Courtesy of Atrios and Kevin Drum, I found this story this morning:
SAN FRANCISCO–A federal appeals court wrestled Thursday with what seems to be a straightforward question: Can Americans be required to show ID on a commercial airline flight?
John Gilmore, an early employee of Sun Microsystems and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the answer should be “no.” The libertarian millionaire sued the Bush administration, which claims that the ID requirement is necessary for security but has refused to identify any actual regulation requiring it.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed skeptical of the Bush administration’s defense of secret laws and regulations but stopped short of suggesting that such a rule would be necessarily unconstitutional.
“How do we know there’s an order?” Judge Thomas Nelson asked. “Because you said there was?”
Replied Joshua Waldman, a staff attorney for the Department of Justice: “We couldn’t confirm or deny the existence of an order.” Even though government regulations required his silence, Waldman said, the situation did seem a “bit peculiar.”
“This is America,” said James Harrison, a lawyer representing Gilmore. “We do not have secret laws. Period.”
A bit peculiar? Apparently not in George Bush’s America, where Oil Companies secretly set the nation’s energy policy, and where the Bush administrations has systematically and repeatedly sought to undermine laws that promote public access to government information
“. . . while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded.”
Now, I am not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, but I salute John Gilmore for bringing this lawsuit. Not because I believe an ID check is necessarily a bad thing at airports these days, but because I don’t believe we need a “secret law” (in this case probably a federal regulation) to implement that policy.
What kind of country are we becoming? Jefferson’s or Kafka’s? And all you libertarian Republicans who are Bush supporters, how can you justify this assault on our liberties?
Just curious.
When it comes to stuff like this I am very much a libertarian in my views. Not in my voting but very much in my absolute belief in a free and open society. This is non-negotiable.
Many in the militaristic wing of american politics like to rant about freedom not being free and I believe they are absolutely right about that despite their craven misuse of the phrase. It is also true that a free and open society is not without it’s risks. That is why this is the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” We are a brave enough people to take the risks that come with an open society and we will not cower in fear and give away our civil liberties for some nebulous promise of safety.
Our freedom is not to be trespassed on by anyone… especially not our own government.
that the government respected HIS rights as a CITIZEN.
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We must question everyone, and learn to trust our own instincts and capabilities of rational thinking.
I question Jimmy Carter’s recent collusions with James Baker in pushing for the National ID Act. What in the world was he thinking? He was also quite naive in his creation of FEMA. An insider would know, I suppose, that the creation of another layer of bureaucracy would only serve to further insulate the policies of the Congressional and Executive Branches from accountability to the people.
How convenient.
Add in the layer of Homeland Security, and everyone is just nicely wrapped for a long winter’s nap.
I’m amazed that people still trust Bush well enough that someone can reply, ” a bit peculiar.” Ever since Bush got into office he’s been trying to pull stuff.. and it’s no secret by now that Bush is Secretive.
for a week last spring. We hooked up at NORML’s conference in SF, and I drove him to the Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy in Seattle. I highly recommend the next cfp in DC May 2-6.
Here‘s a pic of us cornering Undersecretary of State Frank Moss over the proposal to put RFID chips in passports. We convinced Moss that their original proposal was deeply flawed, they called the proposal back for modification, such that the chipped passports now include a wire mesh to prevent reading when the passport is folded closed.
John was My 2nd campaign contributor. I got a big kick out of asking a millionaire who’s always being hit up for big bucks, for just one dollar.
Gilmore’s page about the case: http://papersplease.org/gilmore/
Best Blog on Travel Privacy: Ed Hasbrouk’s Practical Nomad
It would probably surprise a lot of you to find that in many ways the democratic pary, and even the greens are closer to libertarian ideals than the republicans are.
Really, the only two areas where they tend to agree more with the repugs is on business and guns.
I’ve always felt that we need just enough real libertarians and greens in congress to keep either democrats or republicans from having a majority.
Unfortunately, business and guns make up two-thirds of today’s Republican party, and when I wind up talking with Libertarians those always seem to be the issues that are more important to them (with a third strain of “you can’t force me to act like I care about anyone else”)… so in essence it seems to me that Libertarians are basically Republican atheists.
I haven’t made up what passes for my mind whether it’s an improvement or just a different form of insanity.
Generally an improvement, except for Objectivists, who are totally insane.
Not, as I understand an issue in this appeal, but in the underlying case John makes an interesting argument….
He’d booked the flight to make a scheduled appointment with Senator Boxer in DC. he argues that a requirement to ID under this circumstance interferes with his rights to anonymously Assemble, Speak, and Petition the Congress.
The first rules on ID and flying went in Nov. 1, 1996. A few days later I forgot to grab my ID leaving the house for O’hare, but I had a couple copies of the Madison papers with my picture, identified as a candidate for the House of Representatives in the recently concluded election. This led to an imprompotu confrence between the airline’s security guy, Chicago Police, FAA, etc. and a decision I’d be allowed to board, this one time.
There was another incident that happened