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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."
Is there currently any form of travel where you don't have to submit to a "Papers Please" check? You have to have a driver's license to drive. We know about airplanes. If busses and trains also require ID, then how can you travel anonymously? I suppose that most taxi drivers won't check your id, but they'll sure want to check your checkbook before driving you cross-country.
If you can't travel anonymously, then you in fact do not have an independent right to petition your government.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
FC Closer
Why would you be any safer if everyone around you had an ID card? What are you going to do, hold it up in front of you as a shield against harm? Why are you safer if you know who you are travelling with?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Unfortunately, it just goes on and on...
If there is "even a small chance" you are talking to a terrorist then we should all have our phone calls monitored.
If there is "even a small chance" of terrorism then we should all be forced to carry identification papers.
If there is "even a small chance" you may have searched for porn then we all should have our Google searches stored and analyzed.
You may want to ignore the minor issues, but eventually they will become major issues and then it will be too late.
My thought: we should start working on an Amendment to Constitution that makes a "Right to Privacy" explicit instead of depending on the judicial branch's interpretation of the 4th Amendment. At least it would be a worthwile campaign unlike the never ending battle to create an amendment to ban flag burning at gay marriage ceremonies. This is not my idea, by the way, this was proposed by Dan Savage in a NYT editorial last year (I think).
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
The trouble is that the private corporations are claiming that they would be willing to let him fly without picture ID, but the government is preventing them from doing so with a secret law.
If your only mode of travel is to walk from California to the District of Columbia in order to petition your government, then you are *effectively* denied your right to petition. If you have to persuade or pay someone to drive you, you don't have a right to travel to petition the government; you are relying on someone else's right to travel. If I only have a right because someone else has a right, then I don't have that right.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I have two problems with this decision. First, while I won't argue that there is an absolute right to anonymity, I have yet to hear an argument for the proposition that checking ID makes flying safer. The 9/11 terrorists had valid ID. If the government is using ID as a substitute for searches or X-ray or whatever is actually needed, they're kidding themselves.
The larger problem with this decision is the court's acceptance of the claim that there can be secret laws and regulations and specifically that this regulation is legitimately secret. The very idea of secret laws and regulations is inconsistent with open, democratic government. Moreover, not a shred of justification has been offered for the secrecy of this particular regulation. (The only situation I can imagine in which a secret regulation might be legitimate is when it has to mention something whose existence is a legitimate secret, but even then it would seem that the regulation could be revealed to those that it affects (since they would know about the secret anyhow) and that it should be possible to publish the regulation in a more abstract form (e.g. classifying some class of weapons).) What conceivable basis could there be for classifying a regulation requiring passengers to produce ID?
This is where the grey area lies. The airlines should have the right to refuse to allow you to board... as long as they refund your ticket with no penalty.
If a company accepts payment for a service (such as transportation from point A to point B), then either they must provide that service or refund the payment in full.
From the article:
"He asked to see the law demanding he show his 'papers' and was told after a time that the law was secret and no, he wouldn't be allowed to read it."
The constitution may no guarantee that a person be allowed to travel in any particular manner but I'm pretty sure "secret laws" are not constitutional and that is the real issue here.
US Gestapo: "Sir you are under arrest."
Victim: "What for?"
US Gestapo: "You broke the law Sir"
Victim: "What law?"
US Gestapo: "The secret law that we won't tell you about."
Victim: "I didn't know we even had secret laws!"
US Gestapo: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse Sir. Come with us."
Victim: "I want my lawyer!"
US Gestapo: "We aren't charging you Sir and you don't get to talk to your lawyer. Come with us."
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The article and the summary are missing the point. This was Gilmore v. Gonzales, not Gilmore v. the airlines. The argument, as I understand it, is that there is no published law or rule that says passengers have to show identification. The TIA says there is such a rule, but that it's a secret for security purposes. Gilmore argues secret laws are unconstitutional. I tend to agree with Gilmore.
But having secret laws is totally, categorically unacceptable. There should be a Constitutional amendment against these sort of regulations. This isn't similar to a police state tactic, it is a police state tactic. There is no slippery slope; there is a motherfucking cliff that is being jumped off blindly in the hopes that there will be water instead of rocks at the bottom so we might only injure ourselves instead of dying.
