THE RIGHT TO TRAVEL The right to travel is not mentioned in our constitution . It is in other constitutions, as it should be, since there is no reason an individual should forfeit his existential right to travel except under very narrow conditions, when to exercise that right would indisputably impair the well and proper functioning of the state. Since the right to travel isn't specifically mentioned in the U.S. Bill of Rights, I logically assume it to be among the rights acknowledged but not listed in the Ninth Amendment. The National Lawyers' Guild apparently find it instead somewhere in the massive and tangled beard of interpretations and rulings growing out of the First Amendment, since they call it a First Amendment right. No matter. Not even the keepers of the Cuban "travel law" doubt you have the right to travel to Cuba. The right to travel has been repeatedly upheld in court. They make it clear that they understand that in their own twisted and defensive way by constantly amending the law not to abridge your right to travel directly, but to try to evade the Constitution by barring you from paying the expenses of normal travel. And, most recently, possibly setting a new absurdity record, they have added a prohibition against transactions paid for by third parties from other countries, meaning you can't incur the expenses of normal travel even if you don't pay them. That this is a "de facto" abridgement of your right to travel would be clear to a child, and that it is clear even to the keepers of the law is shown by their reluctance to go to court. All travelers to Cuba confronted by authorities who have demanded a hearing on Constitutional grounds are still waiting for their hearing. Any traveler to Cuba who decides he wasn't clearly "press" but only a traveler, if he is accosted by the government or thinks he might be, can go to the NLG's website to download the forms he needs to demand a hearing. He will probably never have a hearing, but he won't go to jail or pay a fine, either. And if he does get a hearing, he may wind up helping to finally blow the illegitimate and leaky law out of the water. I'm not talking, by the way, about people who surrender their rights. There have been several individuals ambushed by the government and ordered to pay fines who have agreed to pay reduced fines. Circumstances may have entrapped them, but I wish people who don't intend to insist on their rights wouldn't travel to Cuba at all. Beyond this explanation, this website isn't specifically about the right to travel. It is about the much clearer right of every American to be his own reporter and go to Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, or elsewhere, to find the news the establishment press refuses to cover. |
