Grounded: Millionaire John Gilmore stays close to home while making a point about privacy

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Sunday, February 27, 2005 | Dennis Roddy

[PERKY2004]

I just don't like the idea of "secret laws." How can we determine if they are (1) constitutional and (2) being properly enforced/fairly applied if we cannot see them?

(I am not saying that the law is/is not a good law, I am just saying that we have no way of telling. I see that as a potential problem.)

God Bless America!

[an amused spectator]

Please excuse me if I don't shed a tear if someone doesn't feel like identifying himself before boarding an airplane. I'm sure Mohammed Atta would have appreciated that privilege too.

From the article: The elegance of Gilmore's thinking is that knowing someone's ID does not prevent the person from committing a terrorist act. The 9/11 hijackers had driver's licenses. Knowing someone's identity, as Gilmore argues it, adds less to a security than it takes away from a traveler's protection from authority that might oppress simply because it can.

I refuse to fly until they admit that even terrorists armed with AK-47s will never be able to fully commandeer another American aircraft. If I, or any other red-blooded Amercian man or woman was on the plane, we'd swarm the bastards. They'd have to kill us all, every last one of us.

So quit grabbing the nail-clippers and pretending you're making us safe, you stupid effers.

[an amused spectator]

Gilmore is full of it on "Disarming the United States", of course.

However, we don't do "secret laws" here on Free Republic. Actually, I kind of like "Less Laws", too. I don't like the fact that there's people working long days to implement news laws - and I'm paying them to do it.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

I am no supporter of big brother....BUT you have to show ID to write checks, make returns and buy alcohol and tobacco. Why shouldn't you have to show ID when getting on a plane? If you don't like the policy you can do as Mr. Gilmore has.....stop traveling. Although I agree that if an airline is going to say "it's the law" they better have the law posted or change their standard answer to "it is our policy"....just my opinion.

[kaboom]

I would be interested in knowing just where the writer of this article found that this was a "secret law". It seems odd to me that so many people posting here are taking the authors word as credit. I would be interested in seeing some supporting documentation (aside from articles about the same guy).

[mcg1969]

The whole idea of internal passports is wrong. It has the potential to turn us all into slaves. If the government knows everywhere you have been, what you have bought, and from who, no one is safe, and everyone can be found guilty of some law, some where, some time.

Honest question: is it not reasonable to provide a means for someone to prove their identity and citizenship? If not, how in the heck do we stop, say, illegal immigration? Or voter fraud? If so, then in what way is that not an internal passport? What controls would you place on said "authentication" to prevent it from being misused?

[mcg1969]

If this happened during the clinton years, and it was janet reno saying "no, you can't see the text of the law", you and everyone else here would be up in arms. That makes you a hypocrite. If you say you wouldn't be doing that, that makes you a liar.

Read what I said in another post above. I honestly have no problem with the ostensible purpose of Gilmore's protest. And in that sense, I do applaud his service to the Constitution.

My problem is, that's really not his ultimate aim. He'd still be fighting if he saw the law. I believe that it is reasonable and necessary for the government to be able to verify who is and is not a citizen of this country. Now perhaps the internal passport issue is far more than that, but let's have that debate separately, without the pretense.

[mcg1969]

Unless you're like some nazi SS man who expects the law to be followed because someone in the uniform says it's the law, and no, you lowly peons can't see the text of the law for yourself. (Did you like how I equated you with a nazi SS thug the same way you equated him with a terrorist? Kinda neat, eh?)

Oh, and give me friggin' break. I was not equating Gilmore with a terrorist. My point is that we have reasons to confirm the identity of those traveling by air. Gilmore is not a terrorist, but I'd like to feel comfortable knowing that the fellow sitting next to me is Gilmore and not a terrorist posing as him.

Far be it from me to expect you to actually understand my point.

[mcg1969]

From the article: The elegance of Gilmore's thinking is that knowing someone's ID does not prevent the person from committing a terrorist act. The 9/11 hijackers had driver's licenses. Knowing someone's identity, as Gilmore argues it, adds less to a security than it takes away from a traveler's protection from authority that might oppress simply because it can.

Yeah, so? He's wrong.

[mcg1969]

I am no supporter of big brother....BUT you have to show ID to write checks, make returns and buy alcohol and tobacco. Why shouldn't you have to show ID when getting on a plane?

