The Right To Travel Goes Way Back

According to a UCLA Law Review source dating from 1975 and written by Stewart Abercrombie Baker, Magna Carta (ch. 42, 1215) “guaranteed free passage into and out of the realm.” “Blackstone’s Commentaries proclaims a right to travel which includes ‘the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one’s person to whatsoever place one’s own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due process of law.'” (volume 1, *134). “The right to travel was declared ‘natural and inherent’ by the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776” (ch. 1, para. XV (1776)). Article IV of the Articles of Confederation protected “free ingress and regress to and from any other State…” The Constitution dropped that language and instead incorporated the right to travel under the privileges and immunities clause of article IV, section 2. “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” Baker writes: “The change was made not to disparage the right to travel, but because specific protection for the right would be redundant. Free travel was considered to be a necessary corollary to the ‘more perfect Union’ which the Constitution created.” The Supreme Court has recognized this right in numerous cases.

I do not claim that the right to travel as interpreted by a Supreme Court of 2010 would allow the traveler unimpeded travel or prevent placing such a burden on the traveler that it would effectively foreclose travel by air. The Court would probably back the TSA and provide some sort of balancing test. I assert that such a test would be unconstitutional and would destroy the right to travel. I assert that the TSA’s search procedures place a burden on the right to travel that destroys that right for millions of protesting Americans.

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6:06 pm on November 22, 2010