Secret laws to be challenged in court

[archerships]

Cory Doctorow: If you're in San Francisco on December 8, you can attend a court case where the constitutionality of America's creeping war on anonymity will be challenged.
My friend John Gilmore, co-founder of EFF and inventor of many key Sun Microsystems technologies, is suing the US federal government over the constitutionality of a secret law that requires Americans to show ID before boarding airplanes, a back-door to mandating Soviet-style internal passports for travel.

The TSA and airlines claim that the ID requirement for travel is a law, but the law isn't published anywhere. If it were published, it would be subject to Constitutional challenge; previous Supreme Court cases during the anti-Segregation fight established that the Feds have no right to condition citizens' ability to travel across state lines.

Now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing John's case, and the hearing is open to the public. I wish I could be there -- this is history being made, and John deserves all our support for having the guts to put his money and liberty on the line to fight for the Constitution.

Friends and supporters of John are welcome to attend this historic hearing, but are asked to please dress appropriately for court. John would like nothing more than to have the public gallery filled to the brim with fellow Americans who care as much as he does about the US Constitution.
What: Oral Arguments in Gilmore v. Gonzalez
When: December 8th 2005 at 9am
Where: 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Third Floor, Courtroom 3
95 Seventh Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Comments

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Is he looking to contest the Contitutionality of the ["secret"] law's existence, the law itself, or both?

[persona.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about law, you can argue all of it at once. On his webpage, he posts all the open court documents, which show that the amicus briefs are arguing both that a secret law is unconstitutional (see the EPIC brief), and that having to show ID to fly violates the "unreasonable search" clause (see the EFF brief).

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Would it be unreasonable search if the airlines--private companies--were instituting a policy of "we want to know who's on our private conveyances, and that the people on our planes are the ones who paid to be there"?

[selfishgene.livejournal.com]

What does it matter to them? If Kerry pays for the ticket but Bush gets on the plane does that cause them to lose money on the deal? I know they like to control this so they can price discriminate. There is no reason why the state has to assist them to carry out this policy.
Suppose I like to know the address and psychiatric history of every hot female I meet, for seduction purposes - should the state compel the women to tell me?

[troyworks.livejournal.com]

how funny, I fly so often it never occured to me to research why it is I get pestered 3-5 times for id and a ticket.

It's only going to get worse as they are instituting truly subjective and random checks at the gate for the second tier bag inspections. Before it was a numerical lottery printed on the ticket.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I met John Gilmore this summer, during WhatTheHack.