No Free Speech Zone on Airlines

Are you outraged at having to show identification and be searched before boarding an airplane? I am searched every time I fly, and was told by a friend who works in airport security that it is likely my articles that have me identified by a code on the boarding pass.  Because of this, I only fly when I must.  I am also refusing to enter places where searches are required--like concerts and some movie theatres. These searches are pointless intrusions into physical liberty, and are blatant violations of the 4th Amendment's prohibitions against unreasonable searches and searches.

The law has defined a "reasonable" warrantless search as one predicated on some suspicion of wrongdoing.  But that requirement went out the window not only with the USA Patriot Act, but with airport security rules constantly being tightened by the Homeland Security Agency and Transportation Security Administration.  In Washington, DC airports, you cannot get to the gate without a boarding pass. Until a few weeks ago, an unticketed person could get to the gate by showing identification and being search. What is the purpose of this rule?  Why restrict the vast majority of the airport's space only to passengers?

John Gilmore is incensed about the requirement of showing identification to fly.  And he is furious about something that happened to him recently, when a lapel button landed him and his travelling companion on the tarmac.

Here is his story, courtesy of CounterPunch.

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I'm suing John Ashcroft, two airlines, and various other agencies over making people show IDs to fly -- an intrusive measure that provides no
security. But I would be hard pressed to come up with a security measure more useless and intrusive than turning a plane around because of a
political button on someone's lapel.

My sweetheart Annie and I tried to fly to London today
(Friday) on British Airways. We started at SFO, showed our
passports and got through all the rigamarole, and were
seated on the plane while it taxied out toward takeoff.
Suddenly a flight steward, Cabin Service Director Khaleel
Miyan, loomed in front of me and demanded that I remove a
small 1" button pinned to my left lapel. I declined, saying
that it was a political statement and that he had no right
to censor passengers' political speech. The button, which
was created by political activist Emi Koyama, says
"Suspected Terrorist". Large images of the button and I
appear in the cover story of Reason Magazine this month, and
the story is entitled "Suspected Terrorist".

The steward returned with Capt. Peter Hughes. The captain
requested, and then demanded, that I remove the button (they
called it a "badge"). He said that I would endanger the
aircraft and commit a federal crime if I did not take it
off. I told him that it was a political statement and
declined to remove it.

They turned the plane around and brought it back to the
gate, delaying 300 passengers on a full flight.

We were met at the jetway by Carol Spear, Station Manager
for BA at SFO. She stated that since the captain had told
her he was refusing to transport me as a passenger, she had
no other course but to take me off the plane. I offered no
resistance. I reminded her of the court case that United
lost when their captain removed a Middle Eastern man who had
done nothing wrong, merely because "he made me
uncomfortable". She said that she had no choice but to
uphold the captain and that we could sort it out in court
later, if necessary. She said that my button was in "poor
taste".

Later, after consulting with (unspecified) security people,
Carol said that if we wanted to fly on the second and last
flight of the day, we would be required to remove the button
and put it into our checked luggage (or give it to her). And
also, our hand-carried baggage would have to be searched to
make sure that we didn't carry any more of these terrorist
buttons onto the flight and put them on, endangering the
mental states of the passengers and crew.

I said that I understood that she had refused me passage on
the first flight because the captain had refused to carry
me, but I didn't understand why I was being refused passage
on the second one. I suggested that BA might have captains
with different opinions about free speech, and that I'd be
happy to talk with the second captain to see if he would
carry me. She said that the captain was too busy to talk
with me, and that speaking broadly, she didn't think BA had
any captains who would allow someone on a flight wearing a
button that said "Suspected Terrorist". She said that BA has
discretion to decline to fly anyone. (And here I had thought
they were a common carrier, obliged to carry anyone who'll
pay the fare, without discrimination.) She said that
passengers and crew are nervous about terrorism and that
mentioning it bothers them, and that is grounds to exclude
me. I suggested that if they wanted to exclude mentions of
terrorists from the airplane, then they should remove all
the newspapers from it too.

I asked whether I would be permitted to fly if I wore other
buttons, perhaps one saying "Hooray for Tony Blair". She
said she thought that would be OK. I said, how about
"Terrorism is Evil". She said that I probably wouldn't get
on. I started to discuss other possible buttons, like
"Oppose Terrorism", trying to figure out what kinds of
political speech I would be permitted to express in a BA
plane, but she said that we could stand there making
hypotheticals all night and she wasn't interested.
Ultimately, I was refused passage because I would not censor
myself at her command.

After the whole interaction was over, I offered to tell her,
just for her own information, what the button means and why
I wear it. She was curious. I told her that it refers to all
of us, everyone, being suspected of being terrorists, being
searched without cause, being queued in lines and pens,
forced to take our shoes off, to identify ourselves, to
drink our own breast milk, to submit to indignities.
Everyone is a suspected terrorist in today's America,
including all the innocent people, and that's wrong. That's
what it means. The terrorists have won if we turn our
country into an authoritarian theocracy "to defeat
terrorism". I suggested that British Airways had
demonstrated that trend brilliantly today. She understood
but wasn't sympathetic -- like most of the people whose
individual actions are turning the country into a police
state.

Annie asked why she, Annie, was not allowed to fly. She
wasn't wearing or carrying any objectionable buttons. Carol
said it's because of her association with me. I couldn't
have put it better myself -- guilt by association. I asked
whether Annie would have been able to fly if she had checked
in separately, and got no answer. (Indeed it was I who
pointed out to the crew that Annie and I were traveling
together, since we were seated about ten rows apart due to
the full flight. I was afraid that they'd take me off the
plane without her even knowing.)

Annie later told me that the stewardess who had gone to
fetch her said that she thought the button was something
that the security people had made me wear to warn the flight
crew that I was a suspected terrorist(!). Now that would be
really secure.

I spoke with the passengers around me before being removed
from the plane, and none of them seemed to have any problem
with sitting next to me for 10 hours going to London. None
of them had even noticed the button before the crew pointed
it out, and none of them objected to it after seeing it. It
was just the crew that had problems, as far as I could tell.

John Gilmore

PS: For those who know I don't fly in the US because of the
ID demand: I'm willing to show a passport to travel to
another country. I'm not willing to show ID -- an "internal
passport" -- to fly within my own country.