 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 am so glad I gave up flying. The money I’ll save by not taking 5-6 trips a year will go right into my 401K so when I retire I should be able to afford a cup of coffee now and again.
Good for him, it’s about time someone stood up. Sadly, the administration will step in just like they did under Bush and get it tossed out under state secrets or some other such clause.
Could we take up a collection to kick Pedro in the nuts?
Bobbo, as usual, is desperately trying to be a troll wannabe. Good luck with that.
My prediction is that this poor soul will die in a freak avalanche in Snoqualmie Pass shortly before the trial. Friends will question how he drove his car there without keys in the ignition.
#22. Thank you! Tell the rest of the herd.
#35. You mean kick in the nutt?
#29, that was my reaction. Then I realized, I’ve seen the guy before with a different name. His last name was xxx Bruce, and after Braveheart came out he started going by ‘xxx the Bruce’
He was acquitted.
# 19 msbpodcast said, “His secret service escort will be packing too.”
Aye, there’s the rub: He’ll NEVER have to be rubbed the wrong way by TSA. His daughters will never get scanned nude until they have a butt as big as their mama’s. Even after he goes back to Chicago next year. Because the TSA has granted that people who travel with their own security team are exempt from the searches. (“I don’t have a gun. I have people who have guns.” “Very good, sir. You and your team can go right on through.”)
# 15 Dallas said, “Take a remedial course in physics” Dall, Dall, Dallas. I took a lot of physics in premed. I don’t recall that part where you turn a mass around by accelerating it forward. Perhaps my teachers were all republicans.
Now if this guy had fallen into a fountain, while texting, he’d have a case, right?
#15
It was the Democrats under Clinton that formulated the idea of a single security agency. After 9/11, Bush simply implemented the plan developed by the Democrats to improve security although he did so with reservation. So, again, blaming Bush and Cheney is just your own delusion. If your party agreed with you, they would have changed the TSA but they did not.
Wow, two legitimate responses. I’dda stayed awake if I had know they were coming.
#5–FRAGalot==you don’t see a “basic” hypocrisy in his position until you add in the concept of limitations on government? More below.
#6–dusanmal==best post I have seen you ever write. Any special going on in your life? Taking supplements? Lets parse:
# 6 dusanmal /// Nice link. I usually click on poster’s links but don’t recall your personal website coming up. I like the oil paintings you have–approaching van Gogh, one of my favorites.
@#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. //// Yes, I agree and I did not focus on that. Instead, I focused on the necessary hypocrisy involved to be comfortable filming others in public yet objecting to being filmed in public by others. That was my baseline. You have to get more complicated to add a layer on top of the basic equation to say the government ((who is the government but “us?”)) can’t film in public== but they can and should. THAT is what PUBLIC is all about. Your objection here is valid as a general statement but is simply wrong when applied to the specifics here.
-GOVERNMENT as a dangerous entity is restricted in what it can do by the individuals who are creators of the Govt. /// Dangerous? Ha, ha. No. Only dangerous when it doesn’t function. See anarchy.
Govt. is intrusive when it records you in public. /// “Intrusive” yes just as the individual is intrusive in the very same way. The operant question is: Is it illegal? And the answer is FILMING IN PUBLIC IS LEGAL FOR INDIVIDUALS AND THE GOVERNMENT TO DO. THATS WHY IT IS CALLED PUBLIC.
It should ask for every recorded individual permission to do so. /// Silly.
It should not waste tax money /// All parks, all public areas, having a crime problem should be put under surveillance==CHEAPER than having hoomans doing the same job.
individuals gave to it to menace and intrude in our lives. /// Menace? You mean catching the perps robbing and stealing in the park is a menace to you? Why then, logically …….
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. //// I agree totally. I just hope he is well funded/connected enough to properly present the case in 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). /// I think you just jumped off the deep end here but what you are saying may be garbled? On balance “right now” it looks like the revelations/focus brought by= wikileads is doing a net good. How can you be all concerned about “menace” and not see that “the truth” and transparency is one of the few ways to avoid the very intrusion/menace/violations of rights you want to champion?
My own thought: We all agree that when driving a car and legally stopped one should have to show identification/proof of registration/insurace/license etc? It makes “sense” to me that people should have to show ID/reveal who they are to some degree when engaged in daily commerce/interaction with other people. Not stating where that line should be, just that it is an issue. As always relevant: too many people confuse a DESIRE to be anonymous with the RIGHT to privacy. Results in stinkin thinkin.
We don’t want to do that do we dusanmal?
Mistake: “Dangerous? Ha, ha. No. Only dangerous when it doesn’t function. See anarchy.”
Whoa! That was a mistake caused by limiting it to the issue being directly addressed. Of course goverment is dangerous when they overstep the otherway. Our goverment like most others is a combination of overstepping and not doing enough==not really a balance as both actions are a harm to society and there are too many of each.
But as a philosophical statement==there can be no society without government so its status begins as a necessity, and as a democracy ours began with consent/demand by the majority.
Idiotic all this “government is evil” crap pumped out by LIEberTARDS and the PUKES. In fact it is the libs and pukes that are the danger as we witness everyday in the news.
Silly/retarded hoomans.
