Hours after I met Phil Mocek at the Drug Policy Alliance conference in Albuquerque, he was arrested at the local airport after he refused to show Transportation Security Authority officials his identification.
While we at Flex Your Rights start by educating folks on how to avoid arrest, we admire the Flex experts (Flexperts?) like Phil who know their rights and are prepared to take an arrest in order to test bad laws in court.
And this is where things get weird with the shadowy world of the TSA: Phil didn’t break any written laws. Refusing to provide ID to TSA agents isn’t a crime — yet he was charged with disorderly conduct, concealing identify, resisting arrest and criminal trespass.
Presumably, most or all of these charges will be dropped. And Phil is likely to fight things out in court if they are not.
Regardless of the outcome, Flex gives major props to freedom fighters like Phil and John Gilmore who put their freedom on the line to expose new and strange limitations on everyone’s personal freedoms.