"Beginning Saturday, June 21, 2008 passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint will be denied access to the secure area of airports. This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide any identification or assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity."according to the Transportation Security Administration .
This new procedure will not affect passengers that may have misplaced, lost or otherwise do not have ID but are cooperative with officers. Cooperative passengers without ID may be subjected to additional screening protocols, including enhanced physical screening, enhanced carry-on and/or checked baggage screening, interviews with behavior detection or law enforcement officers and other measures."
Please note, in case it isn't clear from the press release that you don't have to have an ID to fly. If you tell TSA personnel that you lost your ID, you may fly. If you tell TSA personnel that you misplaced your ID, you may fly. If you tell TSA officials that you left your ID at home, you may fly. If you have a fake ID, you may fly.
But
If you insist that you have Constitutional rights, the TSA will punish you by preventing you from getting on the airplane.
The notion that one has a right to fly without ID and without additional security being imposed was tested in Gilmore v. Gonzales. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the additional security did not impede his right to travel or associate. However they also stated that
"Gilmore ís right to petition claim similarly fails. Although Gilmore did not fly to Washington, D.C., where he planned to petition the government for redress of grievances, the identification policy did not prevent him from doing so."
It seems to me that the 9th Circuit's conclusion in Gilmore v. Gonzales is being tested. That is they are asserting via a Secret Document known only to the judges they have the right to force people to provide documents, especially when they argue their Constitutional right not to.
Those fuckers never quit.
3 comments:
Y'know, anything I correctly have to say about Gilmore being an asshole here sounds really concern-trollish, so I'm not gonna press you on this. But you and I remain in dramatically different headspace on this one. I maintain that there are circumstances where the State has a legitimate interest in seeing your papers (along with maintaining that Gilmore is an asshole, as I believe I blogged about the last time you and I hit each other with foam sticks on this issue).
As you know, I do not think that those circumstances include voting or walking down the street. I do think that they include boarding a freaking airplane, and that the State's compelling interest in transportation safety outweighs anyone's compelling interest in being a dick about showing ID.
And no, I'm not prepared to compile a definitive list of circumstances or compelling interests, because most of it amounts to "no," "maybe," and "yes, it's porn because it makes Potter Stewart's dick hard." But this case really doesn't pass the Justice Stewart test, and I think there are far more important papers-please battles to fight than this (poll tests, for one).
And yeah, I know the deep secret origins of our visceral headspace differences here.
I'm willing to agree to disagree and to respect your pov. But I'd still like to know how this keeps us safer. It makes no sense to me at all.
Directly quoted from my own blog:
"Look, I understand the need to keep air travel safe & secure and to catch terrorists and ne’r-do-wells by any & all means, but we’re becoming a police state because of it. You are now no longer free to travel within your own country on an airplane without surrendering your papers, something that used to only happen on international flights. Before long, there will be armed agents of the Feral Gummint™ at bus stations and train stations, asking for your identification. Eventually they’ll be randomly checking you at highway waypoints. And then we’ll be having to get travel permission to cross state borders on vacation, and wandering jackbooted thugs will accost you on your walk to the store, demanding your papers…don’t laugh; in 1930 people never thought it could happen in Germany, either."
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