felt like.
Now we not only question almost every interstate traveler, we search them and arrest them if they question the legitimacy of the search.
I'm probably gonna get marked troll for this, but here goes.
He's not going to win, for the same reason that you don't have a RIGHT to drive a car. Mr Gillmore is perfectly free to travel to his destination on foot or bicycle. I don't agree with that statement and think it contradicts the 10th amendment, but necessary and proper has prevailed. Air travel is interstate commerce, and thus can be regulated by the gov't.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
This isn't going to advance any of Gilmore's agenda. Setting aside the fact that there's no way he is going to win this legally -- because he isn't -- this is about the best piece of propaganda you could hand the government. He's just making himself look like a crackpot. By taking challenging a requirement like this, which most people are in favor of, he marginalizes all of the other more worthwhile civil liberty issues he might be associated with. Next time someone challenges Ashcroft on regulations of this sort, he can just retort with "well next thing you know you'll want to let people fly anonymously like that John Gilmore fella", and that'll be the end of that.
There are hills worth dying on and this isn't one of them.
This is a ludicrous approach to the issue. You require a drivers license because you are the driver. You can ride IN a car without a drivers license. You can ride IN a bus without a drivers license. Why the hell do you need a license to ride in a plane?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Another Orwellian-type (Soviet-type? Gestapo-type?) form of overmonitoring? A few things strike me from the challenge...
"United States courts have recognized for more than a century that honest citizens have the right to travel throughout America without government restrictions..." Well, we have to admit not all of those using our travel means in this country are honest citizens. The bulk probably are, but not all of them. So there has to be some form of verification/weeding out.
"This will use your ID to search in a stew of databases like credit records, previous travel history, criminal records, motor vehicle records, banks, web searches, and companies that collect personal information from consumer transactions. " Now this I have a small problem with. I can (maybe) see checking things like criminal records or travel history.. but my credit record? My bank record? Those are in no way relevant to the choice I make to fly to Phoenix for the weekend.
Once again, the government is demonstrating an obscene overreaction to terroristic threats on our soil by ignoring key portions of the Constitution in the same of 'public safety.' Well, at this stage the cable guy can't come into my house (soon, maybe: TIPS), I can't fly to Miami (this crap, maybe), and I have to sit at home (or set up a motion-based webcam, look for sneak-n-peek in Patriot Act) to see if my domocile has been searched. Hell, I can't even surf for pr0n on Google anymore without being federally monitored.
If you asked me, the terrorists have managed to pull of some significant victories. It's a damn shame.
-'fester
What a crock of sh*t. Requiring IDs wouldn't have prevented those terrorists from boarding the plane. They all already had IDs. At best, assuming that it is impossible to fake an ID (and we all know how true that one is), mandatory ID checks at airports will only prevent currently known and watched terrorists, it will do nothing to stop the vast majority of fanatics, almost all of who have no criminal records.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
As I read the suit, Mr. Gilmore is not objecting to being required to show ID, he is objecting to the GOVERNMENT requiring that he show ID.
Just as you should be free to walk down the street without being required BY THE GOVERNMENT to show identification, so should you be able to board a plane without being required BY THE GOVERNMENT to show identification.
If the airlines themselves want to require ID (for tickets, seating whatever) that's fine. But the government has no absolute right to require you to show identification whenever they feel like it (in the absence of a crime, probable cause, whatever).
And for those of you comparing this situation to cars and driving, remember Mr. Gilmore is not operating the vehicle, he is merely a passenger. Would you like to show ID every time you are in a car that gets pulled over for speeding? Have a background check run on you when you hit a DUI checkpoint in a car full of people?
This issue is not as black and white as it seems.
-ajb
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How is he to do that if there are secret federal regulations requiring the airlines to demand your identity papers before you can fly?
I don't think John is suggesting that planes should not be secure. He's saying that one should not secure planes by taking away the right of free travel, free anonymous travel, from the people of the USA.
Some of you are willing to give up that right, does that mean all should? Or should we all be required to show our papers when we travel and have our movements tracked?
