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John Gilmore's Search for the Mandatory ID Law
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Feb 27, 2005 08:22 PM
from the when-making-things-easy-isn't-a-good-idea dept.
from the when-making-things-easy-isn't-a-good-idea dept.
powerline22 writes "John Gilmore, the millionare who cofounded the EFF, has been prohibited from travelling because he refused to show an ID while boarding an airplane. He's been under this self-imposed ban since 2002. From the article: "The gate agent asked for his ID. Gilmore asked her why. It is the law, she said. Gilmore asked to see the law. Nobody could produce a copy. To date, nobody has. The regulation that mandates ID at airports is 'Sensitive Security Information.' The law, as it turns out, is unavailable for inspection. What started out as a weekend trip to Washington became a crawl through the courts in search of an answer to Gilmore's question: Why?"
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Gilmore Loses Airport ID Case 521 comments
smooth wombat writes "In the final conclusion to John Gilmore's fight to be able to fly on an airplane without providing identification, the United States Supreme Court, without comment, let stand an appeals court ruling which said that Gilmore's rights are not violated by being required to show proof of identity. Gilmore had argued that without being able to see the law which says one must provide identification before being allowed to board a plane, there is no way to know if the regulations call for impermissible searches."
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Why, indeed! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Favorite quote from TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one thing to say "do you have a license? and can I see if it's valid?" it's another thing to say "I will now log your driver's license into our database".
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Re:How about (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to be able to prove to your insurance person that you actually did see a driver's liscense.
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Re:Favorite quote from TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Favorite quote from TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
If you break the law in a rental car, like running a red light or hitting a pedestrian, the police must to be able to match up the driver (and their licence) to the perpetrator. For this reason, and for the specific case of renting a car, I don't have a problem with handing over my driver's licence details.
OTOH, I would not want to have to show photo ID before I could use a taxi.
John Gilmour's main point, though, is that secret law is an abomination. With this, I agree wholeheartedly.
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Re:Why, indeed! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, any sheep would pull out a photo ID. I, for one am glad that Gilmore has the time, money and motivation to follow through on this.
I bet you show your receipt at the door at Fry's too...
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Re:Why, indeed! (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to show my receipt at Fry's, until folks like John Gilmore woke me up, so to speak; I haven't shown the receipt since then. My reasoning goes like this: the store is open to the public, they have "loss prevention agents" all over the store, and the path from the cash registers to the exit is segregated from the rest of the merchandise. You may see my receipt only after I am arrested (falsely) for shoplifting. And then you may see my lawyer's card.
-paul
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Read what John himself says ... (Score:5, Informative)
This writeup on Gilmore v. Ashcroft [papersplease.org] is kinda interesting too as is FreeToTravel.Org [freetotravel.org] that includes an FAQ from John [freetotravel.org] - all of this has been around for a while, but I guess the mainstream media just "re-discovered" John's story - don't think there has been any significant change in over a year (?)
Unfortunately, John WAS allowed to travel w/o ID (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Unfortunately, John WAS allowed to travel w/o I (Score:5, Informative)
It seems that the text of the secret rule might allow the TSA to forego the ID requirement in exchange for more strict physical searches.
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Re:Unfortunately, John WAS allowed to travel w/o I (Score:5, Insightful)
One basic tennant of any legal system is that none may ignore the law (although I don't know how it's typically formulated in English). How are you supposed to know about a secret law ? It doesn't fit in the system.
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Re:Unfortunately, John WAS allowed to travel w/o I (Score:5, Informative)
This says that he _did_ consent to being searched ... and was then later pulled out, after passing through security.
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No, wrong airport. He was allowed to fly at SFO. (Score:5, Informative)
See: http://www.papersplease.org/gilmore/facts.html [papersplease.org]
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Re:Unfortunately, John WAS allowed to travel w/o I (Score:5, Insightful)
This country has turned into a Kurt Vonnegut novel.
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Re:Unfortunately, John WAS allowed to travel w/o I (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right in thinking that I still think that Gilmore has a case. Which account is right. I don't know, and either way there is still a secret law requiring us to "show our papers" to travel within the US.
Interestingly, I see that you can't challenge a single one of my assertions about the current state of the police powers in the United States: "We now live in a police state, with secret searches, secret evidence, secret arrests, secret detentions without charges, secret touture, secret laws and even secret legal arguments." My position stands unopposed by you with a single fact. The facts also include the fact that the President of the United States believes that the constitution is null and void for anyone he personally deems to be an "Enemy Combatant," US Citizen or no. There is literally nothing in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that says the Bill of Rights only applies to those the President approves of. This suspension of the Bill of Rights at the sole discretion of the Administration is literally an unprecedented extension of authoritarian power to the President.
Your straw argument that if some things should be secret then it is ok to have secret laws (like those in Communist China and Soviet Russia) rings hollow. Yes, some things should be secret, such as the details on how to make weapons of mass destruction, but the actual laws we have to follow day to day need to be public so we can know what they are and challenge them if they are unconstitutional.
