Checkpoints are not illegal, per the U.S. Supreme Court decision Martinez-Fuerte in 1976. See:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/111200/d.html
“The Supreme Court, in its 1976 ruling, also declared that the interest of the government or the public in making stops at checkpoints ‘outweighs the constitutionally protected interest of a private citizen.’”
Well, I’ll be damned. You meant “unlimited” literally. Then of course I should have quoted less of your statement. Yes, sailor, you are correct. The State does not have an unlimited right to collect information. Bully for you. But every single automobile, without exception, has an ID on the front of it.
Ergo, collecting ID before boarding a 400-MPH fuel tank = Sovietism. Gotcha.
** As it happens, no one has successfully killed thousands of people by being a passenger on a train or bus. The airlines have established, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that they are not capable of preventing their customers from doing exactly that. Whether the airlines should collect and provide the necessary information before or after a successful mass murder is a good question, which is why I said I think the suit here has some merit.
** That is so cute, it’s precious. You know how to ensure that? Strip all the passengers naked and strap them in like on a roller coaster (which approach might have appeal to some of our MPSIMS members, but that’s a different story).
Gee. Using the IDs from the most recent event, we obliterated an entire government, froze thousands of bank accounts, killed tens of thousands of people, &ct. &ct. Was it of any help? We don’t know yet, what with some of the perps not being dead yet and all. But I’ll go out on a limb here and say that actually starting a war indicates that the IDs might have had some probative value.
Well, that’s why I don’t spend much time in GD anymore. See, a couple of years ago, my brother and sister pooled their resources and bought me my very own Congressman for Christmas. I’ve been a collector ever since.
Or maybe I’m just a realist, and think that finding a way to strike a balance is smarter than not. Bleating civil libertarians are just freaking irrelevant. Don’t believe me? Here’s a solution that technically protects all civil liberties: Airlines are not required to collect ID. But they, and their top executives, are criminally liable for the bad acts of their assigns, including customers.
Great. Now you don’t have to give your precious ID to the State, but the airlines will want a freaking retina scan. And the business customers, who make or break airline profitablity, will line up to comply. Good job.
Trust me on this – anonymity is just impossible in this world, and the only people who still insist on it are cowards, terrorists and a few cranks. The question is in how the information is used and how to prevent abuses, not in whether it will be collected. Persons who proport to be civil libertarians have to realize that and adjust or get a shack in Montana.
Well, there we agree, which is why this suit is in fact useful. If nothing else, I want to be comforted that Congress passed on this, as opposed to it being some Executive Branch fiat. I hate those.
Wow! Me too! Interestingly, I also have a healthy distrust of airplanes out of control of their owners. In the interest of not violating the rules of this message board, I’ll not respond to the bit about terrorists having killed “a few people.” But don’t repeat it.
I mean this in all sincerity and in good faith: I hope it remains that way for you. Really. But you’re wrong.
I know I’m not a GD regular anymore, but I don’t think I have a rep of being Mr. Totalitarian. But because of my absence here, you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that the State has been a bigger problem for me than it has for most people.
But here’s the thing. Bad guys have used these flying bombs for bad purposes. The information collected under the '96 Act (if in fact it was an Act – again, I like the suit) was used to good purpose. There are other ways to get places, even quickly, without having the opportunity to coopt a flying bomb.
The intrusion here is (or can be – again with the merits of the suit) minimal. The information collected, so far, has been used for probative and not abusive purposes.
To sum up: Knowing the ID of people flying over my building is going to happen. That’s not a debate. The only question is whether civil libertarians will argue themselves into irrelevancy over how to do it.
manhattan, you are obviously too busy with other things to follow this thread closely and you end up ignoring things which have been said and making little sense. You are just all over the place and it is difficult to know what you are arguing. The point of this thread is whether the government should be notified of every single person who flies in every single flight, not whether the airlines can ask for ID or any other straw man you care to construct.
>> The airlines have established, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that they are not capable of preventing their customers from doing exactly that.
So you’re saying we just accept the fact that planes will be highjacked and we just want to know who did it? Besides, if people use fake IDs then ID not only does not prevent highjackings (as per your admission) but it does not help in knowing who really was on board.
>> Using the IDs from the most recent event, we obliterated an entire government, froze thousands of bank accounts, killed tens of thousands of people . . . I’ll go out on a limb here and say that actually starting a war indicates that the IDs might have had some probative value
(1) This is factually not true. As has been pointed out, the highjackers showed false IDs. The authorities tracked them down by other means, not by the ID they showed at the boarding gate.