As to the option of not using the airplane, can you tell me how that works in a country the size of the USA? Should people who wish to protect their rights be relegated to forms of transport orders of magnitude slower, which effectively make it impossible to travel on short notice to many places?
Why should travel at the speed necessary to conduct business in this country be a privilege rather than a right?
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
You don't need a State issued ID to be a passenger in a car, on a bus, a boat, or any other form of transportation. The thing here is that there are federal regulations (written or not) that require you to prove who you are in order to be a passenger on a scheduled commercial airliner.
Note I specifically stated "scheduled commercial airliner". All of this airline security is just a smokescreen. Did you know that chartered flights don't have any of these security restrictions?
On a chartered flight you can drive your car up to the plane and board without ever passing through any security checkpoint. The size of the plane doesn't matter, nor do the number of passengers (to the best of my knowledge).
If the terrorists are going to do this large-plane-into-larger-building thing again, they'll be smarter to get on a large corporate jet, like a chartered 737 or something. They wouldn't even need to sneak anything on board, just act like really rich people. They could load their luggage with C4. They could board with guns conceled in their coats, take over the plane and fly into anything. No plane full of pesky passengers to thwart any hijaking attempts.
As for the air-force shooting them down when they left the flight path? Well, imagine the hijackers treating the plane like a German V2... keep the normal flight path until they get near/over a major city, they just point the nose at the ground. Aim for something large downtown. 35,000ft to impact in under 7 minutes. Even if the plane was hit by a missile from a figher jet, it'd still fall in a flaming wrek over the city.
Or perhaps this... You can learn to fly a small plane like a Cessna, Beechcraft, Piper, etc in a matter of days. At least well enough for a suicide run. These planes have a usable cargo load of above 1500lbs in most cases (that's a LOT of bomb). Imagine a fleet of 19 of these things loaded with high explosives making a systematic hit on a downtown area. Again.. no metal detctors, no bomb-sniffing machines, no passengers to deal with. Just the attackers and their ordinance.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
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Fortunately, Mr. Gilmore is inadvertently doing a huge favor for the entire nation. By publicly challenging a very important airline security policy, he is allowing the courts (hopefully not the wacky "anti-God" court in California) to set a precedent allowing airlines to protect themselves from terrorists. And that will help us all be safer in our offices and in our planes.
We don't need people to protect us in our planes. We're perfectly capable of protecting ourselves on a flight. Look at the shoebomber. He tried something funny and got the shit kicked out of him, then arrested. If you scan news reports in the months after 9/11 you'll find several instances of people causing disturbances on airplanes and in every single instance they got ganked by the passengers and were restrained until the plane could land.
Americans won't stand for it anymore. In the 1980's the stakes were lower. Americans knew that if the plane was hijacked that they could keep their cool and cooperate and be released relatively unscathed when it was all over. Now days we know that the price of complacency during a hijacking is death, and Americans like to go down swinging. The odds of anybody being able to successfully hijack an airliner are drastically lower than they were on September 10th, and the terrorists know this. That's why I think that their next target will not be airplanes. It will likely be truck bombs on bridges or in front of buildings (a la Tim McVeigh). It will probably eventually be suicide bombers in our shopping malls. It might even be biological and chemical agents being disseminated in our office buildings and schools or dropped from small private airplanes. Commercial airlines haven't got anything to be worried about now I'd imagine.
I mean honestly, what is more terrifying to the average person? The possibility that someone may crash a fully loaded commercial airliner into the Statue of Liberty or that you may get blown to shreds while standing in the checkout line at the Piggly Wiggley (or whatever grocery store you frequent)?
An ID check at the gate does not and cannot prevent a hijacking. An ID check tells you who a person is -- his/her name, SSN, DOB, possibly criminal record, and so forth. It does not tell you what the person's intentions are.
