Hacker News Reader

Comment by atonse | Hacker News Reader

To me this isn't a question of liberty or not. I find that silly. You don't have any constitutional "right" to fly. You probably have a constitutional right to free movement within the US (whether it's walking, driving, etc).

The bigger issue with these pat downs, scans, fluid limits, etc is whether they're effective.

Bruce Schneier has written at great length (and very smartly) about this stuff. And I agree with him that the single most effective deterrent to the next 9/11 is secure cockpit doors, and a close second is passengers not willing to "allow" a plane to get hijacked anymore (whereas hijackings in the past had a sliver of hope that you'd get out safely, after 9/11 I think passengers know there might be certain death, so why not fight?)

View on HN

You do have the right to travel. The constitution does not specify a mode. Ergo, all modes are protected equally, and no-fly lists are unconstitutional. It's not like you get a background check to buy a printing press.

The ACLU mounted an attack on the no-fly list that was credible enough government changed procedure.

This would imply drivers licenses and car registration are also unconstitutional. You can tax them and have traffic laws, but not do those things.

> You do have the right to travel. The constitution does not specify a mode

The constitution does not specify the first bit either; it's all been inferred by court rulings [0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...

I'm aware, my view is the court's current views are incomplete. Courts can be wrong.

What draws the most interest is the right to enter states freely. Combine that with the need to travel and participate in commerce and you quickly arrive at the conclusion the right to travel in general must also be protected, and indeed we can see the hardships brought upon people when they are unable to drive, etc.

Good luck arguing your opinion though - go watch a few videos of "sovereign citizens" trying to argue they don't need a driver's license to "travel" when pulled over driving.

Always remember the Ninth Amendment: the rights enumerated in the constitution are not more real than the rights which were not explicitly listed.

If you fly between states you're engaging in interstate commerce. So the federal government can ban it.

Even if someone offers you a flight for free, that takes away from alternatives like driving(which funds gas stations, hotels, restaurants, etc.). So your choice to fly affects interstate commerce, and they can ban that too.

It seems you’ve misunderstood the constitution. It limits the government, ensuring our freedom. The govt has no right to prevent us from flying, domestically at least. Other countries are free to make demands at their borders.

The Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution) limit the government. The Articles of the Constitution assign the rights and responsibilities of the government.

> The govt has no right to prevent us from flying

You have also misunderstood the Constitution. The government does have the right to limit our individual rights either because we have lost them after due process (eg. you have no right to fly if you are serving a prison sentence) or due to national security actions (eg. you have no right to fly if the country grounds all flights like it did immediately after 9/11).

Inalienable rights cannot be taken away by governments, which don't have rights. That there are temporary exceptions for prisons and emergencies is inconsequential to this thread.

You don't have any constitutional "right" to fly.

Has that even been tested in court? If you live in Hawaii not being able to use airlines would be a massive restriction. The right to free movement has been written into most every constitution because the framers had actual experience with oppressive government that issued internal passports to silence revolutionaries.

That's why I made the distinction. Nobody can prevent you from moving around as a human being. But people absolutely can prevent you from entering their car, van, bus, or their plane. That is their private property.

The TSA made this weird (where government employees are enforcing things on "private" land like an airport for a "private" flight) but that's post 9/11 weirdness for you.

How far can you extend this?

* you don't have the right to drive (I think this widely affirmed in the courts)

* you don't have the right to use public transport (after all, if they can ban planes, why not trains or buses?)

* you don't have the right to bike (after all, if motor vehicles are regulated, why not all vehicles?)

* you don't have the right to walk on interstates

* you don't have the right to drive

Is it a "right" if it can be taken away? You can definitely be prohibited from driving for things like DUIs.

>* you don't have the right to walk on interstates

This is already the case.

> Is it a "right" if it can be taken away?

Of course. Every person that was ever murdered had a right to live, even when it was taken away. Would you say that they didn't?

Rights exists regardless of whether they are respected, that's what makes them rights.

Taken away illegally, hence a "murder". It's not a right if it can be legally taken away by your government. Speech is a right. Driving is a privilege.

Rights are not granted by governments, they are recognized by governments. They exist as part of our culture.

Rights are not granted by culture, they are recognized by culture. They exist regardless of whether they are violated.

You're leaving out an important distinction. You don't have a right to do those things _in harmful ways_. If you are an unsafe driver (whether it's excessive speeding, drunk driving, etc) you absolutely should be barred from the roads.

I am actually very much a live and let live type person. Where I start having issues is when your lifestyle puts others in danger. Drink all you want... at home. Or in a bar. But get a taxi home. If you are going to be a belligerent drunk that's harassing others, you absolutely should be kicked out of even public transportation.

I am totally against MANY of the policies of the TSA (mostly on grounds of what's effective, and also what's unnecessarily invasive from a privacy standpoint). But I am not against the existence of something like a TSA.

Of those examples, bicycling is the only one I've never seen taken away. Drivers licenses are required to drive and they get taken away for violations all the time. Fare Evasion or gross misbehavior can have you "excluded" from my city's mass transit system. Walking on the interstate is generally forbidden except in emergency situations.

The right to bicycle in general is not licensed in the US. However, some roads allow bikes and some do not. This seems to mostly be done in a way to not overly restrict freedom of travel. For example, in densely populated places like the Northeastern US, it's not allowed to bike on Interstates, but that's deemed okay because there's usually a parallel smaller highway that allows bikes. While in sparsely populated parts of the Western US, it's sometimes allowed to bike on the shoulder of Interstates, because it's the only road. However, governments aren't perfect, so there are gaps in the logic, like some bridges that don't allow bikes even though they're the only way to cross a large body of water for miles and miles. I'd like to believe that a legal challenge to allow bikes on such bridges, or to require the government to ferry bicyclists over such bridges, would succeed.

I got stuck on the non-downtown side of Shanghai once because I assumed that I'd be able to walk or bike across at least one of the bridges. But I couldn't find any way to get across. I had to wander around until the metro opened back up in the morning to get back across (and make it to flight in time).

When i first visited Shanghai in 1989, there were no bridges or tunnels between the Bund sid eof the river and the Pudong side, only the ferries. (pudong was mostly farms.) The ferries are less used now, but there are still some in operation, incluidng some that run 24 hours a day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Ferry

The ferries are especially useful if you want to take a bicycle across the river.

Bicycle registration (for a fee) is mandatory in some states. Bikes can be seized and impounded if they are not registered.

There's a difference between driving a car/plane and being a passenger in a car/plane.

I don't know of a case of someone being barred from being a passenger in a car, and doubt very much that this would stand up to legal scrutiny. The state does have a public safety interest in mandating who can operate fairly heavy machinery in public though.

> Walking on the interstate is generally forbidden except in emergency situations.

It is actually prohibited even in emergencies. Pedestrians absolutely have no right of way in an interstate. You must ask for rescue if you get stuck as a result of collision or a car failure.

That depends on the state and the section of highway. There is no Federal prohibition on walking or bicycling along an Interstate highway right-of-way. State laws vary.

In California, for example, bicycling or waling on freeway shoulders is permitted except where specifically prohibited and signed. Bicyclists and pedestrians are prohibted from most California Interstate highways where there are alterantives bicycle and pedestrian routes, but there are mnay California Interstates on which bicyclists and pedesrians are allowed, including sections of I-5, I-10, and I-80.

In California, state law expressly allows walking along a freeway in an emergency:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....

Driving a car means operating a machine. Flying a plane is analogous to that. Being a passenger on an airplane is not analogous to driving a car.

Do you not have a right to be a passenger in a car? Does the government have a right to prohibit you from accepting rides from your friends, or paying a licensed cab driver?

I don't think it's about operating a machine per se, it's about the danger level of the machine. As others have pointed out, there's been no attempts to regulate operating a bicycle.

A car requires a license because it's a particularly dangerous machine, obviously not all machines require licenses. A car passenger could cause a car accident (have you seen the video of a woman attacking a bus driver, causing the bus to fall off a bridge, killing 15 people?) Yet we only require the operators of such machines to be licensed.

