Originally Posted by Wally Bird
"He was not threatened with arrest or some other form of punishment; rather he simply was told that unless he complied with the policy, he would not be permitted to board the plane. There was no penalty for noncompliance."
What? Sure, they didn't threaten to throw the guy in jail, but how can you say there was no penalty? The refusal to board the plane
was the penalty for noncompliance!
Originally Posted by Wally Bird
"The Constitution does not guarantee the right to travel by any particular form of transportation."
The Constitution doesn't guarantee the right to buy a pencil either, but that doesn't mean we don't have the right to buy one. Am I comparing the ability to buy a pencil with the ability to board a plane? No. Clearly the two are different. My point is that the Constitution is not a laundry list of rights...and just because a right isn't listed there doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
For example, MSY-MSP, in his intersting analysis, mentions a right to privacy. Except for legal fundamentalists, I daresay most folks would agree that we should be able to expect a reasonable level of privacy in our lives -- even if they disagree on what the level of "reasonableness" is. Where is the right to privacy in the Constitution? It's not. That doesn't mean we're not entitled to it.
I think Gilmore's lawyer has a great point when he says that if the government wants to regulate then they should do it the legal -- promulgating formal regulations and putting them out for public comment. Has the ID requirement ever been put into regulations?