Have you ever traveled with the fear that you might lose your ID and will be unable to board your return flight? It turns out that the highly classified, super-secret TSA rules actually permit you to get on the plane without an ID, as long as you submit to additional screening (and provided you find a TSA employee who actually knows what the super-secret rules say).

That remarkably reasonable policy is changing.

Beginning Saturday, June 21, travelers ... who "willfully refuse" to show IDs won't be allowed through checkpoints or onto planes. Only passengers who show IDs, and "cooperative" passengers who explain why their IDs are missing and help police confirm their identities, will get through.

The policy change invites abuse by giving TSA the discretion to decide (based on nothing more than a whim, or worse, a prejudice) who is being "cooperative." It also further diminishes the right to travel. [more ...]

Despite the contrary opinion of the Bush adminstration and conservatives, gay marriage is now legal in California. The state began issuing licenses today.

CA, MA and 48 more to go.

Update: Picture swapped for a more cheery one, at the suggestion of ByTheFault.

A Party's Leader should lead. I agree with dday:

Barack Obama could put an end to [the Dems' attempt to capitulate on FISA] today if he wanted. He could tell his colleagues in the House and the Senate that they should not work so hard to codify into law what his opponent is calling for - the ability for an executive to secretly spy on Americans.

. . . Senator Obama has the power to end this. . . . This is . . . an excellent opportunity for Obama to show his leadership skills and where he stands on civil liberties and Constitutional issues. We know that McCain is a mirror of Bush on that score. Senator Obama, you are the party's leader. Do something about this. Today.

Indeed.

I get this info via e-mail

Tomorrow, Murat Kurnaz, a former Guantanamo detainee, will testify via video link before Rep. Delahunt’s Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight. The hearing will focus on refugees that are wrongfully imprisoned at Guantanamo. Witnesses will also include Lt. Colonel Stephen Abraham, who sat on CSRT panels and has since come out to say that the proceedings are fixed, and attorneys for men held at Guantanamo.

Information on the hearing can be found on the committee’s website. If you are unable to attend, the hearing will be webcast on the Subcommittee’s website.

As Big Tent wrote earlier ,the California Supreme Court Thursday overturned a law banning gay marriage (opinion here, pdf). Glenn Greenwald has some terrific analysis on what the decision means and doesn't mean. In a nutshell, from the Washington Post,

Marriage is a "basic civil right" guaranteed to all Californians, "whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples," Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote in a 121-page ruling. He repeatedly said the ruling was based on the California court's first-in-the-nation decision in 1948 to end the state's prohibition on interracial marriage, nearly 20 years before the U.S. Supreme Court took the same action.

The ruling becomes effective in 30 days unless a stay is granted.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama issued similar bland statements on today's decision: [More...]

Via mcjoan, Hoyer is at it again:

Telecom companies have presented congressional Democrats with a set of proposals on how to provide immunity to the businesses that participated in a controversial government electronic surveillance program, a House Democratic aide said Wednesday.

. . . House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday a FISA deal is “still in flux” but he described the latest developments as “promising” and said he hoped to have a solution soon.

Hoyer is a piece of work. He wants to capitulate sooooo baaaad.

Another facet to today's immigrant rights marches (Received by e-mail from America's Voice, which doesn't seem to have a website for me to link to]:

Immigrant rights supporters from coast to coast have been registering voters and helping people become citizens in unprecedented numbers—increasing civic participation in key states and Congressional districts in this exciting election year.

...This year’s rallies are just one snapshot of the intense voter mobilization effort around the country that we believe will play a central role in the 2008 election cycle. Already there has been a surge of immigrant voter participation in the early primary states that will likely spell doom or reward for politicians who seek to use anti-immigration as a wedge in the election.

Some quotes: [More...]

If Rep. Darrell Issa has his way, you'll need to read the fine print carefully before signing up with an Internet Service Provider:

Issa suggested that Internet providers could get "consent from every single person who signed up to operate under their auspices" for federal police to monitor network traffic for attempts to steal personal information and national secrets.

Issa's plan would give the FBI yet another mechanism for invading your privacy.

"That's very troubling," said Greg Nojeim, director of the project on freedom, security, and technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It could be an effort to achieve, through unknowing consent, permission to monitor communications in a way that would otherwise be prohibited by law."

Do you really want to consent to an an "FBI-can-monitor-everything clause" when you sign up with an ISP? Since most of us would balk at such a blatant invasion of our privacy, and since people who send us email (particularly from another country) may not themselves have consented to sharing their thoughts with the FBI, Issa has a back-up plan which, unsurprisingly, is even worse. (more...)

Earlier I wrote about Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio's latest shaming punishment for women inmates. Now I see the Sheriff has much bigger problems. The Mayor of Phoenix is asking the FBI to investigate his crackdowns on the undocumented.

In an April 4 letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, Mayor Phil Gordon asked the agency and the Justice Department’s civil rights division to examine what he called discriminatory harassment and improper stops, searches and arrests by sheriff’s deputies in Maricopa County, which encompasses the metropolitan area.

“Over the past few weeks, Sheriff Arpaio’s actions have infringed on the civil rights of our residents,” Mr. Gordon wrote. “They have put our residents’ well-being, and the well-being of law enforcement officers, at risk.”

Arpaio zings back: [More...]

No human being is illegal. Kudos to San Francisco:

The city of San Francisco has started an advertising push with a very specific target market: illegal immigrants. And while the advertisements will come in a bundle of languages — English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese — they all carry the same message: you are safe here.

In what may be the first such campaign of its kind, the city plans to publish multilanguage brochures and fill the airwaves with advertisements relaying assurance that San Francisco will not report them to federal immigration authorities.

Mayor Gavin Newsom said the campaign was simply an amplification of a longstanding position of not cooperating with immigration raids or other enforcement. The city passed a so-called sanctuary ordinance in 1989.

The rationale behind it: (More...)

The Seton Hall law school's Center for Social Justice (which does great work on behalf of the Guantanamo detainees) has filed a lawsuit against ICE challenging their immigration raids. You can read the complaint and exhibits here.

The suit, against officials of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, on behalf of 10 plaintiffs, including two United States citizens, contends that teams of ICE agents used “deceit or, in some cases, raw force” to gain “unlawful entry.”

The lawsuit claims that agents, sometimes misrepresenting themselves as local police officers hunting for criminals, entered homes where no fugitives being sought were present and detained residents without showing any legal cause. Immigration agents have broad authority to question foreigners about their immigration status, but they may not enter a home without either a warrant or consent.

Some examples of the complained of ICE actions: [More...]

In what is believed to be the first such ruling in the country, the Colorado Court of Appeals has held that no smoking laws apply to actors on stage.

A Colorado appeals court ruled on Thursday that smoking by an actor on stage, while possibly important to character and theatrical message, is still banned by the state’s two-year-old indoor smoking law.

“The smoking ban was not intended to prevent actors from expressing emotion, setting a mood, illustrating a character trait, emphasizing a plot twist or making a political statement,” a three-member panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals said in its unanimous ruling, upholding a lower court’s verdict.

But, the court added, “smoking, by itself, is not sufficiently expressive to qualify for First Amendment protection.”

My reaction below: