Originally Posted by MSY-MSP
Any airline can make any rule they want with regards to the contract, so long as those rules are in effect at the time of the contract. If the airlines want to see photo ID when you check in then that is the airlines right. [...] Private contracts are not subject to constitutional challenges, unless the private individual is acting for the government or is violating the "civil rights" of the customer.
I think you left something out of your analysis. Currently, the government requires the airlines to ask for ID. (At one point, I even managed to get someone from the FAA to confirm this to me.) It might even be that the government requires the airlines to require ID from their passengers -- it's not entirely clear.
By the way, this is the secret law that Gilmore was complaining about (and rightly so, IMHO). FAA AVSEC SD96-05, and all that.
If the FAA can't require passengers to show ID, can they require airlines to institute such a requirement? Would the airlines be acting as an agent of the government for purposes the analysis?
P.S. I should say that I never had many hopes for Gilmore's case. The prior case law in this area is so bad, and the current climate is so lousy, that I've been fearing a bad decision in this case right from the state. My personal fear is that Gilmore is wrong as a matter of law (even though I believe he is totally right, as a matter of good public policy).