John Gilmore's Search for the Mandatory ID Law

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?"

Why, indeed!

[Threni (635302)]

"You've got to have rules, Jerry. Without rules there's chaos." - Kramer.

Read what John himself says ...

[xmas2003 (739875)]

John's Home Page. [toad.com]

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

[daveschroeder (516195)]

This very page [papersplease.org] says that he would have been allowed to travel at SFO without ID if he submitted to a search. That alone devastates the "secret ID law" claim, as allowing him to fly without ID, search or not, would have been in violation of that law. More here [slashdot.org].

Re:Unfortunately, John WAS allowed to travel w/o I

[zackrentwood (828124)]

I don't think that this is dispositive. From the government's pleadings there clearly is a secret law. Many briefs went back and forth arguing that the government should/should not have to reveal the text of the administrative order.

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.

Ho Chi Minh beard

[fembots (753724)]

Maybe the memory is still lingering?

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...

[by Anonymous Coward]

I always thought the old Soviet Union required authorisation for its citizens to travel between towns and provinces/states. Of course this is not the case on a free country ;)?

Oh, I see... Security means less privacy, according to some, uh?

Re:Old Soviet rules...

[DeepHurtn! (773713)]

This case brings up other and more frightening comparisons to the old USSR and other totalitarian governments. The USSR, for example, had a constitution that supposedly guaranteed many of the same rights the US constitution grants; in practice, however, these rights were non-existent due to various secret "exceptions". If your government is enforcing laws that the public doesn't have access to, democracy is impossible. It is essential that the people have the right to inspect and critique the laws they are subject to.

No progress lately?

[QuantumG (50515)]

Unfortunately the legal page [papersplease.org] hasn't been updated since November 2004. So what's happenin' John? Has things stalled? Has there been any more progress? If so, can you update the legal page? We are listening, and we do care. Our attention spans are longer than the average person. Why the silence?

Dude! wtf?

[by Anonymous Coward]

If I was driving down the freeway one day, following all the rules, going the speed limit, and a police officer pulls me over for "a traffic violation", but is not willing to tell me what this "traffic violation is", wouldn't I have reason to question why?

New slant ...

[Mostly a lurker (634878)]

... on the rule that "ignorance of the law is no excuse". It would be amusing if it were not so tragic. Here are people enforcing laws against others with neither party aware of the full wording of the law.

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!

[Snarfangel (203258)]

Next thing you know, you'll want to be innocent until proven guilty and question witnesses.

ObCatch-22 quote

[Piquan (49943)]

"What right did they have?" said Capt.Yossarian

"Catch-22." said the old woman

"What?" Yossarian froze in his tracks with fear and alarm and felt his whole body begin to tingle. "What did you say?"

"Catch-22," the old woman repeated, rocking her head up and down. "Catch-22. Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Capt. Yossarian shouted at her in bewildered, furious protest.

"Didn't they show it to you?" Yossarian demanded, stamping about in anger and distress. "Didn't you even make them read it?"

They don't have to show us Catch-22," the old woman answered. "The law says they don't have to."

"What law says they don't have to?"

"Catch-22." The old woman said.

Joseph Heller, Catch-22 [straightdope.com]

Laws

[Lord_Dweomer (648696)]

I don't know about you guys, but I've always felt that if you are going to be restricted by rules and laws, those rules and laws need to be available for your viewing.

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. . .

[Bastian (66383)]

It reminds me of when my town's high school started making kids wear their sudent ID's around their necks in response to Columbine, with the stated purpose of trying to prevent such a situation in our town by discouraging unauthorized people from entering the school.

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.

Re:Because.

[Sta7ic (819090)]

Fair enough, but if a highway patrol officer stops you, it's assumed that you've done "something wrong". This is more like asking to see your ID and proof of insurence before they let you step into your car, or pull onto the road.

Re:Because.

[SUB7IME (604466)]

No, the man is not concerned because nobody has taken the time to produce a copy of the law. It is my understanding that he is concerned because the law is being withheld from inspection.

