Government wants ID arguments secret

Government wants ID arguments secret


SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Justice has 
asked an appellate court to keep its arguments secret for a case in 
which privacy advocate John Gilmore is challenging federal requirements 
to show identification before boarding an airplane.

A federal statute and other regulations "prohibit the disclosure of 
sensitive security information, and that is precisely what is alleged to 
be at issue here," the government said in court papers filed Friday with 
the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Disclosing the restricted 
information "would be detrimental to the security of transportation," 
the government wrote.

Attorneys for Gilmore, a 49-year-old San Francisco resident who 
co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, 
said they don't buy the government's argument and that its latest 
request raises only more questions.

"We're dealing with the government's review of a secret law that now 
they want a secret judicial review for," one of Gilmore's attorneys, 
James Harrison, said in a phone interview Sunday. "This administration's 
use of a secret law is more dangerous to the security of the nation than 
any external threat."

Gilmore first sued the government and several airlines in July 2002 
after airline agents refused to let him board planes in San Francisco 
and Oakland without first showing an ID or submitting to a more intense 
search. He claimed in his lawsuit the ID requirement was vague and 
ineffective and violated his constitutional protections against illegal 
searches and seizures.

A U.S. District Court judge earlier this year dismissed his claims 
against the airlines, but said his challenge to the government belonged 
in a federal appellate court.

Now in his appellate case, Gilmore maintains the federal government has 
yet to disclose the regulations behind the ID requirement to which he 
was subjected.

"How are people supposed to follow laws if they don't know what they 
are?" Harrison said.

The government contends its court arguments should be sealed from public 
view and heard before a judge outside the presence of Gilmore and his 
attorneys. The government, however, said it would plan to file another 
redacted public version of its arguments.

A date for a hearing on the matter has not yet been set.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material 
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
 
 
 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/06/airline.id.ap/index.html
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