Are there Secret Laws we don't know about?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_12/007745.php




SECRET LAWS....John Gilmore is suing the government because he doesn't think he should be required to show ID before boarding a commercial flight. I think this is stupid and he deserves to be thrown out of court.

At least, that's what I'd think if it weren't for this:

The Bush administration...claims that the ID requirement is necessary for security but has refused to identify any actual regulation requiring it.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed skeptical of the Bush administration's defense of secret laws and regulations but stopped short of suggesting that such a rule would be necessarily unconstitutional.

"How do we know there's an order?" Judge Thomas Nelson asked. "Because you said there was?"

....The Justice Department has said it could identify the secret law under seal, which would be available to the 9th Circuit but not necessarily Gilmore's lawyers. But any public description would not be permitted, the department said.

WTF? Call me naive, but I've never heard of a secret law. I've heard of secret courts and secret evidence — which are bad enough already — but not secret laws. When did this happen?

more by Kevin Drum at the above link

There are large portions of the budget that are secret, so that would be a 'secret 'law', I'd think.

:shrug:

http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/98-611.pdf

Go to page six of the above doc and read the Homeland Security bit.

If it's the same one, he's a wealthy man who doesn't have a driver's license because his medical condition doesn't allow him to drive.

He refuses to obtain an ID card because he doesn't feel he needs one.

He called the state's hand one day at an airport by demanding to see the law requiring him to have ID.
They were unable to produce written proof of such a law and the case moved to the courts who were also unable to produce the regulation.

He was stonewalled by the federal gov who used "national security" as an excuse to keep the law "secret".

You can't do that sir.
Why not?
I can't tell you, sir.

-Hoot