Slashdot Mirror
Your Right to Travel Anonymously: Not Dead Yet
ChiralSoftware writes "Remember John Gilmore's fight to be able to travel on commercial airlines without having to show ID? It has dropped out of the news for a while, but now it appears that the fight is continuing. I remember in the 80s we used to make jokes about Soviet citizens being asked "show me your papers" and needing internal passports to travel in their own country. Now we need internal passports to travel in our country. How did this happen? The requirement to show ID for flying on commercial passenger flights started in 1996, in response to the crash of TWA Flight 800. This crash was very likely caused by a mechanical failure. How showing ID to board a plane prevents mechanical failures is left as an exercise to the reader. How mandatory ID even prevents terrorist attacks is also not clear to me; all the 9/11 hijackers had valid government-issued ID. I hope the courts don't wimp out on this fight."
ID is now required so that airlines can cross-check against the politcally-motivated, secret, error-ridden watch lists of people who are from unpopular countries filled with little brown people.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
New-fangled system? Oh, you mean the brown people are evil search them and make sure you feel up the women system?
The real "unknown" is why does the "God" that "speaks" to Bush sound exactly like Ariel Sharon?
Who's there?
Zee German Inspector.
The German Inspector w.....
I AM ZEE ONE ASKING ZEE QVESTIONS HERE!!!!
Insert appropriate agency personnel for the inspector.
"Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first." - My Dad
Oh come now, don't get Kerried away...
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Those pilots should be forced to shoot one of the passengers before the flight to show the rest that they really mean business!
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
While the airports may now require ID, it's primarily for show. In the 6 round trip flights and ID checked 12 times, not once did my ID match my flight information and not once did anyone even question anything.
I generally leave it up to friends to book my flights because I don't care what airline/airport I fly into and out of but they do. So for a wedding in North Carolina in 1999, the friend put down "Crackpipe Johnny" as my name while booking. I chuckled until we actually got to the airport because I didn't know how they'd react. Instead of showing my ID, I showed my Zippo which had Crackpipe Johnny emblazoned on it. "Ok sir, go right through."
Since then it's been a running joke and even post-9/11 Crackpipe Johnny has had no problem booking a flight or boarding a plane.
I wouldn't recommend trying this, but until someone tells me to stop doing so, I will continue to do so. Just because someone says something is so (in this case mandatory ID carrying) isn't reason to freak out.
I am sick of you f*cking leftie slashdot folk. Damn. Yes, I want everyone who is on a plane to show ID and have that ID checked against a central database of "suspicious" people. If I see one f*ckng terrorist on a plane that I am aboard, I will take his damn head off with my shoe if I have to. F*CK M. MOORE and the leftie slashdotters.
You have airplanes and shoes in Alabama?
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I've Nader heard such wild speculation!
The only thing I want you to do whenever I do my girlfriend is to look the other way, that's all the privacy I need.
Sorry, man, God knows what sort of crazy terroristic shit you two could be thinking up when you are supposedly 'making love'. They gotta watch, it's for your own good.
While there are lots of things terrorists may do on a plane, to f*ck is not one of those things I'd expect them to do there.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
If there was no IDing, they wouldn't have [...]
Is this a new product from Apple? How do I get it?
I'm a 2000 man.
Howard Dean.
I have to show a government-issued ID to buy beer. This is a travesty! The government is spying on my beer-buying habits! It's not fair! Wahwahwah.
As someone who flies regularly...
Please, please, please God, let this be implemented.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
Cripes, where did you hear about that? I would have figured that would have been edited out of any historical material by now. Better get those memory holes warmed up at the Ministry of Truth. Damnit Winston, GET WORKING!!
Rampant Ninja related crimes these days...Whitehouse is not the exception
"Maybe there's something in the Bible about it. No idea."
I would definitely remember if there were dildos in the Bible. There aren't.
Um..you were saying?
Look what Rambo did with only a knife!!
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Are you implying that if there is a law requiring you to identify yourself you lose the right not to not have to identify yourself?
Instaed of God as a burning bush commanding Moses, It's Satan as an Israeli PM, commanding a bush to burn Iraq, etc.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."