There are terrorists who are U.S. citizens. There are terrorists who are white Christian boys with no connection to Axis of Evil[tm] nations, much less to Al-Qaida. There are terrorists with clean criminal records, and with honorable military discharges. These folks are just as capable of hijacking a plane, should they wish to, as Osama's boys are. As it happens, the last bunch decided to blow up some Federal employees in Oklahoma City instead.
Tools to prevent a hijacking cannot be tools that are used on the ground, because hijacking attempts do not take place on the ground; they take place in the air. You don't know if a person wants to hijack a plane until he tries, just as you don't know if a person wants to hold up a store until he tries. So when he tries, you need to be able to stop him.
Armed persons charged with defense of the airplane seem to be a good idea in this regard. Federal air marshals are one way to accomplish this; arming and training pilots is another; hiring security guards is another. There are other methods as well. Pick a few of them.
(Naturally, this logic only applies if the goal is to prevent hijackings. If the goal is to cast a segment of the population as "suspect" or as second-class citizens on the basis of some datum which can be divulged by an ID check, it does not. However, despite a few isolated cases of what look to me like unjust discrimination on the basis of race or political affiliation, I have not seen any evidence that it has become a policy goal.)
If a 747 crashed into an office building every day, it would make air travel almost as dangerous as motor vehicles. (have to keep in mind that a lot of the people killed in accidents are pedestrians or other uninvolved people)
If the objective is to save lives, let's impose a mandatory one-week jail sentence for any traffic violation.
After this is sorted out, he can try to travel to Cuba. The long-time
ban by the US Government not allowing US citizens to visit Cuba is still
in place. I thought that restricting travel to other countries would
have gone away with the Soviet Union, but apparently not.
There was once a time when people died for their freedoms. Now the claim is that in order to have security, we have to give up freedom. How secure is it to defy your parent country's sovereignty and start your own union? Thats what the United states did. Many had to sacrifice freedom for those rights. Now, the same issue arises, and many turn to an aristocracy to tell them what to do in the name of 'security.' I don't know what the best trade off is, but I certainly feel wrong about sacrificing civil liberties in the name of one politician's so-called "security" ...whether that man be a king or a president or an entire congress. What's wrong is wrong, and what's right is worth fighting for.
And no, I'm not afraid to give my life so that others can understand true freedom of choice. I believe the United States needs to turn back to some of its roots.
So, there he was just sitting in the wrong lane and they just dragged him out of his car and beat his ass for no reason what so ever.
Michael Loves Me!
That's because the winners write the history books.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Story 1:
I am an arab american, palestinian to be exact (born in palestine but adopted as a baby by american missionaries).
A few weeks after 9/11 I had to fly from my home in Hawaii to Witchita Kansas (the home of modern aviation I might add, this is where all the big planes are made). I expected the worst.
Throughout the entire trip, I was never once searched nor questioned. I waltzed right through with minimal checks (e.g., normal xray, that's all). Everyone was asked to compare their ID with their ticket, by a guard at the gates EXCEPT on the way out of Witchita... there, I showed my ID and a very irate guard told me she didn't need to see it and to please move on (nobody else was in line with me either).
Now... I certainly look arab. I AM arab... I would expect to be profiled. However, being adopted I do not have an arab name, and being adopted as a baby, I do not have an accent. Add a Hawaiian Aloha shirt and viola... an arab waltzes right through security.
Story 2:
In december I took a vacation back to the mainland with a male friend of mine. Again, no checks, no stops, no Scarlet Pumpernickle (the *S* search S they scrawl on your ticket). On the way over there was a HUGE search line. I saw a number of pakastani women (in full garb) in one line and IMMEDIATLY got in that line. The pakastani women were made to stand over rubber mats and they were very well checked. I was brisked on through, no check. Hrmmmmmmm. Profileing? Lousy job.
Interestingly enough, on the way back my friend made an expensive impulse buy of a Parrot. At the gate, this time, we both received the Scarlet Pumpernickel... were very simply patted (the guy in front had to remove his shoes, but we were wearing rubba slipahs and they didn't make us remove them). However, they insisted that the parrot had to be removed from the cage and searched. My friend refused and said the parrot would simply fly away. Eventually the captulated and allowed us to board the plane without checking the parrot.
