The Arrival of Secret Law

T

travis

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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2004, Issue No. 100
November 14, 2004

THE ARRIVAL OF SECRET LAW
TSA THREATENS TO ARREST LEAKERS
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THE ARRIVAL OF SECRET LAW

Last month, Helen Chenoweth-Hage attempted to board a United Airlines flight from Boise to Reno when she was pulled aside by airline personnel for additional screening, including a pat-down search for weapons or unauthorized materials.

Chenoweth-Hage, an ultra-conservative former Congresswoman (R-ID), requested a copy of the regulation that authorizes such pat-downs...

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RL32664.pdf
 
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Isn't that illegal? Is there no paragraph somewhere in the US law that forbids something like this?

In some way, this is pretty crazy, how can someone be compelled to obey a law that is not know to said person and even forbidden to be known?
Something like this should not exist in a democracy.
 
She was not obligated to obey, she could refuse, she just couldn't fly. You don't have a right to fly. Isn't there some fine print that when you buy airline tickets you agree to go along with airline regulations? I don't think there has to be any law authorizing pat-downs because they are voluntary.
 
But it is a legally binding regulation... and it should be possible to view something that is legally binding for you.
 
But it seems that it's only legally binding for the airline, not the individual. You don't have to submit, just walk away. I do agree, by the way, that our government is getting disturbingly secret in many ways...
 
No law should be secret! Everyone has a right to know what laws they are bound by. This is very fucked up.
 
Such secret laws are small potatoes next to some other things going on:

- Government secretly scans a list of the library books you check out or buy with a card; presumably red-flags those who read anti-American books, those determined by Ashcroft et al. Perhaps Chenoweth-Hage read the wrong book. The library is prohibited from telling you that they provide the FBI with the list of books you checked out.

- Secret searches—no search warrant, no notice whatsoever that your home was searched.

- Secret injustice system. No need to charge you, you can be held incommunicado indefinitely. If the Supreme Court says no, your “due process” can still apparently take decades and now the US has the ultimate secret system which hides from all but the select few who they're holding.

- And the big one that’s been around for a while and to which few take exception—secret recordings and computerized keyword searches of everything you say on the phone, by email, fax, and likely even this forum. Echelon is the name of the system. Every phone call and email from or to the US is searched. That’s how the NSA found the call from the 9/11 hijackers saying on 9/10, “It’s zero hour.” Their phone was not tapped; the NSA just looked up their calls amongst everyone else’s calls and listened to them.
 
I wish I were kidding. Secret library/bookstore checkout searches and secret home searches are allowed by the Patriot Act. This one is easy to google.

The secret injustice system has held hundreds of people--including 2 American citizens-- incommunicado for 2+ years with no charges. One of the American citizens was eventually released. The other is Padilla. Most of the others are Afghani combatants held in Gitmo, but since the gov’t cannot or is not willing to provide evidence that they are combatants then how do we know they are? The Supreme Court ruled a few months ago that the gov’t must allow due process for these people, so now the Bush administration is setting up military tribunals, which have been stalled by allegations that they do not meet basic standards of justice (they were to be mock trials). With Bush’s re-election it could be a few more years before these people are even charged.

It’s known through the grapevine that people are held off-the-book in Iraqi prisons, and not necessarily combatants (how would we know?). You can read about the “ghost detainees” here. This is one of the scariest ones, for it is no longer beyond the imagination that ghost detainees could exist in the US as well. After all, Padilla is only a small step from being one.

You can read about Echelon here.
 
Mmh, the USA gets scarier every day. I think I'll have to read the patriot act, I never really looked into it. I knew about those prisoner (to some extend...), but I did not know that even Americans have similar fates.

I am somewhat glad that I do not live in the USA.
 
spidergoat said:
She was not obligated to obey, she could refuse, she just couldn't fly. You don't have a right to fly. Isn't there some fine print that when you buy airline tickets you agree to go along with airline regulations? I don't think there has to be any law authorizing pat-downs because they are voluntary.
Click to expand...
If airelines were entirely commercial I'd agree with you... but they aren't. Your taxes subsidize them....

Also, the note is on your ticket... which you don't see until AFTER you've paid to take the flight.
 
Persol said:
If airelines were entirely commercial I'd agree with you... but they aren't. Your taxes subsidize them....
Click to expand...

Not all airlines are American, and sometimes you buy for instance a flight with KLM (dutch), but the flight is operated by Northwest Airlines.
 
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