> So it was never about security at all then, was it?
Never was.
I flew every other week prior to covid and haven't once been through the scanners. For the first ~6 years, I opted out and got pat down over and over again.
Then I realized I could even skip that.
Now at the checkpoint, I stand at the metal detector. When they wave me to the scanner, I say "I can't raise my arms over my head." They wave me through the metal detector, swab my hands, and I'm done. I usually make it through before my bags.
Sometimes, a TSA moron asks "why not?" and I simply say "are you asking me to share my personal healthcare information out loud in front of a bunch of strangers? Are you a medical professional?" and they back down.
Other times, they've asked "can you raise them at least this high?" and kind of motion. I ask "are you asking me to potentially injure myself for your curiosity? are you going to pay for any injuries or pain I suffer?"
The TSA was NEVER about security. It was designed as a jobs program and make it look like we were doing something for security.
> The TSA was NEVER about security. It was designed as a jobs program and make it look like we were doing something for security.
To a great extent, it is security, even if it's mostly security theater, in the sense that it is security theater that people want.
A large portion, maybe even the majority, of travelers simply won't feel safe without it. I've had and overheard multiple conversations at the airport where somebody felt uncomfortable boarding a plane because they saw the screening agent asleep at the desk. Pro-tip, trying to explain security theater to the concerned passenger is not the right solution at this point ;-)
Even Bruce Schneier, who coined the term "security theater" has moderated his stance to acknowledge that it can satisfy a real psychological need, even if it's irrational.
We may be more cynical and look upon such things with disdain, but most people want the illusion of safety, even if deep down they know it's just an illusion.
What ethnicity are you? I went through an airport -- and nobody else got screened except me. What was special about me? I was the only non-white person in the airport. Upon complaining, this was the response:
> Random selection by our screening technology prevents terrorists from attempting to defeat the security system by learning how it operates. Leaving out any one group, such as senior citizens, persons with disabilities, or children, would remove the random element from the system and undermine security. We simply cannot assume that all terrorists will fit a particular profile.
Today was the second time in a year I went into one and my crotch got flagged because of my pants zipper. nothing in my pockets. no belt. nothing hidden. etc.
I was then subjected to full pat down and a shoe chemical test as a cherry on top.
Might need to try convincing them next time to let me do the metal detector instead.
What's the point of this higher fidelity scanner if it can't tell the difference between a fly and a restricted object?
It's hard to put into words, but you're eroding the social contract through your actions. People with conditions get accused of faking it all the time, and it sounds like you're actually faking it.
I’m genuinely confused by this take. Admittedly my knowledge of exactly how the TSA operates is quite shallow, but don’t they xray your bags and scan for weapons on your body?
Are we saying that if they stopped doing that there would not be an increase in incidents?
Or is it that they are overly performative? I’ve never been all that annoyed with raising my hands above my head, but it seems like, in your case, if a passenger can’t do that, they would make an exception for you anyways. Which seems fair?
And it’s been confirmed by red teams sneaking weapons through checkpoints that it’s not even doing the basic job. Lots of hassle and expense for little to no gain in security.
So... You're lying about having a health condition in a loud and obnoxious way? Not sure what the point is.
Just because you can get around TSA checkpoints doesn't mean it's not "about" security. There's only so much that can be done when we have to balance safety and convenience.
You sound insufferable. Why do they need to be a moron? As you state, designed as a jobs program. So, these workers are low paying government employees who likely have trouble attaining a job or maintaining high job security. You likely live a far more privileged life than these workers. You think they want to do this job? And you call them a moron for simply attempting to do their job?
This is brilliant. I continue to opt out and get the pat down every single time. Which is annoying because they deliberately make it slow and anxiety inducing with your bags are out of sight for quite a while.
I used to "punish" the rude or particularly slow ones by insisting on a private screening (since that involves two officers, and Is A Whole Thing) but I haven't gotten a rude one in a few years. But that also just makes it take even longer.
I did this about a dozen times until I had too many TSA agents become extremely shitty and hostile towards me. The last two times they were making threats as I was walking away that they were going to "get me". I decided my protest opt out excuse wasn't worth dealing with attitude. They usually also made me stand there and wait sort of blocking everyone for 5-10 minutes until they even called someone over
Lots of society is like this. For example, red lights. I run them all the time and nothing happens. You just have to pay attention. It's why the police won't ticket you in SF. It doesn't matter. If anyone else complains you just yell "Am I being detained" a few times and then hit the accelerator. Teslas are fast. They can't catch you.
Holy shit that's genius, but I do worry about the minor degradation of respect for actual disabled folks if it becomes 'weaponized' in a widespread way
Most people I know who object to full-body millimeter-wave scanners either do so on pseudoscientific health claims, or “philosophical” anti-scanner objections that are structurally the same genre as sovereign-citizen or First-Amendment-auditor thinking.
It may be many things, but I very much doubt the motivation is a money grab. A few people paying $45 isn't lining the pockets of some government official, or plugging a hole in any possible budget.
