 Tired of being screwed with. |
SEATTLE — In November 2009, Phil Mocek was scheduled to board a Seattle-bound plane in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Instead, he wound up in a jail cell, headed for a fight that could prove historic.
The Seattle man refused to show TSA officers his ID with his boarding pass, and argued he has a right not to show it.
There is no law requiring that passengers show their ID at checkpoints; however, passengers who refuse to show their ID are subject to additional security screenings. After he refused many times to show his ID, officers asked him to leave. But instead of leaving, Mocek began taking photos and video of TSA officers against their warnings.
“I do not believe that there is a rule that bars me from using a camera in publicly acceptable areas at the airport,” he is heard saying a video clip he shot at the airport on that day. Mocek was placed under arrest and charged with four misdemeanors, including concealing his identity. Some say this is the first time anyone has brought a legal challenge to the TSA’s authority to question and detain travelers.
Kudos to this gentleman.
Found by Aric Mackey
I agree, kudos to him for challenging the police state the Cheney administration has imposed on America and convinced the sheeple it was all done to protect the herd.
This is in fact awesome.
All the power to him.
It is too bad he has to file a counter suit to recover his legal costs.
“There is no law requiring that passengers show their ID at checkpoints; however, passengers who refuse to show their ID are subject to additional security screenings.” /// but he is charged with misdemeanor hiding his identity?
Claims a right to film in public ((at the airport)) but claims cameras in public ((at his hometown park run by the city)) are intrusive.
Sadly, an all too typical First Amendment Warrior: self centered LIEberTard out to fulfill only his own emotional needs. You know: when under funded not well thought out cases are brought before a court, bad law gets made.
#4
How is standing up for your rights, and getting fed up with the bullshit the TSA puts everyone thought, “self centered” Bobbo? What the fuck are you getting at here? Should be all bend and roll over whenever the gubberment demands it?
Fuck you Bobbo!
I guess you enjoy getting your junk felt up by fat ugly guys.
@#4 bobbo : “Claims a right to film in public ((at the airport)) but claims cameras in public ((at his hometown park run by the city)) are intrusive.” – you just noticed beauty of our Founders minds and the Constitution, but you fail to grasp it:
-INDIVIDUAL has rights endowed by the Creator. Individual can film in public to his/her hart content. Govt. is banned from interfering with his/her freedom. Individual freedom above all.
-GOVERNMENT as a dangerous entity is restricted in what it can do by the individuals who are creators of the Govt. Govt. is intrusive when it records you in public. It should ask for every recorded individual permission to do so. It should not waste tax money individuals gave to it to menace and intrude in our lives.
Back to the story: This is the proper kind of citizen activity. Out in the open, no blackmailing, no stealing, challenge authority in the proper Court. Versus BS Wikileaks who are insult to citizens like this who really protect our freedoms (because they blackmail, steal and aim to destroy rather than improve and protect).
Dallas,
So Obama gets a free pass? Isn’t he the President? Didn’t he take office with the congress controlled by his party? Obama is as guilty as you claim Cheney is, by not only allowing to continue, but adding to the TSA’s control and harassment of the traveler.
Does this guy have a legal fund? Should we get one set up for him?
Yeah, but just look at all those terrorists the TSA has caught red handed trying to blow up aircraft!!!
” Mocek was placed under arrest and charged with four misdemeanors, including concealing his identity.”
I think the same law if there is one would apply to all citizens, including government employees.
Obviously there is no such law.
These government workers made up the policy on the spot.
Friends, don’t let them trick you into taking sides with a team such as Dems vs Repubs.
That would be a distraction to throw you off of their scent.
Stop talking like this is a football game and lets’s get these heinous mofos in the government to clean up their act.
All carry-on ID is problematical .
Who’s to say you are who you say you are?
It could all be based upon a lie.
A ticket to fly should be enough.
It’s complicated.
Think about it.
I dunno. While I object to the government run TSA doing the screening, there damned well should be someone checking IDs for those boarding an airplane.
