Airport ID Checks Constitutional

chill wrote to mention the decision handed down from the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of appeals in the case of Gilmore vs. Gonzales. The court found in the government's favour, saying "We hold that neither the identification policy nor its application to Gilmore violated Gilmore's constitutional rights, and therefore we deny the petition ... The Constitution does not guarantee the right to travel by any particular form of transportation."

Comments

Re:Stupid

[Quintios]

So, I guess Judge Paez lives in that fantasy world where the rights of the people must be explicitly given within the Constitution, or they don't have them.

Uh, no. No one has the right to a car, cell phone, job, cable tv, or even a pair of shoes. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? That covers a lot of things. You have the right to travel, but it just might not get you where you want to go as fast (try two legs).

When you put my life in your hands, I somewhat expect you to provide a bit of security. If I'm on a plane, I expect that everyone's been searched and no KNOWN terrorists are on board. If I'm taking a taxi, if I'm taking anyone along with me I'm going to either know them or they aren't coming along. Traveling in groups can be quite dangerous as we've seen what can happen with 9/11, of course. I'm sick and tired of all these people that cry about giving up anonymonity when traveling. Well tough luck. You don't like it? Start walking.

Re:No particular, but any?

[Audacious]

I hate to say it, but this is what happened in Nazi Germany before World War II and just like in Nazi Germany, the people went along with it rather than putting a stop to it immediately. Just like we didn't stop Hitler from invading other countries because, as Hitler said, Germany could run the country better and make things better for everyone who lived there. It wasn't a good thing then - it's not a good thing now.

Amendment IV:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

On people having the right to move freely between the various states in the United States of America:

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States . . . shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States, and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively. . . [p764]

What (to me) is being done is called Divide and Conquer. Where you continue to split up something that is unified until it is in small enough parts to destroy it. In this case - it is your rights they are chiselling away at. "United we stand, divided we fall" is not just a saying. It has real meaning in today's world. If our government is allowed to continue to attack its own people we will become a military state or states run by an emperor or dictator. The stops in our laws were put in to prevent such a thing from happening. But if we just allow it to happen - it will. You want this nonsense to stop? You want it to go back to like it was before 9/11? Then you have to write your congressional person(s) and senators and tell them you want the government to stop trying to protect you from yourself. There are certain problems that go along with having as much freedom as we do and one of those is the fact that someone could decide to do something nasty to us. But the only way to be perfectly safe is to lock yourself in a steel vault situated on some remote planet in the universe. Since you can't do that you have to decide whether or not you are willing to give up all of your rights and live life as a slave or keep your freedoms and do the reasonable and sensible things to keep you and yours safe. This is not to say there should be NO security at airports but people moving between states should not be searched unless there is some kind of suspicious activity going on.