Dealing with the presence of travelers who haven't updated their driver's licenses requires a bunch of extra staff to perform the time-consuming additional verifications. The basic idea is for those staff to be paid by the people using them, rather than by taxpayers and air travelers more generally. As well as there being a small deterrent effect.
There is no legal requirement to show id or answer any questions to establish identification before flying. In other words there is no extra work required by law which the fee would cover.
It's not pay $45 to go though, it's pay $45 for someone to take you around back and look you up based on secondary identification, and if they can't positively identify you based on that you still can't go through.
This is a system that has been in place for a long, long time. You could always say you don't have ID and they'll look you up. The change is they're now charging for it.
> And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.
This is also not accurate. If you're talking about Clear, you just skip to the front of the normal line. If you're talking about Pre, those people are individually background-checked before hand, and it costs $19/yr, so it's not exactly a tophat and monocle only program. Especially since that's half the price of a one-way taxi ride to the airport, let alone the ticket. The airport self-selects for the fairly well off to begin with.
It's not a money grab, it's a tactic to encourage compliance. This isn't evidence of a change in security posture, you've always been able to travel without a Real ID. They've been pushing Real ID for more than a decade, 90% of people have one already anyway, the remaining stragglers simply don't care because there have never been any consequences.
Now TSA is offering an ultimatum. Pay $45 once to renew your ID or pay it every time you travel. For most people this is enough motivation to renew the ID and never think about it again.
Exactly. I wish it was about money. It's about surveillance. The TSA even flatly says the quiet part out loud. "The fee is to make you _comply_."
That's madness.
For the $45 I should get a "TSA ID" that lets me fly for a year. That would be a cash grab. They don't even care enough to do that. They want to blur the line between state and federal and they're going to use your need to fly to accomplish that.
s/tactic to encourage compliance/blatant coercion/
FTFY
They've been trying to push this BS for over a decade but some of the states haven't been adopting it the way they'd like. The threats to ban travel without one were ultimately toothless as there would have been far too much backlash (and that would presumably be unconstitutional). This is what they figure they can get away with.
> the remaining stragglers simply don't care because there have never been any consequences
The default ID that my state issues has historically not been RealID compliant and I think that's a good thing. I have no interest in actively participating in the latest authoritarian overreach attempt.
It was about immigration. I remember around 2015 when I was on F1 visa - in Michigan - you could get drivers license and it would expire when your visa expired. However my few lucky friends in NY/NJ/CA? Just got blanket 5yr expiry on their licenses from the day of renewal.
I.E. their visas could expire well before their ‘IDs’ could.
RealID was introduced to eliminate these discrepancies. And to get a realId now you need to show your visa documents/approvals.
I knew the Real ID requirements wouldn't be enforced, at least here in California, about a year before, after I saw the requirements: California can't enforce it because it would prevent too many undocumented people from flying.
Although, I thought it would just be delayed indefinitely. I suppose it effectively has been.
My wife, who was on a H1B visa and managed to fly without an ID a few years back. They took her to some side room, asked a bunch of questions and looked her up based on name, DOB, address etc.
TSA pre-check, Global Entry, and Clear _infuriate_ me. It is privatization of public transportation and a net negative for society. In New York, JFK has closed off half of the security entrances for priority lanes, meaning a majority of passengers are forced into 50% of the entrances. The airport was built with state+federal funds, and now tax-paying residents are second-class to those who can afford $100/year. It's not even the amount, it's the principle.
And before people start to argue that planes aren't public transportation - over 10 million _passenger_ flights a year. It is critical to the functioning of all aspects of society.
I had the option to get a "Real ID" the last time I renewed my driver's license, and did not. I forget which stupid bit of paper gave me trouble, but I had a valid passport (the Mother of All IDs), which was both insufficient to get a "Real ID" and sufficient to fly. It's a joke, a nuisance, and now a revenue source.
A general reminder that every extra obstacle to getting a valid ID (or voting) disproportionately impacts the poor. They often lack the paperwork, the free time, and the money to deal with the extra process involved.
> And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.
It wasn't just pay for play! TSA-PreCheck and Global Entry approval requires a thorough background check of your residential, work, and travel history, also in-person interview. Unfortunately, some Privacy activists prefer not doing that over occasional convenience.
The TSA are literally terrorists. Their job isn't to stop terrorism, their job is to keep memory of terrorism fresh in the public's mind, to keep them afraid, to constantly remind people that they must be subservient to the federal government or else more people will die. It's flat out terrorism.
Or the fact that you have to re-up for Pre-TSA -- they already know who we are, they already have their databases, it's intentional money grab. But then again, so is PreTSA...
No. In the early 2000s we called it security theater. Do we think that somehow they went from theater to serious? Hell no, it's all downward spiral. I constantly pen-test the TSA using humorous methods while traveling, it's a complete joke.
> Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.
Are these the same poor people that reputedly cannot get IDs to vote because of a government conspiracy to suppress their votes, yet can afford an airline ticket and commute to an airport?