It SHOULD be handled by the airlines*, and it SHOULD be far, far more sophisticated than it is. See, Ben Gurion International Airport to see how it SHOULD be done. Flying has apparently become so unpleasant already, I can’t imagine the newer security measures would make much difference. It was unpleasant enough 25 years ago. Yet, a vast majority of the public continues to put up with it, for cheap, fast transport. As far as I’m concerned, there just isn’t much worth traveling to under such conditions.
*And the airlines SHOULD own the damned airports instead of having them funded by CRA/Sports area type schemes.
#1 Dallas – I see Richard has beaten me to it in #7 but I’m going to add my two cents, anyway. You’re getting seriously tiresome with your continued whining about what Cheney did or what Bush did. The Democrtas have had uncontested control of the Congress for two years and your demigod has been leading the charge. If you still have complains about things like the TSA, then you need look no further than within your own party.
On another matter, why has it taken over a year for someone to reach trial for silly misdemeanors? Have we given up all hope our “right” to a speedy trial?
I’m not sure what the misdemeanors were. Refusal to identify himself? He gave them the boarding pass which probably had his name on it and I’m sure he admitted that he was him as indicated. Making a video? If they were videoing him (and you can pretty much be certain they were) then he should be allowed to make his own recording as long as it doesn’t interfere with the search. I assume he was using a small camera as he “took out a camera [and] started taping”. I doubt he had access to his luggage so it must have been in a pocket.
I hope he wins his case. The TSA has so rapidly become the gestapo, it’s scary. JCD – will you keep us updated n this? Seems to be your part of the world. Thanks.
#13 Your view that 8 years of the Cheney regime should be swept under the rug is understandable. That is in fact how most conservatives deal with ‘family issues’, like sex and shitty leaders.
To your point that Obama inherits this shit hole and now his problem is valid. My response to that is government is like a monster aircraft carrier and as much as Obama wants to turn this ship around, it is not quite that easy. Take a remedial course in physics regarding how mass, momentum and applied forces (including the repug counter forces to progress) and then check back in when u achieved 5th grade level.
FRAGaLOT ignore bobbo, I dropped my Magic 8 Ball, now things are dark, we all do.
That guy is just the resident Troll.
He’s sort of like a tolerance test.
We’ve learned not to make fun of the mentally handicapped or point at cripples.
Just point him back towards the “short bus” and wave him bye bye…
The only reason the ID is “required” is because the airlines want it that way. It prevents re-sale of tickets in the grey market.
This guy doesn’t stand a chance, of course. Even if he wins, it will get appealed, and if it (or any case like it) gets to the Supreme Court, I’d bet anything the judgment will be against him, for the sake of “national security”.
As for everybody’s bitching at the TSA, you’re just not taking off from and landing at the proper airports, flying on the proper planes with the proper people.
The rich and the well connected don’t have these problems.
Obama’s the PoTUS. He flies on Air Force One! (Though he’d be flying on Air Force One even if he was dangling from a parachute trailed behind a power boat off the Big Island in Hawaii. [It just works out that way.])
I don’t see him, the missus and the two daughters getting on a plane with the rest of us rabble any time soon.
His secret service escort will be packing too.
#15 When you demonstrate in public you support people that do the reverse of what you claim they are doing you come of as suffering from dementia.
Without regard to it being good or bad Obama has supported ever more intrusive TSA behavior and this has expanded under his appointed people on his watch. He sees this as being a good thing.
That is common knowledge and if you profess to not know it you need help because you are obviously subconsciously selectively filtering what you remember.
Please don’t take our word for it. Just do a few searches and you can find the facts you seem to be blocking. I’m not sure you have what it takes to do that any more but living in a make believe world is just so sad.
#6 – yes and if had the sense at the time to stamp down on those subversives when we had the chance you people wouldn’t go around spelling English words wrong.
I’m with Dallas. Obama is not to blame for anything at all. The entire mess it Bush and Cheney’s fault (even the stuff that they didn’t do or cause).
QUit picking on Obama. He’s been real busy, you know?
Though I hesitate to call him a Nazi (I’d also hesitate to be on a hunting party with him too,) Dick Cheney is such a Fascist and Corporatist that he could be called Benito Heavy (he’s clearly the successful sequel to a wop prick with a great jawbone, who got whacked and hung up on a hook at an Esso gas station,) though that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Obama’s role in the succession is to relieve the “Powers That Be“™© of the responsibility for health care.
