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"Freedom to Travel" Event

Started by Kat Kanning, May 17, 2005, 06:33 AM NHFT

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AlanM

Quote from: KBCraig on December 07, 2005, 11:11 PM NHFT
Quote from: AlanM on December 07, 2005, 10:51 PM NHFT
This case bothers me for a lot of reasons:
1: The guy was shot as he was running down the tarmac. (not in the plane)

He was running down the jetway, not the tarmac. (For those of you who don't fly, the jetway is the accordion hallway thing that connects the plane to the terminal.)


Quote2. His wife was screaming about his being bipolar, that he had not taken medication. (apparently nobody paid attention to her)

Nor should they have, so long as he continued with the threat.


Quote3. He was shot because he wouldn't stop. ( five shots according to one witness. Law enforcement officials can kill you if you disobey them. Does that bother anyone else? If you disobey an officer, the punishment for same is not the death penalty.)

If you find a burglar in your home, and order him to freeze and keep his hands in sight, and instead he reaches into a bag, would it be "the death penalty for disobeying Alan"?

Of course not. You'd be justified in shooting because he was a threat, and continuing his threatening behavior.

With the caveat of "as things have been reported until this point", this was a justified shooting. Of course, at this point of the London subway shooting, we thought the same thing. I'm not passing judgement on anything except the points that have been reported thus far.

Kevin

You may be right in your analysis, but it bothers me that officers are given a free hand to gun folks down. Or so it seems to me.

KBCraig

Quote from: AlanM on December 07, 2005, 11:14 PM NHFT
You may be right in your analysis, but it bothers me that officers are given a free hand to gun folks down. Or so it seems to me.

I understand the concern. If a shooting is justified, it doesn't matter whether it's a police officer or a private citizen who pulls the trigger. But you're right that there are "justified" police shootings that would get a citizen prosecuted.

Kevin

AlanM

Quote from: KBCraig on December 07, 2005, 11:23 PM NHFT
Quote from: AlanM on December 07, 2005, 11:14 PM NHFT
You may be right in your analysis, but it bothers me that officers are given a free hand to gun folks down. Or so it seems to me.

I understand the concern. If a shooting is justified, it doesn't matter whether it's a police officer or a private citizen who pulls the trigger. But you're right that there are "justified" police shootings that would get a citizen prosecuted.

Kevin

Just so you know, Kevin. I have a cousin who was high up in the NH State Police, and a nephew who was a Delaware State Policeman. I have heard the talk.

Kat Kanning

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,69774,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

Secret ID Law to Get Hearing

By Ryan Singel  |   Also by this reporter

02:00 AM Dec. 07, 2005 PT

Although John Gilmore lives just five blocks from San Francisco's Department of Motor Vehicles, his driver's license is expired. On purpose.

The outspoken, techno-hippie, wealthy civil libertarian doesn't want to give his Social Security number to the DMV.

Neither will he show his driver's license at airports, or submit to routine security searches. This refusal to obey the rules led him to file suit against the Bush administration (Gilmore v. Gonzales) after being rebuffed at two different airports on July 4, 2002, when he tried to fly without showing identification. One airline offered to let Gilmore fly without showing ID, but only if he underwent more intensive security screening, which he declined.

On Thursday, Gilmore and his lawyers will get 20 minutes in front of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to make their argument against identification requirements and government secrecy, in a case that time and shifting public opinion has transformed from a quirky millionaire's indignant protest into a closely watched test of the limitations of executive branch power.

"The nexus of the case has always been the right to travel," Gilmore said. "Can the government prevent Americans from moving around in their own country by slapping any silly rules on them -- you have to show ID, you have to submit to searches, you have to wear a yarmulke?"

Gilmore has sunk thousands of dollars into fighting identification requirements, but he also personally committed to not traveling in the United States if he has to show identification.

So Gilmore has not taken a train, an intercity bus or a domestic flight since July 4, 2002. He still flies internationally.

Gilmore describes himself as being under "regional arrest," and said he would love to drive and fly again.

"I'm a millionaire," Gilmore said. "I can do whatever the fuck I want, right? Why should I run around without an ID? Because no one else was paying attention to that and letting our liberties slip down the drain. I figured it was worth some amount of money and some amount of personal sacrifice to keep a free society."

Gilmore has long been a prominent figure in the privacy and civil liberties communities -- he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But many civil liberties advocates begged Gilmore not to file suit in 2002 because they were certain he would lose and set bad case law, according to Gilmore's lawyer, Jim Harrison.

Things might be different in late 2005.

"The same people that were telling John that you really should not do this while the country is inflamed are the same ones that filed friend-of-the-court briefs to the 9th Circuit," Harrison said.

Gilmore also thinks the mood of the country has changed. "It is now considered patriotic to criticize the president," Gilmore said.