What are these checks and scrutiny and how are they applied in the time available? Given the time available is not great ("I'm on the next flight") and the amount of money is modest if humans are involved I'm intrigued to know what could be done that $45 would cover.
what the fuck extra checks and scrutiny could they possibly need? They already go through an x-ray machine and get molested before we get on the plane, "real ID" or not.
It's a proof of an address, akin to soviet-style "propiska", which was very important and hard to get without (it also affected ownership/inheritance).
What's more fun is that even though they accept different types of residence, they mostly trust utility bills -- but to set up utilities on your name even for your personal home utility company will ask a lot of documents, including credit score checks.
I personally felt that it's utility companies who do the heavy proof checking, not DMVs.
From what I've heard, the no-ID process does indeed feature additional screening. I think the passenger would fill out a form and the TSA would cross-check it with their information. This was free prior to the new ID push, but since now people need a special ID to fly instead of using their normal one, I'm guessing they made the process cost extra to disincentivize people from sticking with their IDs and just doing the free manual process every time. I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm just saying that this is probably why they decided to try this.
Saying that there is “no legal requirement to show an ID” is truthy but misleading. Federal law gives the TSA authority over “screening” passengers: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/44901 (“The Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration shall provide for the screening of all passengers and property, including United States mail, cargo, carry-on and checked baggage, and other articles, that will be carried aboard a passenger aircraft operated by an air carrier or foreign air carrier in air transportation or intrastate air transportation.”).
That means the TSA can do whatever it can get away with labeling “screening.” It doesn’t matter that Congress didn’t specifically require showing IDs. That’s just one possible way of doing “screening.” Under the statute, the TSA is not required to do screening any particular way.
> The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), which is set law, provides a “complete defense” against any penalty for failing to respond to any collection of information by a Federal agency that hasn’t been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), isn’t accompanied by a valid PRA notice, or doesn’t display a valid OMB Control Number.
As the article works through, as a Federal Agency the TSA cannot just label stuff "screening" and demand money, or at least, they can't do so and then make you pay it.
Would declining to let you through security actually be a "penalty" (legally speaking), though? There are a ton of things you need to show papers for in the US; I can't imagine that all of them were pre-approved by the OMB.
You seem to be under the impression that the word "screening" means TSA can do whatever it wants. When in fact, if you click on the link under the word "Screening" in the own link you posted, there is a definition provided.
> (4) Screening defined .— In this subsection the term “screening” means a physical examination or non-intrusive methods of assessing whether cargo poses a threat to transportation security.
>You seem to be under the impression that the word "screening" means TSA can do whatever it wants.
I assure you TSA thinks it can do whatever it wants. I say this as a white male and have certainly heard even worse stories that my own of egregious violations from people with other demographics.
And reading further...The Administrator may approve additional methods to ensure that the cargo does not pose a threat to transportation security and to assist in meeting the requirements of this subsection.
You clipped the first part while the definition was a lot longer including the above TSA can do anything they want escape hatch. Have a good day sir.
Chevron just said that courts must defer to any reasonable interpretation of the statute by the agency. Getting rid of that just means that courts get to decide what words like “screening” mean. It doesn’t mean Congress needs to explicitly approve every method.
Chevron doesn’t change anything here. Checking IDs easily falls within the scope of the word “screening,” no matter who is deciding the meaning of that term.
To be fair, that's not exactly what Loper Bright says. It holds that the courts should read the statute independently and not assume that Agency rules or procedures are prima facie controlling where the statute is ambiguous.
That's not what the end of Chevron deference means. It means that if Congress didn't specifically approve this method, a court may find it illegal much more easily than was previously the case. The deference in "Chevron deference" was from the courts towards administrative agencies.
It doesn’t bypass the screening. It’s one screening method that’s cheaper to implement because the work is done by the Real ID verification, and another screening method that costs money to do different checks.
You have the right to travel without ID in the U.S. The TSA may demand it, and may tell you it's legally required, but that doesn't make that true.
"In fact, the TSA does not require, and the law does not authorize the TSA to require, that would-be travelers show any identity documents. According to longstanding practice, people who do not show any identity documents travel by air every day – typically after being required to complete and sign the current version of TSA Form 415 and answer questions about what information is contained in the file about them obtained by the TSA from data broker Accurint…."
Explain to me how qualified immunity is better than any ill it is supposed to address? And how is it that if you sue the government and win, then the judgement doesn't automatically award reasonable legal fees?
The ill that it's supposed to address is people hassling government officials who are just doing their jobs. Their jobs require them to do things that people don't want them to do, like making you pay taxes or go to jail for committing crimes. They are prominent targets and can easily spend their entire career fighting off complaints.
Of course that promptly shifts the potential for abuse in the other direction. Supposedly, democracy is the control over that. If they are abusing their office, you vote them out. (Or you vote out the elected official supervising them, such as a mayor or sheriff.)
It actually does work out most of the time. The cases of abuse are really few and far between. But in a country of 300 million, "few and far between" is somebody every single day, and a decent chance that it's you at some point.