This is a very real concern in the desert West where I live. We have few highways exiting the city with large expanses in between. This weekend the three to the north (I17), north-east (SR87) and east (SR60) were all closed. The 87 and 60 are the only ways out that cross the Verde river, making that particularly problematic. The remaining interstate, the I10, regularly closes as well, and while somewhat unlikely it wouldn't be shocking to find that Phoenix residents are literally stuck where they live.

Additionally, much of the land surrounding the city is closed for fire restrictions, or as the result of the Bush fire burn scar being ecologically fragile.

Practically, this isn't more than an annoyance as people find they can't return home from weekend vacations up north. But ideologically being literally prohibited from legal travel is unbefitting of somewhere once called "the land of the free."

Your "right to travel" is part of the 5th amendment, a right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

Constitutional rights can still be restricted if they meet the relevant test, for due process it is generally rational basis. Requiring licensed drivers, registering cars, meets the rational basis test and is not unconstitutional. Restricting interstates/freeways to vehicles capable of 55+(when there are other roads available, there are some areas where bicycles or walking is allowed on freeways) also generally meets the rational basis test and is not unconstitutional.

Traveling is not the same thing as driving. Being a passenger, vs driving. You could have your right to drive restricted because you were convicted of a crime and pose a danger to others, but that doesn't usually mean your right to travel is restricted.

You generally do have a right to use public transit, unless you have been given due process and lost that right.

When it comes to public transport the public-private distinction becomes artificial, public transport is national infrastructure. To the traveller it makes no difference if the bus belongs to the city council or if the city contracts bus company X for transportation.

Also, private transportation can be thought as operating under a license from the state on the use of the land/air space, or some parts thereof, which can include the passing of private property belonging to others, given that the ownership of real state itself is regulated (for example, on the use of vertical column of space). Therefore, private transportation can be forced to abide to restrictions imposed by that license to operate.

I find this line of argumentation wrong. You don't have a constitutional right to use internet, computer or even to jack off, but it is generally assumed that as long as you don't get in other's people space, you will not be bothered.

Similarly, while there is no explicit right, the argumentation of "it is a privilege" seems.. not sure what the proper word would.. self-serving for the government.

I think the distinction between natural rights vs legal rights comes into play here. Society has changed a lot in the time since the Constitution was written, and government isn't exactly incentivized to limit its own power in ways that reflect these changes.

> You don't have any constitutional "right" to fly.

Of course you do. Read the Ninth Amendment.

What rights are being denied? A private company running a private plane is providing you transportation. You don't have ANY rights there. Hell, even under normal circumstances, you could buy a ticket and end up in an overflow situation and the Airline decides who makes it in.

The OP answers this question in excruciating detail.

This general argument only makes sense when there is vibrant market competition. Otherwise, it is just couching authoritarianism in some illusion of choice. There is little difference between a bona fide government and a corporation that has become so entrenched that people are forced to interact with them. Especially when the entrenched companies cooperate to set industry wide policies.

I would have no problem with a private company demanding strip search/patdown before boarding their plane.

I have a problem with the gov demanding this for everyone.

Bruce Schneier writes very well on this, but he also holds up Israel's method as the way to do things, where people are "profiled" by "trained agents" for extra scrutiny, based on their behavior.

In other words, if you look like an Arab, you get treated very differently than if your last name is Schneier [1].

And while I'm dubious about claims that all those brown people are "randomly selected" in the USA, there would be serious pushback if the official public policy at US airports was one of racial profiling.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_profiling_in_Israel#At_...

> To me this isn't a question of liberty or not.

A restriction of your freedoms, whether protected or not, is a restriction of your liberties.

Some liberties are constitutionally protected. Some are protected by state law. Some aren't protected at all. They're all still liberties though.

Similarly, an employer restricting topics of conversation in the workplace is in fact placing restrictions on your free speech. It's just not constitutionally protected in that instance, is generally permitted by state and local law, and seems to be largely culturally acceptable.

It is in the constitution that your right to travel cannot be suspended without due process. From the 5th amendment, "No person shall be held to answer ... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;" This applies to flying as it does to all other forms of travel, as restricting flights does not mean the rational basis test

Reply on news.ycombinator.com