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. )"

Comments

ID NOT Just to Prevent Ticket Exchanges

[Myriad]

Passanger ID is used for more than just preventing ticket exchanges:

Accurate passanger manifests are important in identifing the dead after a crash - and for security. Not necessarily before the flight, but after as well.

Passanger manifests can be used to track people on the run (via their real names or known alias's - alias's which have corresponding ID, making it harder to change randomly) and to identify person(s) after a flight ("I was in seat 34c and the passanger who was two seats ahead of me was the person who..."). And if a known person is being sought out for whatever reason, the chances of them getting busted at an airport are much higher than, say, a bus terminal. Which could be good, it's hard to get too far by bus.

Event reconstruction is another important aspect. Say someone murders their wife and flees with the kid, having a record of flights they may have taken could help track them down.

I do want to point out, however, I do NOT support what the US Gov't is up to under the guise of "security" - including this airport nonsense. I just wanted to point out that basic ID is important for more than just preflight security.