That said, it should be zero, and there's good reason to think that for every offender you see there are dozens or hundreds of people complicit in allowing it. The theory I outlined above can only handle so many decades of concerted abuses before they become entrenched as part of the system. At which point it may be impossible to restore it without resetting everything to zero and starting over.
> The ill that it's supposed to address is people hassling government officials who are just doing their jobs.
How? If they're doing their jobs, then they are in the right and would be defended by their agency. If they are doing something illegal, they'd be in trouble. But that's the point!
Still. I understand the officers having "qualified immunity". But not the agency.
If an agency has shitty officers doing dodgy stuff, it's on the agency. The agents may be declared immune to direct litigation, but any claims and reparations should be automatically shifted to the agency.
Especially when the implication in the article is the police tried to delete a video from evidence -- and still ended up getting to hide behind qualified immunity.
Two separate things. Qualified immunity is just immunity from individual liability afforded to government agents when conducting government business, as long as they are conducting it properly.
Have you ever looked at legal proceedings involving criminals? It’s 95% noise and 5% signal. Criminals are, in general, bad people with a lot of time on their hands, and without qualified immunity you’d totally swamp the legal system with frivolous lawsuits.
Flying domestically is usually cheaper than driving once you get past the range of a tank of gas or two. Also, RealID isn't fully permeated yet - my state won't fully phase out non-RealIDs until 2029.
It’s annoying we don’t offer passport cards for free to people as a national government credential. The cost is similar to this fee, and your app and photo could be taken by TSA right at the checkpoint. You head to your flight after identity proofed, and your passport card could then be mailed to you.
It is, but I think that's a separate issue. There's no authorization, let alone a mandate, to prove identity to move about. The mission, ostensibly, is to make air travel safe by ensuring that passengers don't bring dangerous items onto the plane. It's not to track who is going where.
You could even double them up as government issued voter-ID and save all that hassle every 4 years. Or the current round of random stop-and-search going on...
You can and should. Some TSA workers get pissy over it, which is weird. It's there to replace them. The trainers don't, its an option you have the right to.
Seems quite dangerous. In my country, this was the norm for local flights - usually smaller planes, 1-2hr flights. It was common that if you could not attend a meeting, a colleague would go with your ticket. Nobody cared.
Then one plane crashed. And some passengers weren't insured, as they were not officially on the plane. Those families could not get a body back, nor any compensation, as the company said that they could not prove they were on the plane.
I don't read the small print of IATA when getting a ticket, maybe I should someday.
>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
And no, you cannot convince me that searching families flying to see grandma for Christmas is a "reasonable search".
Also, the question has been largely sidestepped by the fact that travelers consent to search by voluntarily proceeding into the secure (airside) area of the airport, and there are usually--if not always--signs at the TSA screening point that say so. It’s not like you’re being involuntarily searched at the check-in desk.
You are entering government property so they have a right to search you. Just like if you enter a sporting event they have a right to search you. You are free to not use either service.
Now we could argue that this isn’t a desirable way to do things but I don’t how it would violate the fourth amendment.
If Real ID is so good, why do we have CLEAR? Why can I not skip the line with RealID?
If we are forced RealID, why not just make all the TSA checkpoints like Global Entry (or in several countries with IDs), fully automate them, using Real ID. That would get rid of CLEAR, and a lot of TSA agents.
CLEAR is basically (mostly) self-service pre-verification by a commercial entity, achieves near the same exact thing as it is done at the TSA agent with RealID now.
The CLEAR system uses CAT or CAT-2 to send info to TSA to validate. Same, exact protocol and information as it is with the TSA Agent.
The only meaningful difference is that the biometrics is pre-stored with CLEAR, while the other travelers are collected at the TSA agent stands and compared to RealID.
There are multiple countries where all of this is done with dark technomagic. You can see this witchcraft working with Global Entry (CBP, not TSA).
What is interesting about this is that CLEAR has a relationship with the airports (mostly), not TSA. Airports are the ones pushing CLEAR so they do not have insane queues, not TSA.
Fun fact, I rarely have to show my ID when flying in the EU. But what I don’t understand is why so many people don’t have an ID in the US. Seems like one of the very basic service governments should provide.
I fly between various countries in western Europe a dozen times a year and have done so for a decade and every single time I've boarded a plane I have had to shown a photo ID with my name on it that matches my name on the plane ticket. Most of the time the gate agent barely looks at the ID/name, but it is required to hand it to them. I have never once just walked on a plane without showing ID with my name on it, and I have never seen anyone in line in front of me do so, ever, and I'm talking hundreds of flights at this point. It doesn't have to be a passport, I see older Spanish people showing their driver's license only all the time, but it has to have a photo and a name (to match the name on the ticket in some way) and be a state issued ID. Again, they seem very lenient with that whole name matching thing and checking the authenticity of the ID (it isn't scanned, just visually inspected), but I've never seen anyone just say 'no' and get on a plane.
So what the hell part of the EU are you talking about where they don't ask for any ID at the point where you are boarding, whatsoever?
For reference, here is Iberia's page for required ID when flying, and I've seen that this is absolutely enforced every time when checking in and boarding.