(2) This is utterly irrelevant even if the highjackers had been identified by the IDs they presented at the gate because nobody is opposing the government’s access to the information when investigating a crime or in the prevention of crimes. What is being opposed here, I will repeat, is the government’s access to all passenger’s names without need or justification. How many times do I need to repeat that?
>> anonymity is just impossible in this world, and the only people who still insist on it are cowards, terrorists and a few cranks.
Terrorists I do not believe are for civil liberties, privacy rights etc. Unless the ACLU or the liberterians have terrorist factions of which I am unaware. It would be an amusing contradiction though. Cowards? I find that humorous. So a person who stands up and protests he does not want to reveal some information which he considers private is a coward? Cranks? No reasonable person might disagree with you on this?
I insist you have not shown in any convincing way that IDing of all passengers on all flights by the government is of any help in preventing highjackings. Nobody has any objection to disclosing that information to the government in specific investigations. It is the disclosing of all passengers on all flights which we object to.
I wrote: "Terrorists have killed a few people but overall, the numbers are not so big when compared to deaths by many other causes, including common crime. In spite of the large numbers of victims of murders, we do not give the state unlimited powers to fight crime. "
To which you replied: “In the interest of not violating the rules of this message board, I’ll not respond to the bit about terrorists having killed “a few people.” But don’t repeat it.”
I think the point I was trying to make was quite clear. Common crime, drunk driving, tobacco and many other causes (including foreign wars) have caused many more deaths than terrorist attacks and yet nobody goes into a panic and demands everybody surrender all their rights to privacy so these causes can be better fought. It has been shown that a rented truck and some fertilizer can do a great deal of damage and yet the government does not require notification of all truck rentals and all fertilizer sales. The government would find much more useful in its fight against terrorism and crime if strong encryption were banned and it tried to make that point for a long time. Phil Zimmerman was the figurehead but it was a much wider dispute and the government lost it. While banning the use of strong encryption is, undoubtedly, a great help in fighting crime (much greater than requiring any ID), it is also too much of an infringement of people’s privacy.
My point, in case it wasn’t clear by now, is that furnishing the government with the names of all passengers on all flights serves no useful purpose and is an encroachment on the privacy rights of citizens. As I said: "What I object to is the government automatically having all that information, which they do not need, and without telling the public what they do with it or how they use it. "
To which you replied: “Well, there we agree, which is why this suit is in fact useful.”
Um, if you agree there with me then you agree with me period because that is my one and only point. If you agree with it I don’t get what you are arguing. Maybe we can just leave it at that and agree to agree?
Your analysis is out of date and incomplete, Walloon.
I read Mínty’s linked document and the conclusion is that Roadblocks in general are not constitutional except in very limited cases.
Roadblocks with just a general purpose of fighting crime are not permissible. Roadblocks near the Mexican border with the purpose of checking for illegal aliens are ok. So it depends on the purpose and how they are set up but it is clear that as a general rule, checkpoints set up as a general measure to fight crime are unconstitutional.
That’s correct, sailor. But I am quite positive there is a valid legal distinction between randomly detaining and searching citizens, a la drug roadblocks, and a simple requirement of identification as a prerequisite to obtaining goods and services. You can’t buy a gun without a valid i.d., you can’t obtain government benefits without an i.d., you can’t buy beer without a valid i.d., etc. I’m really not seeing anything special about air travel that says you have a right to use that service anonymously, when there are all sorts of activities for which the government already requires you to produce valid identification. I suspect you think all those things are terrible too, but that’s a rather broader discussion than the debate over the specific identification requirements of air travel.
Oh, and by the way, I was under the impression that a number of the 9/11 hijackers used their real names and i.d.'s in purchasing their tickets and boarding the planes (including, if memory serves, Mohammed Atah). Some had fakes, but not all. In any event, one of the goals of stepped-up identification requirements ought to be telling the fakes from the real ones. One of the other goals ought to be rectifying the intelligence fiascos that allowed 9/11 to happen. Remember, the CIA knew some of those men were bad guys and were in the country–if it could have flagged their names to pop up at airport security checks, the WTC might still be standing.