While civil liberties groups now publicly back Gilmore's challenge to government secrecy, many privacy advocates still privately grumble that Gilmore's case is not the best vehicle for challenging identification requirements.

On Thursday, Gilmore will argue that the government's secret identification rules -- no federal law compels travelers to show ID -- and no-fly list infringe on his First Amendment rights, but don't make the country safer.

In addition, government lawyers long denied the existence of the rule -- which predates the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- even though there are signs in airports cautioning passengers that they are required to show identification.

The government recently switched tactics, acknowledging the rule exists but arguing that the identification requirement is a law-enforcement technique.

So far, the government has refused to show Gilmore the order compelling airlines to ask for identification, saying that the rule is "sensitive security information," a security designation that was greatly expanded by Congress in 2002, allowing the Transportation Security Administration wide latitude to withhold information from the public.

Gilmore argues that secrecy and the power of the "sensitive security information," or SSI, designation is to blame for the repeated privacy scandals at the TSA.

"TSA and DHS in general have set themselves up to be insulated from criticism, to have their inner workings be invisible, because they can pull this magic SSI shield over anything they do," Gilmore said. "And what you see are the natural consequences of that kind of secrecy, which is that incompetence is never detected and corrected."

Kat Kanning

Eyewitness: "I Never Heard the Word 'Bomb'"
A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to have a bomb

Time Magazine/SIOBHAN MORRISSEY | December 8 2005

At least one passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 924 maintains the federal air marshals were a little too quick on the draw when they shot and killed Rigoberto Alpizar as he frantically attempted to run off the airplane shortly before take-off.

"I don't think they needed to use deadly force with the guy," says John McAlhany, a 44-year-old construction worker from Sebastian, Fla. "He was getting off the plane." McAlhany also maintains that Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.

"I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked, 'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says. "That's what they called it."

When the incident began McAlhany was in seat 24C, in the middle of the plane. "[Alpizar] was in the back," McAlhany says, "a few seats from the back bathroom. He sat down." Then, McAlhany says, "I heard an argument with his wife. He was saying 'I have to get off the plane.' She said, 'Calm down.'"

Alpizar took off running down the aisle, with his wife close behind him. "She was running behind him saying, 'He's sick. He's sick. He's ill. He's got a disorder," McAlhany recalls. "I don't know if she said bipolar disorder [as one witness has alleged]. She was trying to explain to the marshals that he was ill. He just wanted to get off the plane."


McAlhany described Alpizar as carrying a big backpack and wearing a fanny pack in front. He says it would have been impossible for Alpizar to lie flat on the floor of the plane, as marshals ordered him to do, with the fanny pack on. "You can't get on the ground with a fanny pack," he says. "You have to move it to the side."

By the time Alpizar made it to the front of the airplane, the crew had ordered the rest of the passengers to get down between the seats. "I didn't see him get shot," he says. "They kept telling me to get down. I heard about five shots."

McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just in case he needed to take evasive action. "I wanted to make sure if anything was coming toward me and they were killing passengers I would have a chance to break somebody's neck," he says. "I was looking through the seats because I wanted to see what was coming.

"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand. Then I realized it was an official."

In the ensuing events, many of the passengers began crying in fear, he recalls. "They were pointing the guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the ground," he says "One little girl was crying. There was a lady crying all the way to the hotel."

McAlhany said he saw Alpizar before the flight and is absolutely stunned by what unfolded on the airplane. He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked normal at that time, McAlhany says. He thinks the whole thing was a mistake: "I don't believe he should be dead right now."

Kat Kanning

U.S. passenger tracking plan under scrutiny

ZD Net/Alorie Gilbert | December 8 2005

A U.S. proposal that would require the travel industry to gather more passenger data and share it with federal health officials has some citizens worried about their privacy.

The new rule, proposed last month by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aims to broaden the agency's quarantine powers amid rising fears of a deadly, global flu outbreak. It would also expand the government's ability to contact passengers who may have been infected during travel via a coordinated data-gathering effort with airlines and cruise operators.

Specifically, the plan calls for airlines and cruise companies to collect more personal data, including phone numbers, e-mail addresses and seat locations, from both domestic and international passengers and transmit the information to the CDC within 12 hours of a request. The companies would be required to retain the data electronically for at least 60 days and destroy it after one year.

But judging from the first round of public comments posted online Wednesday, some people are up in arms over the proposed rule and its data-collection requirements. Their concerns, voiced in a dozen or so comments, center mainly on potential civil liberty violations.

"I am opposed to requiring any more information from people booking air travel," wrote David Kelley of Alexandria, Va. "There is already too much information collected, and adding more is totally uncalled for. We are supposed to be living in a free society that respects the privacy of its citizens, not a police state."