Plenty of people have an ID in the US, the issue is whether or not those IDs are considered valid to get past security in the airport.
Did you know that Norway only introduced a national ID card in 2020? Until then if you didn't have a driver's license the only other state-issued ID option was a passport, and 10% of Norwegians don't have one. Until around 2015 or so banks would issue your bank card with a photo and your birthdate on it, and that was used as a de facto ID.
I've flown between plenty of EEA countries without ever having to show an ID. The requirement to have one in the US is incredibly stupid and only serves to make it harder for decent people to travel. It provides no actual value to safety.
It's a product of the lingering sentiment of a country founded on not wanting to pay taxes, mixed with (often warrented) mistrust of the government and truely insane immigration laws all jumbled togeather.
Yeah, we would be better of with something universal and more robust then the toilet paper they print social security numbers on, but we got the system it was possible to pass through congress.
That’s completely false. You ALWAYS have to show your ID card to fly in the EU. Always.
Seriously, just stop trying to use us to justify silly arguments about the USA. Yes, Europeans must show ID to travel, must absolutely show ID to vote (it would just be ridiculous if we didn’t) and getting the ID costs us money and must be renewed every 10 years (and paid for).
A number of years back I somehow managed to lose my driver's license between the car and the airport door. Even called the limo company to have the driver look. But <poof> apparently. Normally I have a backup ID but this was a very last minute and short trip.
Amazingly (to me) the TSA process was easy. What wasn't easy was checking into a crappy Travelodge near the airport. I imagine if I were staying at one of my usual chains where I have a loyalty card, a manager would have waved away any problems. (I did have photo ID and I was plastered all over the Web; I just didn't have backup government issued photo ID which I now make a particular point of carrying.)
I once told TSA this:
"I lost my Driver's License, and the state won't issue another for a month maybe. I understand there's an extra screening pat-down."
Before entering the porno scanners I put everything in my pockets on the scanner belt, and they didn't bother to pat me down. YMMV.
TSA has been an elaborate ruse to create a recurring revenue service program called “clear” and tsa-pre. Of course they are also able to monetize the ruse itself.
It's an elaborate ruse to condition Americans to the 4th amendment not being a real thing. The PATRIOT ACT which created the TSA was written by Joe Biden after the Oklahoma City bombing and passed after being reintroduced following 9/11 to end-run around the 4th amendment.
It's a real head-scratcher that the cohort that claims government ID is unattainable for some people hasn't taken up this issue. "Real ID" isn't something that is just delivered to you. Now we're going to charge money not to have it?
It used to cost $10 for a replacement ID printed in the DMV. Now I pay $25 for a third-party vendor to line their pockets and mail me a new ID weeks later!
Democrats usually complain that ID requirements suppress voters’ rights. Your right to travel isn’t as thoroughly suppressed by this as the right to vote is. It’s not a strong excuse, but it’s not totally inconsistent either. And, at least before this change, there were still ways to go through security screening without ID. If those are not allowed any more, maybe Dems will take up the issue.
Frankly, the entire agency is unconstitutional. From the fact that they basically exist under a general warrant issued by the supreme court (although they invented a new catagory, "administrative search", which doesn't fundamentally change what it is) to the restrictions on the right to assembly requires free travel as well, although the current legal underpinnings are "creative", the 10th admendment which grants all non enumerated powers to the states, to the restrictions on bearing arms on the plane and a half dozen other parts. About the only part they might be able to stand on is commerce again, but then so much travel in the larger states remains in the state (ex dallas/houston, san fran/LA) requiring seperate security zones.
Bush should have _NEVER_ nationalized them, at least as a private entity they existed in a sorta gray area. Now they are clearly violating the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 10th amendments.
And the solution isn't another bullshit supreme court amendment of the absolutist language in the bill of rights/etc but to actually have a national discussion about how much safety the are providing vs their cost, intrusiveness, etc and actually find enough common ground to amend the constitution. Until then they are unconstitutional and the court makes a mockery of itself and delgitimizes then entire apparatus in any ruling that doesn't tear it down as such.
And before anyone says "oh thats hard", i'm going to argue no its not, pretty much 100% of the country could agree to amend the 2nd to ban the private ownership of nuclear weapons, there isn't any reason that it shouldn't be possible to get 70% support behind some simple restrictions "aka no guns, detected via a metal detector on public airplanes" passed. But then the agency wouldn't be given free run to do whatever the political appointee of the week feels like. But there are "powers" that are more interested in tracking you, selling worthless scanners, and creating jobs programs for people who enjoy feeling people up and picking through their dirty underwear.
Inventing categories is what the court does. The Constitution is incredibly brief, and gives zero guidance on how to clarify conflicts. It has always been full of "common sense" exceptions, like criminalizing threats (despite the unqualified "freedom of speech" language) or probable cause (police can invade your house if they know you are committing a crime right now).
The sum total of these "common sense" exceptions, and the "legal reasoning" that extends them to the modern world, means that the document itself doesn't actually mean anything. Your rights, such as they are, consist of literally millions of pages of decisions, plus the oral tradition passed down in law schools.
