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]

If the world were %100 percent safe, would there be any reason for any rules or laws at all?

Do laws against murder stop people from being murdered? Do speeding laws keep people from driving above the speed liimt?

[takenoprisoner]

There's a lot of "show me your papers" folks here who are convinced terrorists can't or won't board airplanes with bogus ID's and papers.

They're a pathetic and silly lot, the whole bunch of them.
Just read their comments justifying the loss of our rights in the name of make believe "security."

[gitmo]

to read the article clearly and clinically would only make their affliction worse.

Counter-intuitive but empirically repeatable.

[evolved_rage]

Mandated by the gov't.

You really think Airlines would stop this if the gubmint stopped requiring it? What about writing a check at most stores? Show me the ID! (I haven't done that in years, but I digress)

[Badray]

Here is the relevant section. Read it and maybe you'll stop your ridiculous assertion that there isn't a hidden law.

---

When Congress passes a law, it is as often as not up to some agency to decide what that law means and how to enforce it. Usually, those regulations are available for people to examine, even challenge if they conflict with the Constitution.

This wasn't the case when Congress passed the Air Transportation Security Act of 1974. The Department of Transportation was instructed to hold close information that would "constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" or "reveal trade secrets" or "be detrimental to the safety of persons traveling in air transportation."

The Federal Aviation Administration, then a branch of the transportation department, drew up regulations that established the category now known as Sensitive Security Information.

When the responsibility for air travel safety was transferred to the newly created Transportation Safety Administration, which was in turn made a branch of the new Department of Homeland Security, the oversight for Sensitive Security Information went with it. The language in the Homeland Security Act was broadened, subtly but unmistakably, where SSI was concerned.

It could not be divulged if it would "be detrimental to the security of transportation."

"By removing any reference to persons or passengers, Congress has significantly broadened the scope of SSI authority," wrote Todd B. Tatelman, an attorney for the Congressional Research Office. Tatelman was asked by Congress last year to look at the implications of Gilmore's case.

Tatelman's report found that the broadened language essentially put a cocoon of secrecy around 16 categories of information, such as security programs, security directives, security measures, security screening information "and a general category consisting of 'other information.' "

The government has been so unyielding on disclosure that men with the name David Nelson suddenly found themselves ejected from flights. Somewhere in the system, the name came up on the newly created "No Fly" list. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., found himself in the same dilemma. When baggage screeners were caught pilfering, prosecutions were dropped because a trial would require a discussion of "Sensitive Security Information."

When John Gilmore demanded proof that the airport ID rule met Constitutional muster, the government at first declined to acknowledge it even existed.

Ann Davis, a spokeswoman for TSA, tacitly acknowledged the strange rabbit hole into which Gilmore has fallen. The Department of Justice, in its first response to Gilmore's suit two years ago, declined to acknowledge whether such an instruction existed. Later, it admitted its existence. Then the government asked a judge to hold a hearing in secret and preclude Gilmore's lawyers from seeing the regulation they sought to challenge, the contents of which seem to be pretty widely known.

"It's a rubber stamp. TSA security directives are -- plural -- sensitive security information and not subject to public disclosure," Davis said.

How, then, is someone to challenge in court a law he's not allowed to see?

[TheBlackFeather]

Tell me the difference between a 'secret law', and a 'law protecting sensitive information' without using the phrase 'trust in government'.

Isn't there some good advice from someone once along the lines of 'trust but VERIFY'?

[Smartaleck]

Do laws against murder stop people from being murdered? Do speeding laws keep people from driving above the speed liimt?

Does negative reenforcement and the observation thereof work? I'd say yes. 100% nope.

Do locks prevent burglaries 100%? No, but it does, inconvenience as the Prof. would say, and discourage some. Your argument rests solely on the presentation of an ID and that it being the whole of securing airline safety, yet, IDENTIFICATION can be more than that as well as other procedures to effect a means to airline security.

[Smartaleck]

"Read it and maybe you'll stop your ridiculous assertion that there isn't a hidden law."

If it were hidden, you would be able to post what you did now would you?.
You don't know or don't understand what "law" is.

Policy, tactics, advisories, directives aren't law. Sensitive information is not law.

[Smartaleck]

"Tell me the difference between a 'secret law', and a 'law protecting sensitive information' without using the phrase 'trust in government'.

By law, the EPA, FDA collects propriatory company information including trade secrets about company products. BY LAW these agencies are precluded from disclosing this secret information. This LAW is public information and nothing secret about it.

These agencies use the information collected to verify that such products do what they say they do and regulate these industries in a manner mandated by public law.

They either comply with the laws under which they must operate or they don't. There are trust issues, but it's no different than trust issues we face when we elect people to office to perform a certain job.

When the majority of people cease to trust their gov't the gov't fails and who knows what the outcome might be.....

[Mulder]

You really think Airlines would stop this if the gubmint stopped requiring it?

Of course not. The line between "private" korporations and government is now totally blurred. (Called "fascism", I believe).

[Badray]

You may have the last word. You're a waste of time and bandwidth.

[Smartaleck]

"You may have the last word. You're a waste of time and bandwidth."

No problem.

[antiRepublicrat]

I still have not figured out which of our rights are violated when I.D. is required on commercial flights, so long as government is held accountable for any abuse that results.

Two words: "Papers, please."

[Copernicus]

OK. My reference was to LT Ilario Patano, who gave up a six digit salary to join the marines after 9/11. He and his unit were sent to investigate and clean out an area suspected of being a terrorist hideout and bombmaking facility......(snip)

I am not familar with this case. Your description, however, is a strong case for dereliction of duty and endangering the lives of his command and mission.

You cannot compell captured prisoners to engage in weapons removal or bomb disposal since this would arguably give them access to implements which could be used against you.

If you then shoot them because they have somehow become a threat a manslaughter charge is conceivably justified. Premediated murder may be a tad strong.

Kafka lectured us on the eerie machine like aspects of overlapping bureaucracies wherein it becomes possible for men to be dispatched to kill other men without any of the participants clear as to why a particular event occurs, the only rationale given-"thats the way the law is administered".

He anticipated the Nuremberg "I was only following orders" defense as well as the current DemocRAT line: "It is not the truth of the circumstances but the gravity of the allegation that requires the removal of (Republican) politician X from office".

Best regards,