Re: McVeigh is not the issue!

[Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>]

> I believe this is a bad policy, and think it should be opposed.  Perhaps 
> a law should be considered to change this.  But obviously many people 
> here would tell me I could just take another mode of transportation, 
> such as riding the bus.  Airlines are private corporations owned by their 
> owners, not by their riders.  The airlines apparently have a right 
> (as Delta is doing) of demanding any prerequisite they wish for travel.  
> In the case of Delta, the prerequisite is "May I see your papers, please?"

A brief reading of the above rant should illustrate to anyone who was not 
convinced previously that Robert has gone over the edge.

Who are you to decide what the privately owned airline asks for a 
prerequisite of allowing you to travel on their planes?
They are free to enforce whatever terms they wish in a private contract 
between themselves and the passenger. If more people refused to travel on 
airlines because of their requirements they would stop asking for ID. If 
the giving of real, genuine ID were not mandated by law you could just 
give a false ID card (providing the contract had to clause against this).

Where did you obtain such a strange view of the world as to believe a 
private corporate entity cannot enforce whatever contract it wants?

> I believe in anonymous travel, just as I believe in anonymous speech, and 
> anonymous transactions.  I recently subscribed to this list to help mature my 
> views on issues such as collection and verification of electronic database 
> information by private and gov't entities.
> 
> I'm curious where the people here stand on such a policy.  Do you feel that 
> positive ID to fly on a plane should be permissable?  How about a law to 
> put a stop to it?

The fact is the government has no right to demand that true genuine ID be 
given under any circumstances. The corporation can in a private contract 
demand that the ID it is given is genuine, breach of this contract will 
carry whatever penalties are negotiated and included in the contract.

An anarchist society may not necessarily be more private than a police 
state, one merely has the right to choose in the former. If the contract 
between myself and an airline demands that I release information I am not 
happy releasing, I can walk away. If I have no other means of transport 
then I have only two choices: Travel or don`t. 
Your views appear to me to be more socialist than anarcho-capitalist or 
even minarchist. 
I would personally much rather see a world where my private information 
is free for everyone to see, than one where corporations and private 
individuals are not free to make whatever contracts they want, of course, 
the two are not mutually exclusive.

        Datacomms Technologies data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org    
       Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
      Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85
     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"