No longer will [name of corporate boss here] be embarrassed by having to walk over the disgusting, diseased body of some unemployed schmuck.
As the United States joins the rest of the world in having decimated the ranks of the employed, i.e. the middle class, down to sustainable levels* we’re going to stop kidding ourselves and join them in having general health care.
The rich are not cruel. They’re not uncaring, unfeeling pragmatists; (unlike lawyers and accountants,) they think that sentimentality is a middle class value that they can’t personally afford.
Like wise they can’t afford to have 35 million uninsured, pissed off, sick but not dead people running around because some of them will be:
a) not so disabled that they can’t protest
b) not so sick that they can’t aim
c) own one of the millions firearms in the country
d) pissed off enough to start shooting**
*Did you think job growth has always going to increase? Why?
**Worse would be if they were former employees of the corporations.***
***Worst would be if they were former employees of the rich**** because they’d know who to shoot to do the most damage. (Not the rich but some of their corporate minions.)
****There’s maybe a thousand families world wide that matter. The rest are minions and cannon fodder.
#1 the requirement to show ID started with the Clinton Administration. Right after the TWA 800 plane crash, for which the official story is a mechanical flaw that caused a fuel tank explosion.
He has nothing to loose, but his freedom.
#13 – “and the airlines SHOULD own the damned airports…”
IMHO the airlines have too much say over the airports as it is. The local airport is one of Northwest’s (now Delta) main hubs. They insist on the best gates and have done everything in their power to prevent other airlines from getting a good foothold here, other than offer better/cheaper service. Instead they twist the arm of the airport commission.
The requirement to show ID is for the airlines benefit–it prevents your friends/relatives/employees from flying on your frequent flyer number to rack up the miles.
The rest is bullshit–anyone who can make a bomb can fake an ID.
Wait.wait.wait, are we war with Oceania, Eurasia or Eastasia?
Looking at the guys picture above, he looks like a guy looking for a fight to justify a shooting spree…
#28 – we can’t tell you who we are at war with – it’s a matter of national security.
Although you can find out on wikileaks
#1 Good.
#4 I agree that Mocek is probably an asshole, but that is not an important consideration. He seems to be pointing to legislative laziness rather than large questions of what the state can/can’t or should/shouldn’t do.
If his argument is that regulatory law isn’t valid unless it is specifically implemented via legislation then HE WOULD BE WRONG. It works the other way.
#6 “INDIVIDUAL has rights endowed by the Creator…can film in public to his/her hart content… Versus BS Wikileaks who are insult to citizens like this who really protect our freedoms”
Can you show me a “thou shall film when thou desires in public places” commandment? Can you show me an oppositional relationsihp between this guy and wikileaks?
#7 and #14
I want to exend your argument a bit. Forget “Homeland Security” and go back to “National Security.” This expansive idea surfaced after WWII as pushback to military demobilization. Proponents intentionally overestimated the hostility and effectivness of the Soviets to protect their budgets.
Eisenhower was referring to this movement in his famous “Military-Industrial Complex” speech. An intense security focus was not only very expensive, it was also corrupting to instiutions and international relations. The world became much more dangerous because a lot of self-interested people made sloppy judgments.
Following your argument, I’d say every President from Ike until Reagan was ignoring the national interest by buying into an expensive and dangerous GAME. Something with real world consequences, but driven by a competition for budget and contract dollars.
As true as that is, it doesn’t capture the real world. Every time a politician goes after some crap program tons of nasty adds pop up paid for by the people who will be disadvantaged.
I blame Obama for not capitalizing on the opportunities that he had at the very beginning of his term. It would have been playing against his nature, but personal comfort level is an overrated thing. I also think he is willing to sell out to the dirtiest of the dirty to get an item on the resume.
You’re going way past that, and blaming him for the general state of the world. That’s grossly unfair.
Bush/Cheney did a lot of dirt. Don’t tell me you missed that. Credit and blame where they are due.