After deliberating for about an hour and ten minutes, the jury delivered a verdict of “not guilty” on all counts.
More detail, including information about my legal defense fund (I’m paying out-of-pocket, and owe thousands) can be found on the FAQ maintained by the Identity Project at http://papersplease.org/wp/mocek
Thanks for all the kind words.
Now we only need about a million more like this guy to stand up against the TSA making up policy on a whim.
This would be the ‘American’ thing to do (the old definition of ‘American’ not the new wussie brainwashed definition). These TSA guys are already being deployed on the streets… something needs to shore up against the tide of jack booted thugs.
You have no human rights at the airport… says DHS… and soon this will apply to the rest of the country. No law, no congressional vote… but rather just because unelected power mad bureaucrats say so – color of law Bullsh*t.
They have no proper authority in a healthy republic to propagate this tyranny except for their threats, their propoganda and their guns… and if people do not start saying ‘no’ now.. there will be absolutely no option to say ‘no’ in the near future.
Mr Mocek==I’m glad you beat those charges and will send a few bucks to your defense. “But:”==what was it all about?
I don’t want people like YOU going around gaining access to public facilities thinking you have no obligations to “make your identity known.” YOU may be an innocent freedom fighters, but you would only be the nose under the tent with the camel of who knows what to follow after you.
Right now, and until/unless things get worse, I think the right response to you would have been to eject you from the terminal and have you on your way. Arrested for trespass only if you refused to leave.
You aren’t “an island” Mr Mocek, but rather only one of 320 Million all milling around bumping into one another. Rights and options do get reduced in that compression, but I wish you well and hope you choose your confrontations in the future to be for your maximum advantage.
I’m glad he beat the charges. But it only makes me wonder how long it will be before legislation is passed saying you must be positively identified prior to travel (airplanes, trains, Greyhounds) and making videos of any TSA facility, search or donut run is illegal as all TSA activities must remain secret in order to fully protect our nation.
Number of terrorists caught by the TSA:
zero.
I rest my case.
Bobbo wrote, “I don’t want people like YOU going around gaining access to public facilities thinking you have no obligations to `make your identity known.’ YOU may be an innocent freedom fighters, but you would only be the nose under the tent with the camel of who knows what to follow after you.”
Bobbo, do you believe that it is feasible to maintain a fair and accurate list of people who should be prohibited from entering public facilities? If so, how difficult do you estimate it would be for someone who is on such a list and determined to enter to obtain and successfully use falsified identity documents (i.e., to get “a fake ID”)? Who should maintain such a list? I think that if we’re to restrict someone’s freedom in such a manner, the decision should be made by a judge, in open court, not by way of someone, somewhere, secretly adding his name to a blacklist.
I’d prefer not to use the phrase “freedom fighter” to describe myself. I avoid fights, and historically speaking, the difference between “freedom fighter” and “terrorist” is politics.
Thanks for taking interest in this, thanks for engaging in related discussion, and thanks very much for the offer to chip in on my legal defense.
—
Phil
#51–Phil==on another recent thread here at DU I commended people like you/freedom fighters/the guy making a scene as “the point of the spear defending our liberties for that is what you certainly did.
but everything is balanced and the opposite of Freedom is many things relevantly in this case “exposure to evil do’ers.”
Your argument against security measures is as common as it is wrong. Sure some criminals will fake ID and defeat every security caution you can imagine (Hence Mission Impossible movies and tv) but just watch all the cop shows about real life criminals === they ain’t all so smart.
I also agree “errors are made” and therefore support everyone’s right to have an appeal process to correct any list that anyone keeps==whether private credit agency reports, or those kept by the government. Throwing your hands up in the air saying the security methods aren’t perfect therefore there shouldn’t be any is stinkin thinkin.
Do you ever sit around with your friends and free associate about the best way to protect society against the predations by government? The ineptness of government? I haven’t done it but it sounds like a good exercise to see if there is anything more effective than getting arrested?
Personally I have challenged cops/security/judges==never to any good effect and probably at more risk to myself than I even now recognize. Balance. Take care of yourself. Choose your battles.
Take care. I’ll respond as long as you do, but will be in and out on errands.
If you don’t know a person capable of getting you a fake ID that will get you past the so called TSA security, you don’t get out enough.
But you don’t even need a fake ID, you could be named “Iwanna Esplodeyu” and be on 10 no-fly lists and still easily get past the ID checker while still using your real name.
That database that they use to check for no-fly? Utterly useless.
Scenario:
(Note: I wrote a step by step procedure to get ANYBODY through TSA security. It is so simple that anybody can do it. Then I realized that it would be a bad idea to publish it here, not because the bad guys don’t know it already (it is stupid simple) but because the government might not like me very much if I do.)
a) Censored
b) Censored
c) Censored
d) Censored
e) Censored
f) Censored
g) Walk through security even though you are on the no-fly-list.
Using the steps above, you can check luggage even though you are not allowed to fly, you can get multiple no-fly people through TSA security, etc.
The whole “match the ticket with the ID” is stupid beyond belief.
and, he wins.
http://www.examiner.com/blogosphere-buzz-in-national/seattle-activist-phil-mocek-wins-case-against-tsa-pics