Not really. The Supreme Court still allows checkpoints. To quote from that decision you cite:
minty green, I said “Or do you really think the government has a right to demand you to ID yourself just because you step outside your home?” To which you replied: “Pretty much, yes.” but the SCOTUS document you linked to says very much the opposite. It says searches and seizures must be narrowly focused and cannot just be a wide dragnet in hopes of discovering crime. That is an absolute contradiction of your statement that the police have a right to question anyone and everyone without probable cause, just because they are outside their homes. The government does not have that broad right according to the SCOTUS. The government has the right to conduct searches and seizures in the narrowest form which will achieve a compelling necessity. It cannot go into a broader search dragnet mode just because it would be useful. That is the principle which permeates the rulings of the SCOTUS. The question to be answered in this case therefore is whether the government’s requirement that they be told the names of all passengers on all flights serves a legitimate and effective purpose in preventing highjackings (I have seen so far no evidence that it does) or whether it is a much wider dragnet of information cast over the majority of passengers for which there is no probable cause to believe are involved in anything.
You keep missing the distinction which is the crux of the lawsuit. I am going to repeat it for the umpteenth time and please everybody stop arguing a point which nobody has nmade here. The point of the lawsuit is whether the government is entitled to know who is on every flight every day, not whether the airline can require ID. My god, how many times have I said that already? This is getting ridiculous.
Again, the point is that the government has a right to information when it serves a specific need narrowly focused towards a specific end. It does not have the rights to broadly collect information which is not directly related to a specific purpose.
It is entitled to collect information about your monetary transactions when they have tax implications and if the government could not have this inforamtion it could not collect taxes. But I can assure you the government cannot pass a law saying bookstores must notify the government of all book sales and the ID of who bought the books. I can assure you the SCOTUS would not allow it.
>> You can’t buy a gun without a valid i.d.,
I’ll leave that silly example for the gun control threads as I have no interest in getting bogged in that arena.
>> you can’t obtain government benefits without an i.d.,
Um, that’s kind of silly. Of course anyone, including the government, can require proof of who you are when delivering something to you. That has nothing to do with the question at hand which is if and why would the government be entitled to know what two private parties are doing (airline and passenger). They are not entitled to know if you rent a truck or buy fertilizer. The truck rental company will ask you for ID but it does not turn around and tell the government you just rented a truck. See the difference?
>> you can’t buy beer without a valid i.d.,
That is quite wrong. You can buy beer without ID, at least I can. The ID is to comply with the legal age laws. They check your age, not your ID, they do not keep any record of who you are and they do not tell the government who bought the beer. If they did I can assure you they’d be an outcry. I buy beer without ID all the time.
>> I’m really not seeing anything special about air travel that says you have a right to use that service anonymously, when there are all sorts of activities for which the government already requires you to produce valid identification
You are deeply mistaken in many ways. You do not seem to understand the difference between showing ID to a business owner and showing it to the government. The government is constitutionally limited in what it can do and has to show a specific need. Private businesses and individuals can do things the government cannot do.
>> Oh, and by the way, I was under the impression that a number of the 9/11 hijackers used their real names and i.d.'s in purchasing their tickets and boarding the planes (including, if memory serves, Mohammed Atah). Some had fakes, but not all.
And again, why does this matter? It is absolutely, positively, utterly, irrelevant. It did not stop the highjackings in the first place either way and it was of little to no value in the subsequent investigation.
Please explain clearly to me by what mechanism does giving the government information about everybody who flies prevent hijacks because I just can’t see it. If it is a question of investigating a crime a posteriori, then the government can have the information anyway but what purpose does it serve that the government know where everybody is flying. The government can have the information of who flew if there is a legitimate reason like an investigation. The government can request to be notified if specific suspects attempt to baord an airplane. Nobody is complaining about that. The complaint is why should they know where everybody is flying?
And, please people, I am really sick and tired of explaining that the argument is about the government being given the names and flights of everybody who flies every day. It is not about the airlines asking for ID. So please quit going back to that straw man because I am really tired of it. If you don’t have any arguments to address the point I am making then don’t but just quit addressing something which is NOT what is under discussion.
BTW, it would be interesting to know how this works in other countries. In countries within the EU there is no passport control any more so the police do not have direct information on who is flying.
Question 1: Are all tickets in the EU by law nominal and are the airlines required to check the ID of the passenger? (I believe there are shuttles where you just pay and board, no reservations, just first come first served)
Question 2: If so, is this information shared with the national governments? (I am pretty sure the answer to this is “no”)
Question 3: If the European governments do not have this information are the internal European flights at greater risk?
