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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."
FC Closer
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
Saenz v. Roe, there are three components to the right to travel:
(1) "the right of a citizen of one state to enter and leave another state";
(2) "the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than an unfriendly alien when temporarily present in the second state"; and
(3) "for those travelers who elect to become permanent residents, the right to be treated like other citizens of that state."
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
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.
That's okay. I don't pay attention to analogies anyway unless the analogist shows me a government-issued photo ID with signature to prove he or she is not a terrorist.
This ID check is not unreasonable nor troublesome to any passenger.
So they check your ID and what good does it do?
Are they checking to make sure your ID isn't stamped "terrorist" or "manic-depressive?"
Just because some action is not particularly troublesome for most people does not make it at all reasonable.
A strip-/cavity-search would be where I would draw the line.
Funny that -- at least such a search will guarantee that you are not carrying anything dangerous to your fellow passengers, unlike an ID check.
Your reasoning is just rationalization for behaving like a lemming instead of thinking about actual security.
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.
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.
Also, as of Dec. 30th, there was a bill on Gov. Bill Taft's desk, called the Ohio Patriot Act which would require citizens to show ID upon request or face being arrested.
_ Or_Go_To_Jail
"The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.
WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID."
http://nievedenoche.gnn.tv/headlines/6851/Show_ID
Most cops in any state now will arrest you for not providing name and birthdate, regardless of if there is a law requiring it.
The mark of a mature person is not creating arbitrary criteria for considering others mature.
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.
Nonsense. If John Gilmore purchased a ticket from the airline in California, and boarded the plane in California, no interstate commerce is involved
Not according to the SCOTUS definition of interstate commerce. The SCOTUS definition of interstate commerce includes growing wheat for yourself in your own farm for your own consumption. As established in Wickard v. Filburn (1942).
Further, the reason why the medical marijuana case (Gonzales v. Raich (2005)) was decided in favor of the U.S. Government was due to the fact that selling marijuana in California affects the underground market for the drug, which crosses state broundaries.
Given these two SCOTUS decisions it seems pretty clear that purchasing a ticket in order to leave one state and enter another is interstate commerce. Further, boarding in one state and exiting in one state is probably interstate commerce too as the option to buy that seat was open to others outside the state and thus your action influenced their market value.
It's a crappy interpretation, imho, but it's currently what we've got.