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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 papers are so last century. What you need is to operate positionable biometric chips into people's hands.
Yes, I did watch Demolition Man yesterday, why do you ask? Greetings and salutations, citizen, and a happy day to you.
Remind me to choose a seat at the back.
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
Is your friend's name Yakov Smirnoff?
;)
o v_ smirnoff.html
If not, he might have ripped off that joke and taken credit for it.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/y/yak
Comment of the year
The other favorite quote of Tom's that I still remember was:
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
After 9/11, George W. Bush made the statement
...)
"Those who are not with us, are against us".
Shortly thereafter, an exact duplicate DNA
version of the Ames strain of anthrax bacteria
as resides at Ft. Detrick, MD Army Labs was
unleashed upon (1st) the publishers of the
National Enquirer (investigating vote fraud
in Florida), the (2nd) the liberal (ie not pro-
Bush) TV media in NYC, and then (3rd) the ranking
US Senate membership of the opposition party.
The FBI's "Keystone Kops" quality investigation,
after nearly three years, has only turned up two
"persons of interest" and no suspects. This is
the very same FBI that allowed a plane-load of
Saudi Arabian "guests" to leave the USA before
any further investigation into possible ties to
the terrorist events of 9/11/01.
The Saudi Arabian embassy/Riggs Bank cash cow
debacle has yet to be fully investigated --
where exactly did that 20 - 30 million dollars
in US currency actually go? Into the hands of
more terrorists, or into the hands of Bush/Cheney
for their part in bringing down the Saudi's
greatest external threat -- Saddam Hussein?
Between new eVoting fraud, a press that has been
cowed into submission, the US Patriot Act, the
general blanket of nearly total secrecy now
in government interspersed only with lies and
double-speak, and the tens of millions of dollars
contributed by Bush's "corporate friends" for
the propaganda campaign leading up to the Nov.2
elections, which political party represents the
greatest threat to the future of American
democracy?
(I now put on my tin-foil hat, and peek through
the curtains for black helicopters
The approval rating of George W. Bush prior to
9/11/2001 was not going to win him the votes to
get his neo conservative legislative program
through Congress. The terrorist acts of 9/11
bought him the patriotic cover to do nearly
anything he wanted to do, including going to
war against Iraq. With the agenda that Bush/
Cheney had to shove down voters' throats, the
GOP needed an event like 9/11 to pull it off.
Welcome to the "Corporate National Socialist
Republic of America", where corporate welfare
is the norm, the middle class is becoming non-
existent, and those jobs not going overseas
are being filled by illegal aliens from across
US borders still little better secured than
before 9/11.
Yakov put it in his book America on Six Rubles a Day.
3 5/ qid=1092779901/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-7742149-336 8028
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/03947552
Comment of the year
ha! It looks like Tom cam up with the idea first!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.