We do live in 1984. The government can do sneak and peak searches, warrantless secret searches of your medical records, credit card transactions, library records and any "public" record. They can also, without a warrant, record who you phone and when, and many other transactions. The Administration to increase pollution is called Clear Skies; their plan to deforest is called The Healthy Forests Initiative. All I can say is that I think the President is double plus un-good.
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Re:Unfortunately, John WAS allowed to travel w/o I (Score:5, Interesting)
Since that is the case, hell fucking yes he should have tried to get on the plane at SFO. But you choose to take the "um, aren't you surprised he didn't try after he'd been rejected once" tack. By your logic, he shouldn't have even gone to the second airport at all! They told him they'd allow him to fly if he submitted to a search. And while that may have sounded familiar to him, if his goal was to go on a crusade with this, he should have tested it again, yes? And don't give me any bullshit about embarrassment, because he was prepared for this since his goal was to challenge this system.
And yes, I do expect he would have been let on, because *I* have flown without ID before. Twice now! After Sept 11. I lost my wallet and all I had was my plane ticket, going from ORD to MSN. And yes, I had to submit to the special search, but I still flew. So yes, I do expect he could have flown with no ID, albeit with much hassle. Of course you won't believe this, but no matter.
Look, I'm not saying that the system is great, and I think John's cause is worthwhile. I just think that exaggerating things (i.e., that he can't fly with no ID, even though SFO was about to let him - and we'll never know either way, will we - or, that this is a universal issue of being able to travel without "identity papers", when this case applies only to air travel, and there are numerous other ways to travel - and it doesn't matter if they're slower - without ID. The point is that he shouldn't hurt this case by overdramatizing things.)
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Ho Chi Minh beard (Score:5, Funny)
But seriously, is $30 million enough for such lawsuit? Didn't we just read that a session of 'Trek costs $32 million??
Old Soviet rules... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I see... Security means less privacy, according to some, uh?
Re:Old Soviet rules... (Score:5, Informative)
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No progress lately? (Score:5, Informative)
Dude! wtf? (Score:5, Insightful)
New slant ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a law, furthermore, that was not passed in accordance with the constitution. We have faceless individuals deciding on controls on everyday movement and almost no questioning of their right to do so.
I am actually surprised Mr Gilmore has not asked for a court injunction asking either for proof that such a law exists (and its text) or for the regulation to be lifted.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse! (Score:5, Insightful)
ObCatch-22 quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ObCatch-22 quote (Score:5, Informative)
I'd say The Trial is in fact more interesting than Catch 22 in this context. Catch 22 is easier to read though.
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Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, the reason people go to law school and the reason pay lawyers so much money is because the law is something that needs to be done BY THE LETTER. It sounds like the airlines want us just to abide by the spirit of the law.
And while I personally wish society were at point where we COULD just go by the spirit of things, we are not there yet, and so in order to protect OUR rights, and OUR safety, we need to be able to view these laws and make certain we're not getting screwed over.
It reminds me. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Only problem is, there has not been a school shooting I know if that was not perpetrated by a student who is authorized to be at that school.
Same thing with airplanes. "Ha ha, you dumb terrorists! Now you have to prove you bought the ticket to get on the airplane!" I'm sure this inconveniences them much more than it inconveniences me when getting on an airplane. In fact, I bet it inconveniences them so much that they would scrub years or decades of planning. Sure, I get on an airplane once every couple months, and it hasn't made life too much harder for me, but somehow it's magically different for terrorists.
Related cases are increasing. (Score:5, Informative)
One of the basic issues driving the airport case is the question of when ignorance of the law IS an excuse. The typical educated layman's answer is never - "Ignorance of the law is no excuse.". While that's generally good advice, real case law is slightly different. It sometimes involves a concept called scientier. The U.S. Supreme Court has defined "scientier" in one set of cases as: "a mental state embracing intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud.". In various legal situations, it's definition is broader, but is generally about the intent of the accused.
Several scientier related cases have established that ignorance of a law can become an excuse - IF the ignorance is not the sole fault of the accused. One example of this would be a case where the state itself has put impediments in the way of learning what the law is, and another would be a case where there were substantial natural impediments.
There have been successful challenges at the highest levels (The Supremes basically), in cases where the impediment was natural: One classic case in the area is that of a bookstore (general , rather than "adult") owner, who was found not guilty of violating obscenity law on this principle. He displayed for sale copies of a Grove Press work that had made the state's banned list. However, the copies he recieved from his normal distributer had rather innocuous cover art and a title that was not particularly indicative of the type of work. The court ruled that his defense was sound - the law did not compel a normal person to go to the rediculous length of personally reading every book in a shipment of tens of thousands of copies, or paying thousands of dollars each year for the necessary (at that time) postage and labor to constantly check a lengthy inventory against a state list not made widely available, just to comply.
There are fewer good precidents for cases where the action of the state is involved, and fewer still that have made it to superior courts or the U.S. Supreme court. This looks to be a possible one.
