Forms of identity (Was RE: Open versus closed PKI systems)

[Julian T. J. Midgley]

On Thu, 17 May 2001, Ian Johnson wrote:

> Roland Perry wrote:
>
> > On the other hand, without the power, how do you stop fleeing criminals?
> > (I suppose you could tap their use of e-commerce travel agents to work
> > out where and when to apprehend them...)
>
> How do you catch non-fleeing criminals?  Plods grossly over extensive
> powers of arrest still apply at airports. The state should have no
> right to interfere in any way in my behaviour without a serious and
> reasonably held belief, based on evidence that I am involved in
> criminal conduct.

By checking your passport they can ensure that you are not one of those
they believe to been involved in criminal activity.  You seem to be
implying that they should rely on identification of suspects by
photographs (despite the relative ease with which facial features can be
disguised).

Personally, whilst I object to the level of interference permitted by RIP,
I have no problem at all with passport controls, which can reasonably be
argued to be necessary.

To put it another way, would you rather they did not check your passport,
and so allowed a known terrorist on to the flight with you, when a
passport check might have stopped him?

In any event, most passport checks on leaving this country amount to
nothing more than the quickest of inspections, and no details of the
passport are actually noted down, so it's not as though they are even
gathering information on your movements.

Julian

-- 
Julian T. J. Midgley			http://www.xenoclast.org
Cambridge, England.                       PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F