The constitution doesn't provide a "common sense" loophole. Much of it is written in absolutist language because that was the actual intention. The amendment process is provided to open "common sense" loopholes if everyone agrees they are common sense, not for the courts to gradually erode the language until the federal goverment is doing things the founders explicitly fought the revolutionary war over.
Put another way, Writs of Assistance, were perfectly legal common sense way for the British government to assure their customs laws were being enforced, and it was one of the more significant drivers of the revolution.
It seems to me it is more of a penalty to encourage people to get Real ID while still allowing them to fly. I would imagine most air travelers have some kind of real id, passport, actual real id DL or global entry card. Very few people cannot get real id due to name inconsistency issues, but most are just lazy. Allowing them to fly for $45 seems reasonable to me, particularly if they cause delays at security.
But fun fact: even if an ID is on that list, if it's not one that their little scanner machines know how to read, then it's effectively not on that list. I've been hassled every single time I try to use my TWIC card at TSA, and they invariably demand to use my (non-REAL) driver's license, since their dumb scanners can manage to read that one. They often then have the gall to give me one of their "You need to have a REAL ID" pamphlets. I can't wait to see what happens next time I travel with this new fee in effect.
This has to make you wonder if the entire Security Theater is for security or money. I mean, if the RealID is supposed to increase security, then how does plopping $45.00 down help security? I'm pretty sure most terrorists can afford that. There is also the possibility that the RealID is simply another way the government is using to keep tabs on us 24/7/365.
Yes, because the federal government can't assume that everyone has an ID, since they don't issue a universal ID. Any attempt to fix the fact that Americans don't have universal federal identification has met stiff resistance from a variety of angles, from privacy proponents to religious nuts who think universal identification is the mark of the beast.
It ties into why we still have to register for the draft (despite not having a draft since the 70s, and being no closer to instituting one than any other western country), and why our best form of universal identification (the Social Security card) is a scrap of cardstock with the words "not to be used for identification" written on it.
So, there's no universal ID, it's illegal to mandate people have ID, and freedom of movement within the United States has been routinely upheld as a core freedom. Thus, no ID required for domestic flights.
A lot of people are making general statements, and I'm not sure how valid they are. For example, in my neck of the woods (Canada), I have flown without ID and without passing through security. I would be surprised if the same wasn't true in the US. What I left out: the flights weren't through an international airport and didn't connect to an international airport. Same airport, different flight (one that did connect to an international airport) and passing through security was a requirement. In that case, as well as domestic flights through international airports, ID checks were the domain of the airline.
Within the Schengen area, you don't really need an ID to get on a plane either. In fact you can go through security screening in many places without an ID or a valid ticket.
We do have smaller regional airports in the US, but those smaller airports do still have TSA-staffed security if they serve commercial flights. The TSA considered eliminating security at those smaller domestic-only airports back in 2018, but after it hit the media, they reversed course on it.
The only exception would be airports solely for things other than commercial flights, like hobbyist pilots/flight schools where people are flying their own planes, or airports serving only government/medical/whatever "essential" traffic. Airports that don't have TSA-staffed security are still under TSA jurisdiction, and have to pass regular inspections by TSA to ensure their own security's at a sufficient level.
There are whole catagories of people without "ID" as such, like say underage children or people unable to drive. ID's in the USA have traditionally been either drivers licenses or passports. Many states have added non-drivers license IDs for handicapped, elderly, etc, but AFAIK they aren't particularly popular since those catagories of people don't tend to need them until they suddenly find themselves in a situation needing one.
It is, but it’s difficult. I am down visiting New Zealand and 3 times I have flown domestically here and there no ID check. I buy a ticket online, check in online, and scan a barcode at the gate. Is New Zealand an exception, or do a lot of countries not require an ID for domestic flights, and the US is the exception?
EU technically doesn’t require government-issued ID to fly either. They often don’t check for ID at all, and in cases where they do, legally any card with your name and photo on it would work for this „identification“. EU generally doesn’t legally require you to carry ID - but they can and will hassle you more and more if you don’t.
Usually you go to either a police station or an embassy and receive a temporary permit that has a validity of one week, just enough to get to the place of registration and re-issue your ID.
It's definitely just to get people to fly with a valid ID without ambushing the enormous number of people who have been living under a rock and don't realize they need a real ID. Otherwise they'll have a dozen or so people freaking out at the airport every single day for years.
Practically speaking, could I fly inside the U.S. without an ID? Just ask for the manual pat down? I assume I’ll need to show up like an extra hour early to give them time to harass me about it, but what are the chances that this works at all, vs just being turned away regardless of what’s legal?
I was pickpocketed a few years ago and was able to fly domestically without ID.
They had some service that gave them a bunch of identity verification questions about my past and I had to go through a little rigamaroll answering them.
You have the right to try and fly without an ID. The airlines also have the right to tell you to buzz off and get lost and the airport operator has the right to decide they don’t want you in the building and trespass you if you don’t scram.
