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Flying Faster Without ID
jjh37997 writes "A Homeland Security's privacy advisory committee member finds that flying without a photo ID is actually faster than traveling with proper identification. According to Wired the committee member, Jim Harper, accepted a bet from civil liberties rabble-rouser John Gilmore to test whether he could actually fly without showing identification. He found that traveling without ID allowed him to bypass the long security lines at San Francisco's International Airport, and get in faster than if he had provided his driver's license."
... you woudln't save any time. Honestly, putting your items through the X-ray machine and stepping through the magnetic scanner is quicker than the near-body-cavity search they gave him. If everyone opted to do it just to save from showing ID's (whether an ideological move or a time-saving one) then the time-savers would be going back to the X-ray lines ...
I think this whole "white" thing is a little exaggerated. I'm orignally from Pakistan, look very middle eastern and travel through SFO all the time and have never been checked. Infact I travel all the time with my "white" British friend who has been checked thrice. He then got ticked off and shaved his beard :)
I've done a variant of this with customs as well. When you come back into the U.S. you must clear customs. This involves standing a HUGE line, usually for an hour or so. There are only 4 or 5 stations open at LAX normally. The trick is to bring a small plant back with you. When you get to customs you tell the guy you have a plant and aren't sure if it's allowed. They send you over to another guy who only handles these sorts of things and has no one in his line.. He looks up your plant and searches you bags. If the plant is allowed in(never happens) you keep it and walk right out. If the plant isn't allowed he takes it and you walk right out. Total time maybe 5 minutes. Works every time.
Last year, he tried to board an airplane... without showing an ID, and without submitting to a secondary search.
He was carrying only his boarding pass and a copy of the U.S. Constitution. Cheeky fucker!
He spent several days in jail, and got some really scary letters from the FBI (hi guys!).
Scanned copies of the letters, photos of the event, and his own musing are posted here.
Now, I don't agree with Russell's focus on "civil disobediance" -- I prefer to focus on political change (ie, getting good people elected into office, passing good laws, repealing bad ones, etc). In addition, I think this particular act of Civil Disobedience was poorly chosen -- he was trying to make the point that it should be the airlines, not the government, that sets the rules for any particular flight.
But still, ya gotta admire the sheer cojones of standing up to the FBI, and doing it with a sense of humor (see the letters he wrote back to the Feds, they're hilarious!)
Russ is just one of the hundreds of pro-Liberty activists out here in New Hampshire, one more member of the Free State Project
Part of the Second American Revolution!
I had a similar incident happen to me...
I was pulled over for speeding (106mph in a 70mph zone). Since the ticket was for "Exceeding 100mph", it was a mandatory court appearance. I showed up in a dress shirt, nice slacks and a tie. I plead guilty, and was fined $600. I was driving a Mercedes (A 1979 Mercedes, which is pretty inexpensive), but I'm sure the judge thought that me driving the Mercedes meant I have money.
The guy behind me shows up, and was charged with doing 105 in a 70, in the same exact location as I was pulled over, on the same day, by the same officer, but about 20 minutes after I was pulled over. He was dressed in worn out jeans & a wife beater, and was driving a rental Mustang. His fine was $250.
I'm still pissed about that, but I kept my mouth shut since the judge didn't suspend my license, and I was afraid he would hold me in contempt of court.
The Bakersfield, Ca courtroom is making the state a ton of money. The day I was in court, there were about 45 people in there, all charged with exceeding 100mph. I would imagine that they are one of the largest contributors to Bakersfield's economy.
OK, a brief mathematical point. If most Arabs are not terrorists, and most terrorists are Arabs, it does not follow that your highest probability of finding a terrorist will be by examining Arabs
I'll make a concrete example for you. Suppose you pick a group of people at random, and it happens to contain: 10 Arab Terrorists, 5 Non-Arab Terrorists, 90 Arab Non-Terrorists, and 10 Non-Arab Non-Terrorists. Now, you might argue that this does not reflect probabilities in the larger population, but... let me use this as an example, to make a mathematical pont.
In that situation, it is true that: Most Terrorists are Arabs. (10-to-5: among the terrorists, there are twice as many Arabs as Non-Arabs.)
In that situation, it is also true that: Most Arabs are NOT Terrorists. (90-to-10: among the Arabs, there are 9 times as many non-Terrorists as there are Terrorists.)
However, now look at the probabilities: If you examine Arabs only, your chances of finding a terrorist are 10% (there are 100 Arabs in the sample, 10 of them are terrorists). On the other hand, if you examine Non-Arabs only, your chances are finding a terrorist are 33% (there are 15 Non-Arabs, 5 of them are Terrorists).
I know these numbers seem skewed, but I want to make a mathematical point: just because most Terrorists are Arabs DOES NOT mean that you are more likely to find a terrorist by searching Arabs.
Fines are dangerous to use as a law-enforcement tool, for just this reason. As soon as you give governments a financial incentive to punish people, you start getting "enforcement" that happens for reasons completely unrelated to wanting to protect the public.
I've always thought that the right solution to this is to reduce that governmental body's tax income by exactly as much money as it takes in in fines. This way the government has no financial incentive one way or the other, and will presumably only pass and enforce laws when they're actually in the interest of the community. And those fines would reduce the tax burden on the supposedly-harmed society, reimbursing the citizens who had been transgressed against in the most direct possible way.
Jim's a great guy. He came to New Hampshire to help us fight Real ID here.
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He testified to help us pass an anti-RealID bill, which came within a hair of becoming law.
As I wrote in another post, see
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=830740502
for footage from a big protest against REAL ID here.
I had a long argument with NH Senator President Gatsas about the "id requirement" issue in flying and we (Jim and I) insisted he was wrong, that we could fly without any ID, if we were willing to submit to a secondary search. Kudos to Jim for proving us right!
(For those wondering what politics in New Hampshire is like... Yes, not only did I have an argument with the Senate President, but he called me back within 5 minutes of my sending him an email. We have that sort of an open and accessible legislature. Come and see it in action, there is nothing like it anywhere else. 400 State Representatives, 24 Senators, all paid a mere $100 a year, and little in the way of staff or offices.)
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