Last year, we reported on a Federal district court hearing on the Constitutionality of portions of the law enacted by California’s Proposition 35, which requires California residents who have been convicted of certain sex-related crimes to register with the local police, annually and within 24 hours of any addition or change, for the rest of […]
The more we learn about the TSA’s handling of our Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the uglier it gets. The latest chapter in the TSA’s vendetta against us is described in a FOIA appeal we filed this week. The DHS, which of course includes the TSA, has long had a department-wide policy requiring special […]
After a year-long “review”, the White House on August 12, 2013, approved the State Department’s proposed new “long form” questionnaires for some (unspecified) subset of applicants for US passports: Form DS-5513, “Supplemental Questionnaire to Determine Entitlement for a U.S. Passport”: Form DS-5513 as approved (OMB Control Number 1405-0216) Supporting Documents for Form DS-5513 (click on […]
In an important victory for judicial review of no-fly orders, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the government’s motion to dismiss the case brought by Gulet Mohamed, overturned the transfer of the case from the District (trial) Court to the Court of Appeals, and sent the case back to the District Court for […]
In a case touching on several issues of concern for us here at the Identity Project, a Federal magistrate has struck down the N.Y. Transit Authority’s “ID rule” as unconstitutionally vague. This was the right decision in the case, and it was issued on the right basis. And it articulates the sort of analysis and […]
Ruling last week in a case brought by a man who was falsely arrested for displaying the text of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution written on his chest during a “secondary inspection” by the TSA at the Richmond, VA, airport (RIC), the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal seeking the dismissal of […]
It’s that time, as it is every five years, for the U.N. Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) to review the status in the U.S of the rights protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) — including the right to travel. The Identity Project is taking part in this process by informing the […]
In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Hestor Prynne was required to wear a prominent badge on her clothes, for life, to identify her publicly with the crime she had been convicted of: violating the sexual mores decreed as law by the fundamentalist religious and political leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Today a Federal court […]
We’re pleased that Cuba has promulgated rules, effective January 13, 2013, which will eliminate the requirement for most (but not all) would-be emigrants to obtain the government’s permission to leave the country, and to make the issuance of a passport a matter of right for most Cuban citizens. At the same time, the US has […]
The new U.S. passport application forms are back, worse than ever. Ignoring massive public opposition, and despite having recently admitted that it is already using the “proposed” forms illegally without approval, the State Department is trying again to get approval for a pair of impossible-to-complete new passport application forms that would, in effect, allow the […]