Public carriers like airlines are not allowed to refuse service for the reason of refusing to show ID.
They can refuse for other reasons, but the are not “in the loop” when passengers currently get screened by the TSA, which is where RealID is “required”.
You have an absolute "right to travel" (see the 14th amendment and other cases as recently as 1999), but you're also absolutely correct that "common carriers" can can refuse commercial service and you can be criminally trespassed from an airport, BUT TSA can not charge you a fee to attempt to fly.
Unlike other service providers, a common carrier by definition cannot refuse service to anyone willing to pay the fare in the tariff. Common carrier laws are some of the oldest consumer protection laws, enacted to protect travelers and shippers of goods against predatory and discriminatory pricing. Federal law recognizes the "public right of transit" by air, and requires boith airlines and Federal agencies to respect it.
About 75% of the time I don't get asked for ID at all when flying within Schengen Europe. I understand technically there isn't any border crossing, but they have absolutely no idea who is actually on the plane. Wild.
That's because you have the right to travel freely between Schengen countries.
Asking for an ID or passport when embarking/disembarking would be similar to having an ID check at a border, and would therefore be a border control, i.e. no longer free travel.
Of course Schengen countries have the right to temporarily re-enable border checks.
Interesting, the main and probably only reason I know this is a legitimate site and not some random person's blog post is because I heard about Frommers from the movie Eurotrip.
No one should be forced to give an ID for a domestic flight. It always used to be that way. Every day there is huge amount of chipping away at our freedoms.
Someone pointed out amazing advice on how to skip certain checks in this thread, well done.
Any chance you get to regain freedom, by any means, take it.
Does a small part of you not feel the urge, however, to check who people are before letting them on your plane. By which I mean, after 9/11 and all that happened there.
No, why would it? When I take the bus, subway, or train, nobody is checking IDs - at most they check if I have a valid ticket, which can be bought with cash.
I've flown many times within the EU/EEA without showing an ID, so I fail to see why traveling within the US should be any different. I've spent most of my life in the US, but the only times I've been in close proximity of terrorist events have been in Norway (Breivik's bomb went off two blocks away from where I worked at the time, and more recently the shooting outside London Pub that killed two and injured multiple others).
I wish I understood why the US feels the need to overreact to everything.
Let's say in theory the TSA is doing their job and verifying there is nothing dangerous on the plane, it would seem to me then anyone should be allowed to fly. I don't see what we're supposed to even be achieving beyond a warrantless harassment campaign against people the government decides it doesn't like?
Citizens Council for Health Freedom has a whole page about Real ID. [0] Senator Rand Paul has a bill to repeal it. Crucially, you can still fly without a Real ID - there are 15 other forms of acceptable ID.
I don't have a real ID and don't plan to get one, but I also basically never fly anymore (been over 5 years). However this is certainly further incentive for me not to fly - wonder if airlines will see a slight decline in travelers over next few years due to this.
> As described by Clinton’s counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, this idea was conceived overnight as a way to show that the government was “doing something” in response to a plane crash that turned out to have been caused by a faulty fuel tank, not terrorism.
To be honest the worry about terrorists hijacking planes under Clinton proved to be quite prescient only a few years later.
I want to talk about Chevron deference. Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.
For those that don't know, Chevron deference was a legal doctrine established by the Supreme Court in the US in the 1980s that basically said that there is ambiguity in law, the courts need to defer to the agencies responsible for enforcing that law. Different agencies handled this differently. In some cases, they established their own courts. These aren't ARticle 3 courts in the Constitutional sense like Federal courts are but because of Chevron deference they had a lot of power.
There was a lot of good reason for this. Government is complex and Congress simply does not have the bandwidth to pass a law every time the EPA wants to, say, change the levels of allowed toxins in drinking water. Multiple that by the thousands of functions done by all these agencies. It simply doesn't work.
So for 40 years Congress under administrations of both parties continued to write law with Chevron deference in mind. Laws were passed where the EPA, for example, would be given a mandate to make the air or water "clean" or "safe" and that agency would then come up with standards for what that meant and enforce it.
Politically however, overturning Chevron has been a goal of the conservative movement for decades because, basically, it reduces profits. Companies want to be able to pollute into the rivers and the air without consequence. They don't like that some agency has the power to enforce things like this. The thinking went that if they overturned Chevron deference then it would give the power to any Federal court to issue a nationwide injunction against whatever agency action or rule they don't like. They standard for being to do that under Chevron was extremely high.
Defenders will argue that agencies are overstepping constitutional bounds and that vague statues aren't the answer. Congress must be clear. But they know that can't happen because of the complexity and that's the point. They don't want complexity. All those "legal" reasons are an excuse. Proftis are the reason.
Anyway, they succeeded and now agencies are governemend by what's called the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA") instead. Companies and the wealthy people who owned them celebrated this as a win but I don't think they understand what they've done.
You see, there are complex rules under the APA about the process by which an agency has to go through to make a rule or policy change and, from waht I can tell and what I've read online, most of them aren't doing it correctly or at all. They seem to operate under the belief that overturning Chevron means they can do whatever they want.