Right now, there is a claim in Texas that holds some of the state laws on sexual conduct are invalid. It's based on the fact that an agency of the state government struck out specific references to those laws in the state's high school text books. The theory is that once one arm of the state acts to make it harder for a person to become educated about the law, the whole state government loses the normal claim that ignorance is no excuse.
This case hinges on the same claim. If it's really that hard to get to see an actual copy of the law involved, how can an individual who intends to comply with the law actually do it? A decision here will impact not just cases like the one in Texas, but may impact a lot of IRS/Tax law, as one of the claims frequently advanced there is that the law is literally too complicated to be understood.
It's not about showing licenses... (Score:5, Insightful)
This one is mostly harmless. But it's just a step away...
Imagine such a law: Any visitor to an anti-government website is considered traitor of the country, subject to arrest and lawsuit, without right to a lawyer, with methods of interrogation like tortures allowed, bound with secret about everything they see or hear, including this law.
Now this law comes into effect, except it's not being published anywhere. Just the same as the "ID check" - you don't get a chance to know it exists possibly until after you've violated it. The agents are free to drag you out of your house and keep you imprisoned for months, then eventually kill you and nobody can do anything about it, they can't even know what happened to you. And it's all fine in the eyes of law - and nobody can protest because nobody knows, and those who know, by knowing are bound by secret, or they violate the law and are subject of prosecution.
That's the method of rule of totalitarian government. Laws you don't know about until it's too late. And of course laws made up on the spot, just as binding because nobody can verify they were made up on the spot...
The real reason for ID (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a ticket you can't use, you can't sell it in the paper (or on eBay). There used to be all kinds of classified ads for airplane tickets for sale. No more. It's economics, not security.
Re:The real reason for ID (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Because. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Because. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the law is in print somewhere (ostensibly), but no layperson knows precisely what it says. In essence, we are being held accountable to rules that we cannot know.
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Re:Because. (Score:5, Insightful)
What is it with the USA? The cold war is long over but we see the former USSR steadily getting more democratic and the USA steadily adopting more totalitarian tactics.
National security should never be used as an excuse when "I just want to do whatever I want" is the real reason.
The case of this guy is trivial. The case of not disclosing the information and saying "Because I said so" is not - many non-democratic third world countries can't even get away with and at least have flimsy pretexts based on published laws when they do things injustly. Think of what sort of injustice you can get up to when you don't have to rely on published laws and superiors are not expecting you to be responsible for your actions until the press find out.
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Ironically (Score:5, Funny)
If we were around women more, we'd be used to it...
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Re:Because. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Because. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a helluva way to spell "gibbering cowards."
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Re:Bullet, meet foot. Foot, this is bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
One can not have a Democracy if the laws are hidden from the people.
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Re:Bullet, meet foot. Foot, this is bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you think showing ID does one bit of good regarding airline security, I would love to join you in that dream world. Are you under the impression that IDs are hard to get? Do you believe that the 9/11 guys did not have valid IDs?
Finkployd
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Re:Bullet, meet foot. Foot, this is bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
If persons with authority start telling people what to do on the grounds that the law says they can, and then it turns out that they don't know what they are talking about, indeed for all appearances might just be making it up, then there are no limits to what citizens can and will be forced to do. If that's not a grave threat to civil rights, I don't know what is. It no longer matters what the law does and does not allow, the law doesn't make any difference any more if anyone with a badge can claim, "It's the law" and then without any further explanation demand anything they want.
It's never wrong to question authority. Authority can be expected to have an answer.
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Re:Bullet, meet foot. Foot, this is bullet. (Score:5, Funny)
For the same reason that dogs lick their balls.
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Re:I consider myself pretty liberal (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some people who are smart enough to be bothered by the whole concept of having a bunch of government bureaucrats enforcing secret and unwritten laws on an unknowing populace and then there are stupid bastards such yourself who aren't much higher on the intellectual food chain than say a retarded steer, or perhaps a particularly bright carp.
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Re:I consider myself pretty liberal (Score:5, Insightful)
TSA agents, who are *government* employees, are telling him he has to show ID because it's the law.
Airline officials are *not* saying that this is company policy; they are saying it is US law.
He is asking to see said law. No one will show it to him. Private laws are *not* something we should be saying "Oh, well that's okay then" towards; they lead in exactly the wrong direction.
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Re:I consider myself pretty liberal (Score:5, Insightful)
-- Ecks
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RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It's getting out of hand. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What a dick. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Showing IDs (Score:5, Insightful)
True! You do feel better! Unfortunately, you are no safer, but everyone has less privacy. Is the loss of their privacy worth happy feelings on your part? Perhaps you should take happy pills instead? That way, you'll still be happy, and other people will still have their privacy.
-russ
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Re:So there's no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
it's about secret government laws.
how is it possible to be a law-abiding citizen when the government passes laws you aren't even allowed to know about? "just use common sense" is not justification, because there are thousands of laws which are not sensible at all.
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Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)
Though I should tell you, I really don't give a fuck if the guy trying to hijack the plane I'm flying on has an ID or not.
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