Gov't Orders Air Passenger Data for Test

[John Gilmore]

> ... they can't really test how effective the system is ...

Effective at what?  Preventing people from traveling?

The whole exercise ignores the question of whether the Executive Branch
has the power to make a list of citizens (or lawfully admitted non-citizens)
and refuse those people their constitutional right to travel in the United
States.

Doesn't matter whether there's 1, 19, 20,000, or 100,000 people on the
list.  The problem is the same: No court has judged these people.
They have not been convicted of any crime.  They have not been
arrested.  There is no warrant out for them.  They all have civil
rights.  When they walk into an airport, there is nothing in how they
look that gives reason to suspect them.  They have every right to
travel throughout this country.  They have every right to refuse a
government demand that they identify themselves.

So why are armed goons keeping them off airplanes, trains, buses, and
ships?  Because the US constitution is like the USSR constitution --
nicely written, but unenforced?  Because the public is too afraid of
the government, or the terrorists, or Emmanuel Goldstein, or the
boogie-man, to assert the rights their ancestors died to protect?

	John (under regional arrest) Gilmore

PS: Oral argument in Gilmore v. Ashcroft will be coming up in the
Ninth Circuit this winter.  http://papersplease.org/gilmore

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