English is easier said than done.
You're missing Gilmore's point, which was not that the government had no right to ask for ID, but rather that a free people should not be subject to secret laws. He asked to see the statute that allowed them to check for IDs, and they refused to show it to him. If they can do this, than they can claim ANYTHING they want is authorized by the secret law. For instance, airport security could claim that attractive women are required to give screeners oral sex to prove they are not terrorists, or else they will not be allowed to board the plane. This is very different from a traffic citation, wherein the officer will state the specific statute violated on the ticket, which can then be looked up in any library.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'll have to say that this lawsuit was made in poor judgment. The government & business has every right to expect you to produce identification before boarding an airliner. This ID check is not unreasonable nor troublesome to any passenger. Getting stopped/delayed from boarding because a single-dimensional ID check matched on a suspect ID is just stupidity on the part of the TSA.
Being subject to having carry-on baggage searched and walking through a metal detector also is not particularly unreasonable. Neither, IMHO, would be being scanned with a hand detector and/or 'sniffer' device (to detect drugs/explosives handling). It would be normal security for what amounts to being transported in a flying bomb with no/limited in-flight security.
A strip-/cavity-search would be where I would draw the line. Unless you provide me with very detailed information about your suspicions about what I am supposedly hiding on/in my body, I am not going to cooperate in any way whatsoever. If I passed a metal detector test, a hand scanner test and a 'sniffer' test, then you will not be able to provide me with any reasonable explanation for needing a strip-search (get a warrant for a cavity-search). Barring any reasonable explanation, it is a fourth amendment buster and I will not submit to it. I will leave and expect a full refund from the airline and/or TSA (or search authority) and that they should expect a lawsuit.
For the record, I am an independent with liberal leanings. I defend my civil, political and human rights when I believe they are being threatened.
For a while now, when flying domestic the airlines have not been checking ID. ID is only checked by the TSA.
Anyhow, how can checking ID possibly help stop terrorism?
1. Boarding cards, especially online are incredibly easy to fake.
2. Fake ID is easy to come by.
3. If someone has decided they are going to fly a plane into a building and kill themselves in the process why would they care about showing their ID? Or buying a ticket with their real name on it?
4. etc..
Better flight searching coming soon.
The court apparently ruled that the ID requirement is not unconstitutional because the Constitution does not guarantee the right to travel by any particular form of tranportation. This is entirely irrelevant. The Constitution is a limit on the powers of government, not a grant of rights to the people. None of the powers of government enumerated in the Constitution or Amendments give the government the power to restrict US citizens from traveling within the United States by any means they desire. In particular, the government cannot require a passport for domestic travel, yet that is what this requirement does.
Furthermore, the Constitution does not give the government the power to enact and enforce secret laws or regulations. The very concept is anathema to the Rule of Law. If the government did any legitimate power to compel domestic travellers to present identification, it could only exercise that power by publishing laws or regulations that are subject to public scrutiny and judicial oversight.
I very much hope that Mr. Gilmore will appeal this ruling.
it's not fascism if we do it.
So let's stop pretending that if only Americans knew exactly what the government was doing that they would demand change, much less accountability. The Right has won by demonizing anyone who is skeptical of government power as anti-American, liberal, terrorist-sympathizing, and so on. By the time that whitebread, middle-class Americans are pissed off by the "show me your papers or go to jail for an indefinite length of time, and no we don't have to charge you with anything" state that America is moving towards, that apparatus will be too entrenched by precedent and public apathy and it will be too late to undo it completely. There may be a symbolic backlash a few years from now, but the recovery of civil rights will be less than the loss, and the progression will be ever downward.
Freedom requires a skepticism of government power. Every law, every prerogative of the police, every restriction, has to be greeted with a raised eyebrow and "why do you need that power?" for freedom to survive in society. That spirit is hard to find in Americans, and you can't kindle it in someone who doesn't have it.
One of my first jobs was with an electronics company that made circuit boards for cameras that went in police cars. If the flashing lights were on, then the camera was on. My second week on the job I remember the boss saying that the police departments had requested a modification--they wanted a way to turn off the camera while the flashing lights were still on. The first thing that popped into my mind was "why would they want to turn off the camera?" My entire political philosophy is built up from that question, but if your instincts are more trusting and credulous when it comes to government, then the question would never occur to you. Freedom requires skepticism of government motives. People have to understand and believe that, like Lord Acton said, power does corrupt. Not might or could, but does.
