Constitutional rights...
Now the DHS has announced that it is imposing additional requirements on general aviation pilots who travel outside the U.S. via its regulatory authority to issue rules to in effect require private pilots engaged in private flights to become agents FOR the government requiring them to report on the comings and goings of private citizens who are their passengers and to prevent travel not authorized by the DHS.
http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1226943980107.shtmThis rule applies essentially to PRIVATE and NOT commercial pilots in that it says as much when it says "not engaged in carrying passengers or cargo for compensation". It is almost unheard of for private pilots to carry total strangers as their passengers so the notion that this rule is somehow protecting the public at large from a real threat is ridiculous.
The truth is that this rule is just another unConstitutional encroachment on our liberty.
If the pilot were themselves a terrorist they would ignore the rule as the 9/11 terrorists did when they switched off their aircraft transponders and disobeyed the instructions of air traffic controllers. If the terrorist were a passenger, they would either have to know the pilot personally who would then ignore the rule or they would not be flying in the plane in the first place.
This fact sheet describing this rule also tends to reinforce the false notion that small general aviation aircraft can effectively be used as weapons.
The simple fact is that the vast majority of single engine trainer aircraft have gross takeoff weights substantially less than most people's automobiles. Their combined kinetic energy and chemical energy in terms of fuel are equivalent to the average SUV. If such a rule were imposed on everyone driving a pickup truck or SUV in this country their would be a backlash the like of which not seen in decades in American politics.
The payload of a single engine light aircraft is substantially less than an SUV or commercial truck. Finally, they require substantial training, money and vetting by instructors as well to operate.
They are a very unlikely "weapon" and a very ineffective one. Witness the C152 flown into the White House during the Clinton administration or the C172 flown into the Bank of America building in Tampa in 2001. (In case you haven't been keeping score: Buildings TWO, Cessnas ZERO.)
There are already plenty of requirements on pilots requiring filing an ADIZ flight plan, clearing customs etc.
This is just another effort by the government to track and control people's comings and goings - regardless of their constitutional right to travel and rights to privacy. (We the People have a constitutional right to travel, albeit an un-enumerated right reserved to us by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution.)
DHS has gotten out of control with "no fly" lists such as the ones that prevented Senator Ted Kennedy and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez from flying, when it was used by Tom Delay to track down the Texas Democratic legislative delegation when they intentionally left the state to prevent a quorum, which has spied on citizens without warrants, etc.
This abuse of our Constitution must be brought to a halt. The job of the government is to protect the Constitution - not protect us from everything that goes bump in the night by shredding the Constitution.
The Supreme Court once wrote that "safe is not the equivalent of risk free". Nothing in life is risk free and we all die sooner or later of something. We need however to put the relative risk of terrorism in realistic perspective.
Over 400,000 Americans die from tobacco related illnesses every year, 100,000 from alcohol related illnesses, and any number of other "lifestyle related" deaths from stroke, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. Terrorism has killed no American on U.S. soil since 2001 and even then did not even begin to compare to gun crime deaths in that year. Yet no one is suggesting shredding the Constitution for cancer, diabetes or gun crimes.
The whole point of a terrorist attack is to do something that LOOKS spectacular but actually isn't when compared to ordinary causes of death so as to provoke fear and an unreasonable over-reaction by the government that curtails liberties and destroys our democracy.
The most ominous parts of this rule are:
a) requiring a DHS approved "travel document" - this implies that the government will be engaged in the act of preventing travel outside the country, i.e. issuing "exit" VISAs.
b) requiring permission to depart U.S. airspace from DHS. Clearly someone who has left U.S. airspace no longer poses a direct threat to the United States by virtue of being in an airplane and this amounts to another attempt at "exit" control by the government. Other countries may not be willing to accept such a departed aircraft but our government really has no business denying someone the right to leave or even tracking their comings and goings in this manner.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
