Wow. Secret Laws.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's John Gilmore is suing the Justice Department because he does not believe the law requires him to fly with ID. What is the DOJ's defense? That there is a law requiring IDs, only it's secret and they can't tell anyone what it says.

Really. I'm not kidding.

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.

(Via Kevin Drum via Talk Left.)

Also see John Gilmore's website about the case and the issues involved.