Anecdote: I know a guy who had an incident in China, the most bureaucratic country in the entire world. He flies around China often, on business and most of the time without any ID on internal flights. I was surprised when he told me this because in china they love bureaucracy and I have to show my passport just to pee but anyway, the fact is he was in some city and his passport was in his hotel in Beijing and they told him he could not board his flight back to Beijing unless he showed his passport. He told them they’d be feeding him for a long time because his passport was in Beijing and there was no way he could get it. After reconsidering they let him on the flight without showing any ID.
“Strawman?” Like bloody hell.
Gee, where did I ever get the idea that you were complaining at least in part about the government requiring people to cough up some identification at the airport. Clearly, you were only complaining about the collection of passenger data and its submission to the government to use for its own nefarious purposes.
Walloon, City of Indianapolis v. Edmond conclusively establishes that checkpoints are generally not constitutional. For you to claim otherwise vastly overinflates the constitutionality of checkpoints. After Edmond, they are only constitutional in two specific circumstances: DWI checkpoints and illegal alien checkpoints.
My apologies, you did not describe it as a strawman.
Are you British?
Walloon, City of Indianapolis v. Edmond conclusively establishes that checkpoints are generally not constitutional. For you to claim otherwise vastly overinflates the constitutionality of checkpoints. After Edmond, they are only constitutional in two specific circumstances: DWI checkpoints and illegal alien checkpoints. **
[/QUOTE]
No, wrong. My citation above is from City of Indianapolis v. Edmond. Here it is again. Note the words “airports” and “public safety”:
Are you British? No? Then why the affectation?
No, wrong. The quotation in my previous post is from City of Indianapolis v. Edmond. Read it again, carefully, and note the words airports and public safety.
Minty, you are being disingenuous. It would be of great help if you would read the thread carefully, pay attention to what has been said and not play dumb. I opened the OP saying I saw nothing wrong with the airlines asking for ID. Later it was pointed out by ruadh and others that it was actually the government requiring it and not telling how it was using the information. Just read the thread. I have clarified several times what I am saying in the course of the thread and I think my position is quite clear. Feel free to argue with the position I clearly hold from post #1 of this thread.
Your quotes are totally out of context:
>> Should airlines require passenger ID?
In the same post I said why not.
>> A prominent civil libertarian sued the U.S. government and two major airlines Thursday, claiming that security requirements that compel U.S. citizens to show identification before flying are unconstitutional.
That is a direct quote from the article I linked to.
>> The point is that, so far, no one has shown any legitimate purpose is served by the government checking passengers’ IDs on domestic flights.
Note the use of the word “government”. Can you tell the difference between a government and an airline? I explained it in an earlier post.
>> Or do you really think the government has a right to demand you to ID yourself just because you step outside your home? Can they demand ID on trains and buses too? how about checkpoints on the roads and streets? Where in the constitution does it say you can shop at Kmart anonimously? I guess the police can ask you for ID anywhere any time?
Um, doesn’t that make my point? Government - airline, can you tell them apart?
I am really getting tired of this game of confounding everything.
Can someone provide any objective evidence that furnishing the government this information serves any purpose objectively? That is what I want. Show me specific cases in which furnishing the government with all that information prevented a highjack. Just one. Show me countries that do not do this are at greater risk of highjackings. Quit confounding the issue and show me evidence that this actually makes a difference. I have seen none so far.
sailor, I am by no means being disingenuous. I have honestly read your thread as arguing, in large part–and consistently with the title you gave it–that the government should not require airline passengers to identify themselves. While I recognize that you are also arguing against the ability of the government to collect and do as it will with passenger information, that is very different from the issue of producing i.d. at all–which your posts have repeatedly indicated you are objecting to.
Let’s put it this way, sailor: Putting aside the government’s desire to collect passenger identification data, do you oppose the government’s simple requirement that airline passengers identify themselves before being allowed to board their planes?
Walloon, please learn to distinguish between the following statements:[ul][]Me: Checkpoints are by and large unconstitutional under the [Fourth] Amendment.[]You: Checkpoints are not illegal, per the U.S. Supreme Court decision Martinez-Fuerte in 1976.[/ul]Checkpoints, my dear lad, are by and large unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment standards announced in Edmond. The existence of limited exceptions to that rule does not mean that checkpoints are per se legal. Are we clear?
