Slashdot Mirror
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. )"
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.
On sept 18th, I again sought to go to NYC, to finish what I intended to do on the 11th - replace a bad firewall. Went to logan in boston, without valid photo id. By showing my expired passport, and have the MA state police search my record, they let me fly without event. At logan, I had to power on my laptop, unbox the cisco pix, and was fully searched with a wand metal detector by a somewhat overzealous latina girl.
Fast forward 12 hours - trying to leave NYC at laguardia, I went to the gate, went through security, was not asked to unbox the firewall for the metal detector, was not asked to turn on the laptop, was not manually searched for metallic objects. I breezed through until I actually attempted to board the place - when I handed them my ticket and expired passport, usair flipped out. After talking to the supervisor, and quickly realizing that there was no way I was going to get on the plane, I tried to get some answers from the supervisor:
"If you require valid id from all passengers, is it US Air's corporate policy that all passengers 16 and under need a US passport (because they can't have driver's licenses) for domestic flights?"
"no no no, you are different, you have id, you didn't bring it"
"that has nothing to do with anything. I would like a answer to my question - I have two siblings (17 and 12), and I would like to know if they will be able to fly USAir, as they don't have drivers licenses"
"blah, blah, blah" - basically, his body language and stammering said: I don't know what to say, basically, that, if we think you should have id, then you should have it. we won't discuss the qualifications for our assessing whether you think we should have id.
Basically, Logan was concerned about making sure that people were checked when getting on planes. Laguardia isn't too concerned abotu what you bring on, they just want to make sure that when it blows up, they have a good idea of who was on it
ostiguy
That's why the airlines never fought the rules, even though they are clumsy and inconvenient for ticket agents to enforce.
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
All your favorite sites in one place!
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.
I believe that the airlines screen out their frequent customers and "pick on" their non-frequent or one-time customers.
which most people are in favor of, he marginalizes all
Just become most people are in favor of something doesn't mean it is okay to do.
What?
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/01/13/pilot.detained/
The pilot was going through the screening process around 7 a.m. EST when he "made an inappropriate comment relative to security," said US Airways spokesman David Castelveter, who said the airlines was "cooperating fully" with the investigation. "We find this type of behavior intolerable," he said.
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.
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
How much security does that provide, however? Photo ID checks were in place prior to 9/11. There's nothing that stops terrorists from getting issued valid ID. The ID check procedure NOW would not have stopped a one of them.
ID checks exist -- and have existed for some time -- to prevent people from reselling plane tickets. Originally the tickets were just good for a seat, and people would sell them at will. Eventually they had markings to indicate the gender of the passenger, limiting by half the number of people one could resell them to. Now they have your name, so the resale value of tickets is zero.
For some reason this serves the purposes of airlines. It hasn't got a scintilla of value from a security perspective.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
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.)
"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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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)
... most of the energy would go away from the building, harmlessly out into the air. Unlike on the ground, where the energy would eminate outward in a hemisphere (instead of a sphere), most of it doing damage to the target area.
... he could have done more damange with an armload of bricks and lived to brag about it.
... which frankly makes me more than a little nervious as I work across the street from one of the primary 'targets' the pundits always like to talk about when exploring such scenerios.
First, most GA Cessna's, Pipers, and Beechcraft (I own one of the latter) have a usable load of only between 800 - 1100 lbs. By the time you have a 200 lb adult male, that amount is reduced to 600 lbs. The number you cited includes fuel, which weighs a significant amount.
Even if you loaded up with 600 lbs of c4 in an aircraft, especially a light aircraft with neither the speed, fuel capacity, or mass needed to do anything remotely like 9/11, you would pretty ineffective. Indeed, from the terrorist's point of view it would be a collasal waste
As has been demonstrated in Florida and Italy, there isn't a whole lot of damage you can do with a light aircraft, even one full of fuel. The things are flimsly and light, don't carry all much fuel to begin with (my Beechcraft carries 60 gallons), and don't have much usable cargo weight. The kid in Florida managed to break a window in his suicide run
Your scenerio with the charter of a large aircraft is more realistic, but light aircraft on the other hand are about the least effective delivery method you can use, unless of course you have a dirty, or atomic, bomb and just need altitude for maximum dispersal...maybe you'll irradiate an extra mile or so, but of course, there again, concentration will be reduced, making the overall toxicity of the event signficantly lower than a ground attack.
Ditto for biological or chemical agents.
Frankly, terrorists chances of success are a lot higher if they just rent a large truck and drive it up next to the target
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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
Because despite the Gov's and Media's spin on things, the attacks on 9/11 did not require a lot of skill, planning or tactics. It does not take a genius to hijack a plane and fly it in to something as large as the WTC towers or The Pentagon.
Learning to fly a jumbo jet (after it's already in the air): rather simple.
Buying plane tickets for four flights that take off around the same time: one visit to travelocity or expedia or any other ticketing web site.
Hickjacking a plane: please, any moron with anything resembing a weapon could do that.
Because the goal of the people who planed, and the people purpetrated the attack wasn't the most effective way to kill people. They merely figured out the best way to stike the most fear/terror in to the people of the U.S. They succeded. They've caused the US Gov to start stripping away fundamental rights. They caused people to fear travel, and large buildings.
On top of the initial attack, they've inderctly caused hundreds if not thousands of deaths in Afganastan, which was not in any way responsible for the attacks. The planners/operators of 9/11 were mostly Saudi Arabian and they used Saudi money. So are we attacking Saudi Arabia? Nope, we're attacking the people of Afganastan.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
It's a major issue: does the Government have the right to track your travel? Historically, the answer for U.S. citizens within the US has been "no".
U.S. Transportation Security Agency regulations 1544.201 do not call for an ID check, just searches of passengers. Airport employees are subject to stringent ID checks, but passengers don't seem to be. And those regs are dated February 22, 2002; they're definitely post-9/11.
Gilmore's lawyers have probably read that material. The ID requirement doesn't seem to rest on law or regulation. Airlines may wish to impose such a requirement, but the Government doesn't seem to.
I defy you to cite one single example of a person being questioned and detained, let alone arrested, for questioning the legitimacy of an airport ID check.
I defy YOU to show me how checking ID's enhances our safety in ANY way. Mohammed Atta wasn't travelling incognito when he flew that plane into the World Trade Center.
Oh, and FYI: John Gilmore has gotten quite a bit of harassment for declining to show an ID at an airport.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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!
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.
Also foolish. If they're criminals, leaving them together will allow them to obfuscate any crime, and possibly allow them to overpower or outwit the guards. If they're innocent, leaving them together will encourage reciporcal indignation, slowing down the process.
You don't get it, do you?
The searches are being generated randomly by computer. When it indicates that a 5 year old boy should be searched, they do it. And you're telling me that if I was the boy's parent I couldn't go with him? Instead I'm supposed to tell him to go WITH this strange person for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly to be strip searched?
I don't think so.
And this isn't a baseless complaint either. Shortly after 9/11 a computer triggered a search on a 10 year old boy. The screeners grabbed the kid with his backpack and were taking him behind a screened area to search. The boy's father complained, demanded to be allowed to go with them, they told him he couldn't legally go with them. The boy was trembling and close to crying. Eventually they did let the father come with -- after the father threatened to call the police right then and there and swear out a statement accusing the screeners of child abuse.
They searched the kid again at the gate.
I'm not a parent (yet), but no fucking way are you taking my child out of my sight to be searched. You will have to kill me first.