Thursday, August 20, 2009

U.S. Government Permission Will Be Required to Travel (Is This Constitutional?)

Now the government is going to limit one's travel. If you end up on a "No Fly List," then you will not be able to reserve a seat on the flight. No one is really able to see the list of names, so a person has no idea how he/she was placed on this list or how to get off of the list. There is no real due process which is the hallmark of a free society.

People need to realize that if you cannot freely travel, then you are a slave! Instead of being free to travel the world, you are limited to a specially defined slave-zone like your city, county or State.

Starting this year, Americans will have to get government approval to travel by air. As Privacy Journal revealed last fall, henceforth "Permission Now Needed to Travel Within U.S." Getting a reservation and checking-in for air travel will soon require Transportation Security Administration authorization. That permission is by no means assured: For example, if your name matches a "no-fly" list, even mistakenly, you can be denied the right to a reserve a seat on a flight. If your name is on a "selectee" list, you and your possessions will be searched more thoroughly before you can board. What is going on here?

All travelers will need government OK in order to board a flight, or take a cruise. What the government can allow one day, it can forbid the next.

How is this Constitutional? Although the Constitution does not contain an explicit right to travel, the right is presumed and firmly established in law and precedent. However, as with everything else in this country the last few years, the government really does not care about the Constitution except when it advances the government and corporate agendas.

The Right To Travel

As the Supreme Court notes in Saenz v Roe, 98-97 (1999), the Constitution does not contain the word "travel" in any context, let alone an explicit right to travel (except for members of Congress, who are guaranteed the right to travel to and from Congress). The presumed right to travel, however, is firmly established in U.S. law and precedent. In U.S. v Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), the Court noted, "It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized." In fact, in Shapiro v Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969), Justice Stewart noted in a concurring opinion that "it is a right broadly assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. Like the right of association, ... it is a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all." It is interesting to note that the Articles of Confederation had an explicit right to travel; it is now thought that the right is so fundamental that the Framers may have thought it unnecessary to include it in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

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