So sang Jim Morrison. Talk about strange people, what about this guy?

He’s John Gilmore and he’s the subject of this breathless article in the Washington Post titled, “Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented U.S. Effort More Extensive Than Previously Known”

“The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department’s Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.

The Automated Targeting System has been used to screen passengers since the mid-1990s, but the collection of data for it has been greatly expanded and automated since 2002, according to former DHS officials.”

…”The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans’ exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used to impede their right to travel.

“The federal government is trying to build a surveillance society,” said John Gilmore, a civil liberties activist in San Francisco whose records were requested by the Identity Project, an ad-hoc group of privacy advocates in California and Alaska. The government, he said, “may be doing it with the best or worst of intentions. . . . But the job of building a surveillance database and populating it with information about us is happening largely without our awareness and without our consent.”

Gilmore’s file, which he provided to The Washington Post, included a note from a Customs and Border Patrol officer that he carried the marijuana-related book “Drugs and Your Rights.” “My first reaction was I kind of expected it,” Gilmore said. “My second reaction was, that’s illegal.”

Here is Gilmore’s website, appropriately named “toad.com”.¬†¬† Check it out.¬† A sample:

“In direct violation of the Privacy Act, which states that federal agencies shall not record the how citizens use their First Amendment rights (unless specifically instructed to do so by statute), the US Department of Homeland Security recorded in my permanent dossier that as I flew into San Francisco from London, I had “many small flashlights with pot leaves on them. He had a book entitled ‘Drugs And Your Rights’. [sic]” Images of the flashlight and the book are above.
The Gestapo cared what works of philosophy you were reading. So did the Stasi. Those of you who live in free countries may find it a bit hard to understand why any populace wouldn’t tear to bits any bureaucrats that would take away the fundamental right to read whatever you like without it being used to determine how your government treats you as you cross borders or travel within your own country.

Every country tells its citizens, and the world at large, that it is a “free country”. The USSR had a constitution with a bill of rights much like that of the USA. Just as in the USA, those rights were not enforced and not enforceable.

The United States is not a free country. Only when the DHS is dissolved, disbanded, disempowered, and disrespected will there be any prayer of freedom.”

Can you blame them?¬† I hope they have a large database on this nut? Could you imagine flying coast to coast with this hippy moonbat wackjob blathering on about “the man” and “sleep with one eye open man, they’re everywhere!”?