Secret Hearings on Identification

[Steff]

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Justice has asked an appellate court to keep its arguments secret for a case in which privacy advocate John Gilmore is challenging federal requirements to show identification before boarding an airplane.

A federal statute and other regulations "prohibit the disclosure of sensitive security information, and that is precisely what is alleged to be at issue here," the government said in court papers filed Friday with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Disclosing the restricted information "would be detrimental to the security of transportation," the government wrote.

Attorneys for Gilmore, a 49-year-old San Francisco resident who co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, said they don't buy the government's argument and that its latest request raises only more questions.

"We're dealing with the government's review of a secret law that now they want a secret judicial review for," one of Gilmore's attorneys, James Harrison, said in a phone interview Sunday. "This administration's use of a secret law is more dangerous to the security of the nation than any external threat."

Gilmore first sued the government and several airlines in July 2002 after airline agents refused to let him board planes in San Francisco and Oakland without first showing an ID or submitting to a more intense search. He claimed in his lawsuit the ID requirement was vague and ineffective and violated his constitutional protections against illegal searches and seizures.

A U.S. District Court judge earlier this year dismissed his claims against the airlines, but said his challenge to the government belonged in a federal appellate court.

Now in his appellate case, Gilmore maintains the federal government has yet to disclose the regulations behind the ID requirement to which he was subjected.

"How are people supposed to follow laws if they don't know what they are?" Harrison said.

The government contends its court arguments should be sealed from public view and heard before a judge outside the presence of Gilmore and his attorneys. The government, however, said it would plan to file another redacted public version of its arguments.

A date for a hearing on the matter has not yet been set.

[truseek]

Beautiful, simply beautiful.

[ted]

And so the ACLU will jump in and demand that this man is allowed to board aircraft without ID. That will set a precedent for all travelers to be afforded the right to ID-less air travel. That, of course, will set our security efforts back 25 years and then we're worse off than when we started.

Of course, people can then blame Bush for being lax on security because it happened on "his watch".

There's a time to toy with the system and a time to let it work.

He wasn't under an "illegal search or siezure". He could have turned around and walked along his merry way, keeping his ID in his pocket.

t.

[Guest yod]

Steff this is ridiculous!

And ridiculously stupid.

Thank God we have sensible people in charge of the New World Order

[Catsmeow]

And so the ACLU will jump in and demand that this man is allowed to board aircraft without ID. That will set a precedent for all travelers to be afforded the right to ID-less air travel. That, of course, will set our security efforts back 25 years and then we're worse off than when we started.

Of course, people can then blame Bush for being lax on security because it happened on "his watch".

There's a time to toy with the system and a time to let it work.

He wasn't under an "illegal search or siezure". He could have turned around and walked along his merry way, keeping his ID in his pocket.

t.

My thoughts exactly, Ted.

[serotta]

This is a perfect example of why "civil libertarians" will never get my vote, and why it will never be main-stream. The guy does have personal freedom. If he doesn't want to show an ID to get on a plane, fine, he can DRIVE to his destination. This, and many others, are preposterous arguments that unnecessarily tie up our courts.

[ted]

This is a perfect example of why "civil libertarians" will never get my vote, and why it will never be main-stream. The guy does have personal freedom. If he doesn't want to show an ID to get on a plane, fine, he can DRIVE to his destination. This, and many others, are preposterous arguments that unnecessarily tie up our courts.

Amen.

My thoughts exactly, Ted. 

Hi, Cat. Have you found dry land yet?

t.

[Steff]

I think he is well within his rights to ask for the law showing he has to provide an ID.

[ted]

I think he is well within his rights to ask for the law showing he has to provide an ID.

Won't the airline's policy be good enough? It IS their business, after all.

Asking to enquire about the law is one thing, but it's clear here that he just wants to make a scene for himself. A million dollar lawsuit in the future, perhaps?

No one is demanding that he has to get on the plane. I wouldn't have wasted the time on him, if I worked for the airline.

The Greyhound station's down the road, buddy. Next in line, please.

t.

[Steff]

That would be great if the Airline is providing the policy and security, but it isn't. the federal government is.