very simple

I’m not so sure what to make of this article discussing John Gilmore’s attempts to fly without photo identification.

Gilmore, who made millions as the fifth employee of Sun Microsystems, has not flown or taken an intercity bus or train domestically since July 4, 2002, when he was not allowed to fly on Southwest Airlines without showing identification, despite having gone through the screening process.

My first thought is that he probably had to show ID to get into work at his high-tech job (I have t show ID every time I walk into my office building, even though the guards know me by now), but doesn’t appear to have had a problem with that, since they were giving him tons of money (I will admit that I’m hypothesizing here – it’s totally possible that Sun didn’t require this – unlikely, but possible). My second thought is that flying is a privilege, and that when you purchase a ticket, you’re essentially signing a contract that says you’ll do certain things in exchange for that privilege (one of those things being that you agree to subject yourself to security searches and ID checks). But this would be a contract with the Airline, and if they were the ones imposing this requirement, rather than the government, we’d probably have a different situation.

Further, the Supreme Court recently decided that "anonymity" is not protected under the First Amendment. Although I suppose Gilmore is not trying to not give his name, but just doesn’t want to prove who he is every time he wants to fly somewhere.

My next thought is a little silly – where is he keeping his millions and how does he access them? whenever I’ve opened a bank account, showing ID was part of the process.

The part where I 100% side with Gilmore though, is this:

"If you are requiring people to do something, you can’t not show them the rule," Schwartz said…

Although a traveling tips page on the Transportation Security Administration website advises travelers to "keep available your airline boarding pass and government-issued photo ID for each adult traveler until you exit the security checkpoint," government lawyers refused to tell the judge in the original case whether or not the requirement existed.

Government lawyers argued the government does not require passengers to show identification to fly and that "the challenged requests for identification are of central importance to achieving the government’s objective of preventing air piracy."

But the government acknowledged that if the requirement did exist, it would be in a secret security directive that had to be challenged in an appeals court, an argument heeded by the judge when she finally dismissed the original lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds 14 months after hearing arguments in the case.

I just don’t get this – apparently, if there is a rule requiring ID checks, which the government is refusing to admit, it’s so secret it can’t be shown to anyone (I’m not getting the logic here, because doesn’t asking someone for ID, and then denying them boarding if they don’t, imply that there’s some sort of rule? If there isn’t a rule, then who is making the decision?) Isn’t it just counterintuitive to have a "secret rule" that’s entire purpose is to be enforced in a public way against every member of society who wants to board a plane?

Tags: politics and law