Story 3:
Friend of mine owns a hotel here. About a year before 9/11 a 80ish year old couple came to the island and, on one of their hikes, found a huge bowie knife (7 inch blade, huge thing). THey put it in their luggage and returned to the mainland.
AFTER 9/11 (this January for that matter) they returned to Hawaii. Upon flying from the East Coast, making transfers, and then flying to several islands over several days (therefore, lots of security checks), lo and behold they found in their suitcase, the forgotten bowie knife. HOW did this make it through that many security checks?
Bottom line? Profileing? Yes, it happens (witness the Pakastani women) - but they're doing a lousy job. As I heard the head of Israel security say the other day on TV... "yes we profile, but we only profile those we need to... there is no need to profile an 80 year old couple". With this type of thinking - it's obvious to me that even if you ARE arab... having no accent, an enlish name, and an aloha shirt, or being 80 years old, gets you out of the profile list. If it's that easy for me to figure out, won't others figure it out too?
Security is only good if it WORKS. Security for security sake does nothing. Losing your rights over security that does not work is a travesty.
Aloha
A lot of the folks here need to read more then the headlines and a few posts before putting in their two cents. Gilmore is opposed to secret rules and regulations for the airlines to enforce via Homeland Security. There are LOTS of reasons one may wish to buy an anonymous ticket and none of them have to do with terrorism OR hurting people. Some folks want to leave town unmolested by ex lovers, spouses, etc. I knew a musican who's bandmate started dating a fairly high profile actress. She went through great pains to go un noticed at an airport. It's her right not to be hounded by fans when she is going to visit some relative by plane.
Gilmore is wealthy and probobly loves anonymity himself. It's his right to maintain that. If he wants to fly somewhere and not disclose who he is then certain restrictions should apply. He doesn't mind that. He submitted to the "more aggresive inspection" of himself and his properties. I'm still not sure why he denied the search of his bag but I would assume he is a stubborn guy when it comes to hand searching bags. The last time I was at an airport I wanted to spit on the girl who was tossing my electronics around while she looked for contraband.
I don't think he has a great chance at winning this either but my support goes out to him for this battle. He is at least using his money to better our world. Not to bilk the rest of us (eg oracle) or just trying to corn hole random women (eg the oracle playboy).
Maybe if more of us were willing to ask the questions that he did things would improve. Instead we have morons (some posted earlier) that don't get the big picture and gripe about it. Next time they ask you for ID question them about it. Politely ask what regulation forces them to check ID's. Politely ask why some over zealous guy is feeling me up in front of a large crowd of people (some armed with machine guns). Ask why.
The reality of life in the 21st Century is that, thanks to 9/11, someone attempting to hijack an airliner will be lucky to survive the passengers' response. The last reported bomber on a commercial aircraft arrived at the destination airport trussed in the belts of, IIRC, twenty-odd passengers.
Other friends of mine have seen drunken, abusive passengers put on notice by other pasengers that they need to cool it or suffer the consequences. Outcome: suddenly quiet drunken passengers. Alert citizens have always been able to protect themselves better than the government ever could.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
For the hijackings that have occurred in the last 10 years, the laundry list reads as follows:
1. Anti-israeli terrorists who want western influence, particularilly America, out of the Middle East.
Here endith the list. It's not like the US has been experiencing Sinn Fein attacks, or air poisoning from Japanese religious fanatics. At the current time, the struggle against violent hard-line islamic terrorism is the only struggle which extends into US borders.
Well first you have to blow a hole in the airplane and since Air Marshals carry frag rounds that can not penatrate the skin of the aircraft thats not an issue.
I just wanna make sure that I'm clear on this whole guns in the sky issue. Currently there are F-15/16's standing on alert across the country to shoot down any hijacked airliners. So its ok to send a sidewinder missle up the ass of a 767 but if Uncle Louie takes a stray round while the pilot is placing a double tap in Osama's head its somehow a bad thing? Wake up people!!!