Uh-oh. Be prepared for the privacy hardliners to tell you that, by virtue of the first half of your question, you do support big brother.

[mcg1969]

I refuse to fly until they admit that even terrorists armed with AK-47s will never be able to fully commandeer another American aircraft. If I, or any other red-blooded Amercian man or woman was on the plane, we'd swarm the bastards. They'd have to kill us all, every last one of us.

As much as I'd like to believe that, I don't. To be clear: YES I believe they would have to kill us all before they could accomplish their goals. But I think it has been amply demonstrated that they are entirely willing to kill innocents to accomplish their goals. I'm sure the terrorists know as well as anyone that Americans are going to fight back next time; they will not attempt another hijacking until they strategize a way around that.

[flashbunny]

and be prepared with mcg199 to keep posting response after response that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

A little wanting for attention tonight, eh?

[marktwain]

Honest question: is it not reasonable to provide a means for someone to prove their identity and citizenship? If not, how in the heck do we stop, say, illegal immigration? Or voter fraud? If so, then in what way is that not an internal passport? What controls would you place on said "authentication" to prevent it from being misused?

No, it is *not* reasonable to have the government require you to obtain a means to prove your identity. This is completely different from "providing a means for someone to prove their identity and citizenship". That could be done by competing private companies, if there were a demand to do so commercially. The drive to have the "government" do it, especially with the airlines, is just a way to transfer costs and accountability to the government from the companies. That is why the airlines lobbied so hard for the security at airports (TSA) to be taken over by the government.

It *is* the job of the government to secure the borders, and we have instituted a passport system that is available. Passports are a fairly new requirement. They were not required for the first hundred years or so of this country.

As for voting, we had a pretty good system to prevent fraud that required people to register in person, to prove that they were a resident of their precinct, and to be known through the registration process by the volunteers that manned the polls. You could not vote unless you had been a resident for at least six months. Students at college, for example, maintained their voting status where they came from, because of the temporary nature of their residence.

All of that has been swept away by successive waves of liberal "reforms" designed to make voting (and in my opinion, voting fraud) easier and easier. We should return back to the old system in which absentee ballots were only allowed in circumstances where the voter could not make it to the polls, and in which those circumstances were vouched to and arrangements made at least a month before election day.

Going back to the old controls would serve us well.

[zeugma]

Greetings. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I support his efforts to protect privacy. Doesn't mean I buy into his entire agenda. I've had a few confersations with him and he's pretty admanant about reigning back big brother.

That's one reason why toad.com hosted the cypherpunks mailing list for several years, and an anonymous remailer. Cyperpunks is a distributed mailing list now to keep there from being a single point of failure on it, but many of the old-timers on the list still refer to the list address as cypherpunks@toad.com. I learned a lot about encryption on that list, and had some interesting political discussions, but some positions some folks take are definitely not things I'd support.

OTOH, I found Assasination Politics to be intreging on it's technical merits, as well as policy implications.

[zeugma]

I refuse to fly until they admit that even terrorists armed with AK-47s will never be able to fully commandeer another American aircraft. If I, or any other red-blooded Amercian man or woman was on the plane, we'd swarm the bastards. They'd have to kill us all, every last one of us.

That is my position as well, The only thing that they could do to reduce the threat any more than has already been done by 9/12/01 itself, is to arm the pilots and passengers. Of course they'll never do that, because it would empower US, not THEM.

So quit grabbing the nail-clippers and pretending you're making us safe, you stupid effers.

Hear hear!

[zeugma]

If there were a choice on the matter I'd have no probem with it either. Rather than fly company A that requires ID, and won't let you fly without identifying yourself with a government issued document, I'd fly the "We Don't Care Who You Are, Yes, Feel Free To Bring Your Handgun Along" airline.

Of course, such choices would only be available in a free country.

[Cheapskate]

obsoletely

[mcg1969]

As for voting, we had a pretty good system to prevent fraud that required people to register in person, to prove that they were a resident of their precinct, and to be known through the registration process by the volunteers that manned the polls. You could not vote unless you had been a resident for at least six months. Students at college, for example, maintained their voting status where they came from, because of the temporary nature of their residence.

Wait a minute: so anyone who manages to evade border security and live in the same place for six months is presumed a citizen with the right to vote?

[mcg1969]

A little wanting for attention tonight, eh?

You didn't seem to mind providing it, so what's your problem?

[stainlessbanner]

check this out