Grounded: Millionaire John Gilmore stays close to home while making a point about privacy

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005 | Dennis Roddy

[TheBlackFeather]

He's unable to travel because he refuses to present a government-approved ID

SAN FRANCISCO -- John Gilmore's splendid isolation began July 4, 2002, when, with defiance aforethought, he strolled to the Southwest Airlines counter at Oakland Airport and presented his ticket.

[Badray]

I was stopped in an airport for carrying a 13mm Sears wrench. The "rules" (again, no one knows what rules) say that we can't take any tools in our carryon bag. Like the guy in this lawsuit, I've got to wonder how much more secure the world is when I can't take a 13mm Sears wrench onboard.

I was prevented from taking a small pair of moustache trimming scissors on a flight a few years ago. I asked if I could take a cigarette lighter and a can of hair spray. They said yes.

The bottom line is that I can take a flame thrower on a plane, but I can't trim my moustache at my destination.

[Cultural Jihad]

Whether the law can be rationalized or not is not the point. In our system of self-governance people have a lot of freewill choices. They can either challenge the law, obey the law, or break the law. In all cases, an individual must accept the consequences of their freewill actions.

[Cultural Jihad]

In theory, do driver's licenses make the public safer? Why require passports or visas for alien visitors, for that matter?

[Publius Valerius]

Well, you can sleep better at night because you can no longer take lighters or matches onto the plane with you.

I'm waiting for them to ban pencils because they are sharp and could be used to stab stewardesses and pilots.

[Zeroisanumber]

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.

Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago that part of the problem with proving one's innocence in the Soviet legal system (apart from the KGB torture rooms) was the fact that the Soviet legal code was never released to the general public until after the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991.

Consider:

"You're under arrest!"

"For what?"

"You broke the law!"

"Which law?"

"That's classified."

I agree with the need to check ID's, especially at travel terminals, but in a free society the law should always be clear and accessable.

[Oztrich Boy]

I'm specifically addressing the original article which says that the law is "secret." It's not

You are claiming to know more about the secrcy or not of this than the TSA itself? I am in awe.

[Cultural Jihad]

The applicable laws have been posted already on the thread. There are no classified laws related to public transportation, and only anarcho-sheeple would assume otherwise.

[palmer]

I don't think there's any Constitutional argument for or against (I disagree with Gilmore's portrayal of it as such). But I look at the cost and benefit of ID schemes, and the cost includes the false sense of security presumed in restricting boarding to people with IDs. The issue you are dancing around is your extremely thorough background check that allowed you to be trusted by your crewmates and security staff and possess the ID. That trust is based upon the fact that the investigator visit people in person who vouch for you, in other words, all trust is local. The problem with a federal watch list should be obvious: who is on it and shouldn't be, who is not on it and should be, how does the development of the list line up with the background checks done by the issuers of the ID? Is there any local checking of reputable references? Are the ID givers themselves checked? What happens when the watchlist system is broken and the ID check turns into a meaningless routine?

There are lots of potenial security problems in this country, and a limited amount of resources to protect them. Instead of a providing a false sense of security in everybody having an ID, I would much rather have a real sense of security from active surveillance of suspects, active defense of vulnerable locations in airports or any other infrastructure. Just one simple example, better use of sensors to detect explosives.

[Publius Valerius]

Well, I don't have a passport and I don't travel abroad for that very reason. But, passports can serve an arguably valid policy purpose by regulating the folks that come into the country. Nations have a valid interest in controlling immigration, and it becomes more difficult to do so without passports.

As I said, though, I think they're pretty much garbage, especially in this day and age, and I don't have one and I won't travel to a country that requires one because of it. So, outside North America is off limits to me.

To answer your question about driver's licenses, I don't think they make the public safer at all--I think they are merely a means for the machinery of government to punish "lawbreakers" and collect fines. If speeding didn't exist, I doubt seriously there would be such a pressing need for driver's licenses.

[AmishDude]

If I recall correctly, the single most burning issue that ignited the revolution was the argument that a man could not be siezed at random by government thugs and be forced to show papers and explain his reasons for traveling and be forced to declare his itinerary for their approval.

You do not recall correctly. The single most pressing reason was taxation. The Stamp Act had nothing to do with postal service. If you contend that this is the case, then I encourage you to find this complaint in the Declaration of Independence, where the list of grievances is long.

Second, no one is being forced to show papers at random. He was asked at the gate of Southwest Airlines' very expensive plane. When he refused to show them, he was free to leave the airport.

Third, if he doesn't like it, he can buy or hire his own plane. There is no constitutional right to cheap travel.

[Publius Valerius]

By the way, I read what was posted, and I didn't see anything about requiring production of ID. I read how the Undersecretary of Transportation could promulgate regulation....Where are those?

Were they published in the Federal Register? Were they subject to notice and comment?

[ActionNewsBill]

No thank you Hillery.....

Well, you are the one who thinks like her.

Hillary Clinton: "We're Going to Take Things Away From You on Behalf of the Common Good"

Yep, that sounds like you and the rest of the anti-freedom crowd here.

[yer gonna put yer eye out]

This procedure adds another LAYER of security.
It's not an end-all be-all regulation, just another tool to HELP ensure safety on the flight.
Will it ENSURE safety?..No...No more than having a police station in your town will ensure safety.
This big flame-up over such a minor issue exhibits to me how many leftist are lurking on FR...some of them are apparently moles based on their histories.
If you lefties are so worried about showing I.D.'s why did you agree to submit to the (boot licking) degrading procedure to get a driver's license?
Or a bank card? Or a SS card?...

[saminfl]

I'm amazed at how many posters think FreeRepublic is for expressing their opinion about how everyone in America should be a slave and how the ones who object to being slaves are VICTIMS. The only thing worse than a liberal Democrat is a big government conservative....

I'm also amazed at this. Does anyone remember when the supreme court said that DUI check points may violate the 4th amendment, but the safety issue outweighs that? When do we begin to be frightened? When it's too late?

[Publius Valerius]

just another tool to HELP ensure safety on the flight.

How? You keep avoiding that question.

[Zeroisanumber]

Good.

[Publius Valerius]

And by the way, just because I don't point North and bow down to Washington five times a day doesn't make me a lefty.

I don't operate under the delusion that all things that come from Washington are good. If you think that makes me a lefty, I'm real sorry for you.

[MarkL]

Hmmm... Seems to me that a company should have the right to demand ID before delivering services to the individual.

For example, does UPS have the right to demand ID of someone who's signing for a package?

I think that the problem might be that it's a government regulation, but if it were just the airline deciding to do this, I believe that they would be within their right.

Mark

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

The Stamp Act was the last straw.
It was the search and seizure used to keep the populace in line that weakened the camel's back to the point where it could be so easily broken.

The King's men were looking for smugglers, they claimed, but they were denying the colonists the rights accorded to all Englishmen.

Privacy is so basic a right that it wasn't even thought to be placed in the bill of rights. It was such a given to the Founders that only the details of protecting it were considered worthy of discussion.

Amazing how far we have fallen.

Enjoy your chains.

[jjmcgo]

People with epilepsy aren't stupid. He doesn't drive because he has epilepsy, thus he doesn't need a driver's license.