Some questioned the effectiveness and cost of such a program. "In my opinion, concern over pandemics is a reason to spend more effort on technologies to develop immunizations and treatments more rapidly," wrote David Young. "Violating civil liberties does not cure sick people, and in our society of rapid transportation it is impractical if not impossible to limit travel enough to significantly slow down a worldwide pandemic."

Several people were worried that other agencies could raid the new CDC data for their own purposes. "Left unsaid is, who else and what other agencies will collect this information and how long will they keep it?" wrote John Clark of Highland, Mich. "The Patriot Act trumps CDC rules so all information collected will be available in the FBI, CIA, Mossad and Mayberry PD data banks."

Opposition over the plan comes amid new reports of the government bungling terrorist watch lists. Officials at the U.S. Transportation Security Administration acknowledged this week that 30,000 airline passengers have been mistakenly identified as people on federal watch lists.

A CDC spokeswoman said the agency is pleased that people are weighing in on its proposed rule but declined to respond to concerns. The agency plans to address public remarks after the comment period ends Jan. 30, and expects to issue a final rule by next spring, she said.

TackleTheWorld

Quote from: katdillon on December 08, 2005, 05:27 PM NHFT

"I wanted to make sure if anything was coming toward me and they were killing passengers I would have a chance to break somebody's neck," he says. "I was looking through the seats because I wanted to see what was coming.

"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand...."


This man sounds like he would defend himself in a scary situation.  Yet he wasn't alarmed enough by Mr. Alpizar's behavior to take action against him.  The "official" with the shotgun scared more people than Mr. Alpizar did.  I'd rather be traveling with people like Mr. McAlhany than the jumpy air marshall and his dominating goons.

Pat McCotter

Quote from: katdillon on December 08, 2005, 05:31 PM NHFT
U.S. passenger tracking plan under scrutiny

ZD Net/Alorie Gilbert | December 8 2005

A U.S. proposal that would require the travel industry to gather more passenger data and share it with federal health officials has some citizens worried about their privacy.

The new rule, proposed last month by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aims to broaden the agency's quarantine powers amid rising fears of a deadly, global flu outbreak. It would also expand the government's ability to contact passengers who may have been infected during travel via a coordinated data-gathering effort with airlines and cruise operators.


They can't collect the info for security reasons so they will do it for health reasons. Now we know why Bush is pushing the avian flu mutating to spread amongst humans.

AlanM

Quote from: patmccotter on December 08, 2005, 06:58 PM NHFT
Quote from: katdillon on December 08, 2005, 05:31 PM NHFT
U.S. passenger tracking plan under scrutiny

ZD Net/Alorie Gilbert | December 8 2005

A U.S. proposal that would require the travel industry to gather more passenger data and share it with federal health officials has some citizens worried about their privacy.

The new rule, proposed last month by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aims to broaden the agency's quarantine powers amid rising fears of a deadly, global flu outbreak. It would also expand the government's ability to contact passengers who may have been infected during travel via a coordinated data-gathering effort with airlines and cruise operators.


They can't collect the info for security reasons so they will do it for health reasons. Now we know why Bush is pushing the avian flu mutating to spread amongst humans.

I think you hit it on the nose, Pat. Create a crisis, then create a bureacracy with more power to solve it.
Sounds a lot like 9-11 to me.

JonM

This boils down to personal responsibility.? If your mental condition is such that you are likely to run around on a plane causing a scene then perhaps you should either not fly or take medication to reduce the likelihood of you doing such things.? Had this man actually had a bomb and the air marshals not stopped him all the discussion would have been that they should have done more.? Sadly, erring on the side of caution cost this man his life.

Next time you're in Manchester airport, why not take a backpack and run into a terminal via the exit hallway (past the single security guard sitting there), screaming "I have a bomb!" and see what happens to you.

While he may or may not have said he had a bomb, one witness did say he was screaming "I've got to get off"? An airplane is not the sort of place you'd want to lose control of your mental faculties.? If some guy on a plane about to take off starts looking a bit wild eyed and tries to run off I'm going to be a bit worried.? If I'm an air marshal it's my job to do something about it, and the luxury of time is not something afforded in situations such as this.

While this situation is tragic, it is born of this man's own actions.? Let us not forget this.

Russell Kanning

I think it is more because of some people's hypersensitivity to anything related to planes.

AlanM

  I hope the airline industry comes crashing down, myself. It is an example of Government regulation destroying something useful.

Russell Kanning

I would rather the government get out of the airline business. :)

AlanM

Quote from: russellkanning on December 09, 2005, 09:25 AM NHFT
I would rather the government get out of the airline business. :)

I thought you wanted the government to go out of business.  ;)

JonM

Quote from: AlanM on December 09, 2005, 09:31 AM NHFT
Quote from: russellkanning on December 09, 2005, 09:25 AM NHFT
I would rather the government get out of the airline business. :)

I thought you wanted the government to go out of business.? ;)
incrementalism!