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John Gilmore Sues Ashcroft et al. for Freedom to Travel

Posted by chrisd on from the let-me-see-your-papers dept.

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. )"

10 of 670 comments (clear)

  1. predicted result by Necron69 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Assuming this case isn't dismissed, my bet is the court says you have the right to domestic travel anywhere you like - by car or on foot.

    - Necron69

  2. The truth about the ID requirements by one-egg · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The simple truth about the ID requirements is that they are not there to prevent terrorism. They are there to prevent you the consumer from selling your ticket to somebody else.

    That's why the airlines never fought the rules, even though they are clumsy and inconvenient for ticket agents to enforce.

  3. Re:Impediments. by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 4, Interesting
    As an elite-status member of a frequent flier program, I have never been searched. And I've flown over 20 times this year alone, often to Latin America.

    I believe that the airlines screen out their frequent customers and "pick on" their non-frequent or one-time customers.

  4. Re:Nyet! by SquadBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/08/13/p3s2.h tm

    Do I win?

    --

    Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
  5. mostly in the southern US by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In several places along the western half of Interstate 10 (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas), all cars must exit and submit to random searches. They're mostly looking for smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants.

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  6. Re:Reality by Prior+Restraint · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "The reality of life in the US in the 21st century is that without ID checks and other security measures at airports, someone may fly the plane that you have a right to travel on into a building."

    The reality of life in the US in the 21st century is that with ID checks and other security measures at airports, someone did fly the plane that you have a right to travel on into a building.

  7. Re:Counterproductive and silly by bigpat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    counterproductive?

    Sounds like second guessing those that actually are fighting for basic freedoms. Of which the freedom to leave your home and travel to other places without harassment, suspicion and anal probes is a pretty basic one.

    It is stupid to call this action counterproductive, unless you honestly think the grounds for the action aren't solid. Because people have been convinced that these measures are good and proper that people have to fight them.

    Remember reason for a bill of rights was to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. To protect me from the whims of distant leader or morally irresponsible legislature and ultimately from you.

  8. Re:Nyet! by oni · · Score: 5, Interesting
    No matter what you may think of Neal Boortz, I think he has a good point when he proposes an Airline Traveler's Bill of Rights as follows:

    1. The right to be treated with dignity and courtesy by all government employees engaged in the screening process.
    2. One passenger ombudsman to be made available at all airport screening stations to mediate disputes between federal screeners and agents.
    3. No passenger will be separated from his baggage during the screening process. All screening of passenger carry-on items shall be handled in the full view of the passenger.
    4. All passengers traveling with family members shall have the right to have one adult family member present during all aspects of the screening process.
    5. Baggage screeners shall take extraordinary care to repack all items in passenger's luggage neatly and carefully.
    6. Seating shall be provided for all passengers who are required to remove their shoes in the screening process.
    7. Screeners shall be responsible for all damage to passenger's property during the search process.
    8. Screeners will not be permitted to search the contents of a wallet or other item carrying passenger's cash or credit cards without a supervisor present.
    9. All passengers who have personal items confiscated at the screening stations shall be provided with mailing envelopes for use in mailing seized items to passenger's home address. The passenger shall be permitted to place the item in the envelope, seal the envelope, and place the item in the U.S. mail at the screening station.
    10. The right to the immediate intervention and assistance of a local law enforcement officer in the event passenger suspects that a screener has stolen property of the passenger of if the screener has touched or groped the passenger in an inappropriate way.
    11. All screening stations shall be under constant video and audio surveillance and tapes of said surveillance shall be available to local law enforcement officers in the event of a dispute between passengers and screeners.
  9. Re:You owe the Oracle a "get out of jail free" car by 1u3hr · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Right. A deep-cover al Qaeda suicide terrorist dressed as a pilot with perfect IDs is going to draw attention to himself by bitching about security.

    Meanwhile, airlines are pushing to give easy wave-throughs to business-class travellers, while harassing economy-class more. Of course, the 9-11 terrorists WERE travelling in business class exactly to be closer to the cabin.

    All window-dressing.

  10. Airlines need ID by Quixote · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This prolly will stay at score 2, but here's the scoop on the IDs: the Airlines started asking for IDs, and not the FAA. This is because they wanted to kill the resale market in tickets. Speculators were buying/selling tickets, and cutting the airlines out of the profits. To prevent this, the airlines started asking for IDs to make sure that the person who bought the tickets was indeed the one flying.

    An ID makes absolutely no difference to the security . The perps of 9/11 all had valid IDs. Some posters say that they had "deportation orders" against some of them; even so, it wouldn't have made a difference because airlines don't check against any 'deportation lists'. Even if they did, I can get a passable fake Drivers License for a couple of 100 bucks. And what does the gate attendant in, say, Boston know about an (say) Alaskan DL? They all look different! The airline attendants don't specialise in ID verification; they are ticket agents, for crying out loud!