Originally posted by sailor
Than the point of this thread is factually incorrect, and perhaps you should take the time to read the news stories you link to. There is no evidence whatsoever that Uncle is notified of any such thing. The story merely says that the State requires (or doesn’t – part of the suit) the airlines to collect the information. It isn’t even clear from the story whether the airlines are required to hold the information after collecting it (but they do, so I guess one might reasonably argue that that point is moot). Is this whole thing because you didn’t read your own freaking article? Or do you have facts about the use or transmission of this information of which you are not making us aware.
That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? If a plane is hijacked, despite prevention methods to the contrary, I want to know who did it. Additionally, a good ID-checking regimen (the current one apparently needs to be improved) may serve as a deterrent to hijackings).
Some, yes. In fact, some were tracked by their association with hijackers who did show their ID. Others were tracked by ID’s from other places, like rental car companies, or through their payment methods.
Until someone, somewhere, proposes to do it, I guess. Read your article.
There is, generally speaking, no conflict between being a crank and being reasonable. I offer myself as an on-the-run example of this. However, in the present instance, no. No reasonable person can oppose the State’s requiring airlines to collect identification information about their passengers and make that information available to the State following a crash.
You’ll want to check your facts regarding fertilizer sales. If you buy enough to do anything really harmful, the seller will take your information and they will have it available for Uncle if they come calling. That is also true of truck rentals, though I’m unaware whether that’s legally required.
You might be exactly right here. Read the article, check what the law really (or purportedly) says, and get back to me.
>> that is very different from the issue of producing i.d. at all–which your posts have repeatedly indicated you are objecting to.
OK, I give up with you. I hope others may understand better what I am trying to say.
It may well be that we are in agreement after all. The page I linked to in the OP does not explicitly say the information is accesible to the government but it says the ID requirements have been in effect since 1996, under the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS) program which I assumed was some government thing. If someone can assure me that is strictly an airline thing, then I have no problem with it. The whole thing is the airlines and the government will not reveal exactly what they do with the information or what criteria they use. That I find unacceptable
>> The lawsuit alleges that the regulations restrict freedom of travel, permit intrusive searches without good cause and violate the Freedom of Information Act because they have not been published in the Federal Register.
>> Airline officials were unable to identify the specific regulation requiring identification, calling it an “unwritten” rule," the lawsuit says
Unwritten, secret, rules are not acceptable to me.
>> Passenger trains and buses have similar restrictions, the suit said.
They do? That’s news to me but it may be so. I have never heard of anyone having to show ID on a bus or train.
>> Gilmore was prevented from flying when he refused to produce ID or undergo extensive security screening
I would like to know more about what the “extensive security screening” entails. If it is a reasonable screening directly related to the security of the flight, then obviously I have no problem. If it is totally unreasonable and abusive, then I would object to it.
>> The Web sites of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration both say photo ID is required to travel, according to the suit. But the passenger information section of the FAA site says airlines can allow people to travel without requiring ID if they use additional security measures.
From that it seems one can travel anonymously if privacy is such a big concern. Suppose you get to the airport and realise you forgot your ID at home. I think the reasonable thing to do is let you travel after you have been thoroughly checked. I do not think the ID makes much difference.
>> The lawsuit claims the government, under CAPPS II, is preparing to combine travel booking and payment information with data from banks, credit-reporting agencies and other sources and integrate it with lists of suspected terrorists and criminals.
If this is so, I object. If this is the feverish imagination of the guy in question, then there is nothing to object to. Hopefully the lawsuit will help clarify these points.
The problem with these things is that we imagine an honest government using their power always for good and never for evil. But the honest government is made of guys, some honest but misguided and some outright evil. After the September attacks a number of people were held by the government for weeks without trial or explanation. Some are still held. Others, after weeks in jail, were set free with no justification or apology. Some bureaucrat has the power to ruin your life out of good or bad intentions. I want those people on a very short leash and overseen by a judge. I don’t want them running free with no checks on them because some bullies and bad guys gravitate towards positions where they abuse the power they acquire.
Ask a simple question, get no answer in reply.
:shrug:
minty, let us read two posts up or so, in the very paragraph where sailor called your arguments (or you) disingenius. He said,
You then proceed to ask,
I’m not sure what else can be said.