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.

Re:Because.

[zackrentwood (828124)]

Sure, eventually someone would produce the law, but was it worth it?

This case is very different. With a highway cop you know what the laws are, some states require you to show ID (e.g. Nevada) and the Supreme Court recently upheld such laws. You can investigate those laws if you like, vote for or against them in you r home state and avoid states where they have such laws if you don't like them. In the Gilmore v. Ashcroft case, the "law" in question is actualy an agency rule. Rules passed by adminstrative agencies have the force of law, but are not created by adminstrators, not by representative bodies. This case is particularly noxious because the government is claiming that the law itself is a secret. You are not permitted to see the rule that binds you, you simply have to trust the TSA people that such a rule exists and that they are enforcing it fairly. We now live in a nation where we are bound by secret laws. I'm sure some of the tin-foil hat people can tell you why that's a bad thing.

Re:Bullet, meet foot. Foot, this is bullet.

[DAldredge (2353)]

They are claiming that the law requires they do this while at the same time refusing to point out what law does.

One can not have a Democracy if the laws are hidden from the people.

Re:Bullet, meet foot. Foot, this is bullet.

[finkployd (12902)]

So you are perfectly ok with living under laws that you are not allowed to read or know about?

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

Re:Bullet, meet foot. Foot, this is bullet.

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Why does the government need to know where you are travelling?

For the same reason that dogs lick their balls.

Re:I consider myself pretty liberal

[multiplexo (27356)]

Did you bother reading the fine article? You did, Oh, are you one of those individuals who does poorly in reading comprehension tests? You must be, because if you had read the article you would have found out that Gilmore has epilepsy and lost his driver's license because of it. If you had bothered to read the article you also would have found out that the airlines claimed that it was not their policy but one they were forced to comply with by the federal government. Also the airlines are not allowed to just adopt any policy they like, as an example if an airline said "we don't like niggers and we don't let them on our planes" they'd be grounded pretty quickly by the federal government. Of course the federal government says that there is a policy but that we, the people who the federal government ostensibly serve, and who actually pay for the federal government, are not allowed to see it. If you can't see the danger in having the government create and enforce secret laws that the citizenry is expected to follow but not allowed to read then you're even dumber than your post makes you out to be. Who is to say that there isn't a secret law on the books that would allow me to come out to your house and hook some electrodes up to your nuts and show you all of the fun things that went on in Abu Ghraib? There might be a rule on the books that allows me to do this, but it's sensitive security information, so you can't see it, now shut up and stop screaming before I turn the voltage up even higher.

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.

Re:I consider myself pretty liberal

[Kiryat Malachi (177258)]

You would be correct, except:

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.

Re:I consider myself pretty liberal

[Ecks (52930)]

First, he doesn't have a driver's license. Second, he doesn't have a problem with the law that says you have to show ID to get on a plane. He just wants someone to show him a copy of it and the government claims that the details of the law cannot be divulged to the public. Liberal or conservative you shouldn't like the idea that the government can hold you accountable to rules that they won't divulge.

-- Ecks

RTFA

[IO ERROR (128968)]

They reached a strange agreement for an argument about personal privacy: In lieu of showing ID, Gilmore would consent to an extra-close search, putting up with a pat-down in order to keep his personal identity to himself. He was wanded, patted down and sent along.

As Gilmore headed up the boarding ramp a security guard yanked him from line. According to court papers, a security agent named Reggie Wauls informed Gilmore he would not be flying that day.

"He said, 'I didn't let you fly because you said you had an ID and wouldn't show it,' " Gilmore said. "I asked, 'Does that mean if I'd left it at home I'd be on the plane?' He said, 'I didn't say that.' "

Re:It's getting out of hand.

[Fjandr (66656)]

Sometimes they don't even accept their own listed ID requirements, as happened in my attempt to get an Idaho license. Check out my journal if you want the entire story on what can happen in my state.