Actually, the biggest issue in the case seems to have been ignored, which is that a law may not be a secret. Gilmore demanded to see the law or regulation which required him to show ID, and the government refused to show it to him.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
1) Explain how my inability to travel anonymously prevents my petitioning the goverment for the redressing of grievances
2) Point to where in the constitution they said you were guaranteed anonymity
1)'s a little tricky. It's not so much "prevents" as chills and infringes on.
The right to travel to the seat of government to petition for redress is one of the privileges and immunities protected by the 14th amendment p&i clause.
2) We have the first amendment because Peter Zenger was busted for running a printing press to print anonymous criticism of the king's goons.
Talley v California, 1960, explains that the right to free speech includes anonymity and privacy. Thomas, concurring in McIntyre v Ohio Elections Commission, explains the history in more detail.
The other two cases that discuss the constitutional right to anonymity are American Constitutional Law Foundation and Watchtower v Stratton. You can read those cases at majors.blogspot.com or findlaw.com.
Mohammed Atta had a passport and credit cards, and there's no indication that he was reluctant to show them as he got on a plane at Logan airport on 9/11. Same with the shoe bomber.
Maybe checking ID doesn't really help.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And, worse (bold is again mine):
Let's quickly recap what this all means in handy bullet-point format:
This court case tells us there are secret laws on the books, and we as citizens covered under them are not privy to them. This is bad, bad news.
The point is that certainty is missing, that secret law governs what happens, and that there is no recourse. Unlike any other transport service, I can't count on being allowed to fly, even with a contract for that service in place. Calling the airlines private at this point is silly - they are all but nationalized - bailouts whenever needed, security all but outsourced, and plenty of congresscritters to buy them the legislation they want.
And that's before I bitch about the specific requirements and creeping TOA/BB/SS/Whatever you want to call it.
For them wot care, take a look at a different view of how airline regulation, secret law, and the airline cartel's cozy relationship with government is working out.
Truly, we are approaching a situation in which certainty of contract and basic privacy is reserved for those wealthy enough to use blinds, have a share of a plane, the money to create a trust for private finance, etc. And the cost is going up.
If you feel protected, you're deluding yourself.
I forget what 8 was for.
From the Gilmore website:
This is mostly right. Travel and assembly are related. Travel and free association are related. The last argument, however, is totally specious. No one told Gilmore he couldn't go to Maryland, they only said he couldn't do it (1) by airplane (2) without showing ID. This is not unreasonable given the current so-called state of war, and in any event it's certainly not unconstitutional. Denial of a particular mode of travel is not the same as denial of travel. This is substantially what TFA said. This one is trickier. The Fourth Amendment only applies to government actors. I can decide to not let you into my birthday party until you show me ID. That's fine, and it's not unconstitutional, because I'm not the government. The first answer to Gilmore's statement is that airlines are private companies, hence not government actors. However, there's an agency argument to be made, that the airlines are acting on behalf of the government, when they comply with federal regulations. Assuming the airlines are government actors, the Fourth Amendment applies only to unreasonable searches and seizures. Reasonability of the search itself turns on whether there is a socially reasonable, legitimate, or justifiable expectation of privacy. Read United States v. Knotts . Does society at large think it unreasonable, illegitimate, or unjustifiable to have to show ID to board airplanes? The very fact that Gilmore's case is news seems to indicate the answer is 'no'. The core issue that the right to travel isn't at stake here has been obscured by rhetoric. Travel by airplane isn't a right, it's a convenience, and the constitution doesn't deal in conveniences. This is right on the money. Secret law is the purview of tyrants and dictators. If the federal government wants to regulate the airline industry by passing a law requiring ID checks, it is entirely within their power to do so.IMHO: Judges are smart, and they can see through rhetoric. This isn't an issue of freedom to travel, it's an issue of secret regulations and star chambers. The Bush administration will be remembered for two things: the so-called 'war on terror', and the vast and secret power grabs by the executive branch in order to fight that war. Maybe if Gilmore had focused his primary attack on the secret law angle, he might have had better success. Instead, he treated it as a "side issue".
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.