Talk:Freedom of movement under United States law

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Weskara in topic Sovereign Citizens and Freedom to Travel

Fruit inspections on state borders edit

How does this apply to fruit inspection stops on state borders (I'm looking at you, California)? Here's an example (YouTube video). Unjedai (talk) 20:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)Reply


my understanding is the people are not restricted from travel, only the fruit. the state, especially given that not only is agriculture a large part of its economy but also California produces more of the US's food than any other state, (and many crops are almost exclusively grown in CA, including "staples" such as celery, broccoli, and walnuts); in fact roughly half of the US's supply of fruits, nuts, and vegetables comes from California. therefore the state can certainly demonstrate a vested and substantial, reasonable, and legitimate interest in protecting the state's crops from potential devastation by imported disease, insects, or vermin, or from being overtaken by an invasive species (many plants can be grown just fine in one area, but completely destroy an entire local or regional ecosystem when transplanted to another, otherwise identical, area to which it is not native).

unfortunately, fruit happens to be the most common carrier of disease and pests - think those ever-impossible to eliminate fruit flies; once you get one in your kitchen, there's always going to be at least one or two for weeks it seems lol.

here's an article, particular to the affects on the grape sub-industry in CA, that helps highlight why the state would want to do the fruit inspections, though it only (barely) touches on the interstate transportation at the very end. it does have pretty solid citations at the end though. http://www.westernfarmpress.com/grapes/invasive-pests-severely-impact-california-agriculture

(i happen to live in CA...and i've gone through those inspection points a few times myself as a kid lol, mostly when heading to Salt Lake City - never coming back in that i can remember, my guess being that we were leaving a quarantine area when headed out but not on the way back.)

M. 76.170.99.57 (talk) 14:52, 30 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Potential source for this article edit

The lawyer and road rights legal theorist Bob Mionske has written extensively about the US right of freedom of movement. SaltyBoatr get wet 16:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)botty stankReply

Potential bias in subsection 2.3: Transportation Security Administration edit

i decided to address this issue in this manner, rather than simply making the edit(s) myself, for two reasons. one, i've never edited or written a Wikipedia article before, and for someone as internet-savvy as i generally am it took me long enough just to figure out how to get HERE lol; and two, i'm not sure exactly which possible fix would be best, so i thought leaving it up to the community would be the best choice.

most of what i've read in this article is pretty neutral. however, when i got to the end of the first paragraph in this subsection (2.3), the following sentence struck me as very biased:

"Regardless of the constitutionality of laws passed post-9/11 with respect to freedom of movement being a privilege, all U.S. citizens have the right to travel or move within and between the 50 states without the requirement of submitting to a search of one's person or property prior to travel or movement.[27][28]"

it struck me such, in part because either it states as unequivocal fact an opinion, or it states a fact that, without clarifying details, could easily be seen as an opinion. my feelings on this matter were only bolstered by the two citations given; #27 does not include a link and i have yet to find it online (though i am still searching!), but #28 is HIGHLY biased in and of itself, and would seem to be a poor citation for anything presented as unequivocal fact rather than as but one opinion on a particular matter.

the statement is so potentially contentious, i could easily write an entire dissertation (or a "Reader's Digest" version of several pages) presenting a counterargument to the idea perceivably presented that a US citizen can go wherever they want, however they want, whenever they want...no matter what, with just as many (if not far more) citations as this article has but only citing case law, statutory law, executive decisions, and other similar, indisputable sources. to illustrate the potential contention, replace the concept of "right to travel" with the concept of "right to marry;" then when further refining to the right of air travel, replace "air travel" with "same-sex marriage."

this could easily be fixed one of two ways:

• 1, the statement could be amended to say "according to case law," "according to many legal scholars," or something similar, or

• 2, it could be amended to add details that clarify the right to travel without submitting to warrantless search does not necessarily mean the right to travel by ANY means the individual wishes (particularly since, as a parallel which the article even mentions earlier on, SCOTUS has held that limitations/restrictions - including not only the article-mentioned requirement of licensing but the requirement, in California at least, that anyone driving a motor vehicle must agree to submit to a blood, breath, or urine test to determine BAC or presence of intoxicating substances, upon the request of a peace officer, as a condition of receiving or maintaining said license (with refusal an immediately arrestable offense), CAN be placed on a specified manner of travel.)

note: to clarify the reason for my example as support of option #2 slightly...now, if a state were to pass a law that said anyone moving anywhere, in ANY manner, in any public place had to submit to such a test, that would likely be an issue.

failing either of those two options, i would tend to think a direct mention of the case law, USCFR section, or other similar source that defined the as-given statement as fact would be necessary, or at a minimum the inclusion of a citation to such a source and not to just a dissertation, blog, editorial, or other similar, potentially biased source.

in my opinion, it would also do well to add a mention that "transit through the navigable airspace," while declared by USCFR as a right and not a privilege, can be accomplished by means other than commercial airplanes, as "aircraft" encompasses also helicopters, gliders, private airplanes, hot air balloons, and more, and there are still yet other means of air transit such as hang gliders, wingsuits, parachutes...you get my point. this would be a clarifying detail on the mention of the relevant code section, and would also assist in eliminating (though not doing so outright on its own) the perceived bias i mentioned at the beginning of this post.

thanks for reading my novel...sorry i couldn't be more concise!

M. 76.170.99.57 (talk) 14:31, 30 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Sovereign Citizens and Freedom to Travel edit

im not a wikipedia editor, but if someone good at editing wikipedia could make it clearer on this page that Freedom To Travel has absolutely no protections for people not obeying state laws that require things like drivers licenses, vin numbers, and license plates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weskara (talkcontribs) 03:01, 20 November 2020 (UTC)Reply