So the TSA is a government agency. If they want to add a fee like this well, you need to ask if that's a major rule change. If so, there are procedures for comment periods, review, etc. If these aren't strictly followed, you can simply go into court and say "the TSA didn't follwo procedure" and the courts can issue a nationwide injunction until the matter is resolved and if there was any technical violation of the APA policy change procedure, the entire thing can get thrown out.
So if anyone doesn't like what this administration is doing and wants to take legal action to block it, they should probably look to the APA and see if they can block it on technical grounds. I suspect this applies way more than people think and APA-based injunctions will only increase.
Since this is proof that the original and stated point of supplying ID is not valid can we just dispense with the whole charade? It clearly isn't about security if a measly $45 is all it takes to circumvent it so let's just get rid of it entirely.
The emperor not only has no clothes, he's shouting that fact at us.
Fun fact: for internal flights in New Zealand you don't need (and aren't asked for) ID. There is security but pretty lightweight. No shoes, laptops, belts, liquids, scanner crap.
This is a really stupid situation. We shouldn't be obstructed from flying without ID as long as we pass the regular security checks, and those security checks shouldn't be unreasonable.
What can we do to get there? Is anybody organizing?
I've flown without ID twice. Once because I lost my ID, once to prove to a friend that it could be done. This fee will fail for the same reason that flying without ID works at all - the law is quite clear on it.
My brother did this once and if you print your boarding pass before arriving you don't have to check in (obviously this is for a domestic flight with no checked bags). The TSA will question you and swab everything in your suitcase though.
You just tell them "Don't have one". Then they (most likely a second TSA agent so you don't hold up the line) run a quick interview to try and establish who the heck you are, and if you can be trusted to be let onto a plane.
Do not have one. Asked for my name, if i had any proof of it (i had a few credit cards in my name) lots of other questions. very thorough pat down. disassembled by bag slowly. took 40 min.
Common carriers can refuse to board you for legitimate reasons. Not having ID is not one of those as far as I know. (Obviously international travel is an entirely different beast. That's neither here nor there.)
I hadn't heard about this, but this is blatantly against the explicit and implied "right to travel" that's baked into the 14th amendment and had over a 156 years of precedence since Paul vs. Virginia.
Not sure why the title was editorialized, but this is literally just one person's opinion. The title makes it sound like the legal community universally agrees, which is not true.
It’s also bad legal commentary . The TSA seems to have broad legal authority. The more vague a law is, the more authority the executive branch has , not less (assuming it’s constitutional, and our constitution is also deliberately limited)
There are two avenues for recourse: lobbying your congressman or suing the TSA . I’m guessing the ACLU / EFF and other groups haven’t yet sued because the TSA’s legal authority is broad.
As discussed in the original article, John Gilmore (co-founder of EFF) did sue. "His complaint was dismissed on the basis of TSA policies that said travelers were still allowed to fly without ID as long as they submitted to a more intrusive 'pat-down' and search. The court didn’t rule on the question of whether a law or policy requiring ID at airports would be legal, since the TSA conceded there was no such law."
It's an interesting argument. Is there a highly-credible, authoritative source? Maybe someone like the EFF or ACLU? There are lots of ideas online about the law, of varying credibility, and I'd hesitate to risk a lawsuit over Internet advice.
Expert witnesses are not reliably credible authorities. They are people with credentials hired to help win lawsuits. I'm sure the author knows more than I do, but that doesn't say much.
While I concur with your hesitation, my first reaction on hearing about the fee was "Didn't they say you couldn't fly without a realid? Why am I able to fly without one then?" The idea that they may not be able to bar you without one jives with how this is playing out. Another commenter in this post also mentioned flying without id, which I also thought wasn't possible.
Yep. It's important to highlight this is not about flying without ID. It's flying without the new federal ID and their attempt to coerce people into getting the federal ID.
I remember flying before the TSA, it was pretty great in part because you could do things like go to the gate to meet arriving family, or walk your child to the gate before they departed as an unaccompanied minor, with the expectation someone was meeting them at the gate on the other side. There has never been a single observation or piece of information that has indicated anything other than the TSA is an unconstitutional waste of money doing security theatre to support a jobs program for societal rejects. All that said, I've been enrolled in Global Entry since it started, CLEAR since it started, and Pre-Check since it started (which later was included w/ Global Entry) because I have places to be and people to see, and I need to just get on with my life.
I really hate everything about the TSA, it fundamentally should not even exist as a national entity, and most of their processes and policies are not only illegal but also stupid. But, if you need to travel often there's not a lot you can do about it, you just have to deal with it or not travel. I'm a multiple million miler, been to over 75 different countries and nearly every US state, I travel at least 10 times per year and usually more, what else is there to do about it?
I think I must be confused, but after reading many of the replies, I can't figure this out. Is the standard American perspective that one shouldn't have to show any form of identification to go through security, get on a plane, and travel anywhere within the United States? How does anyone associate your ticket to your identity?
My American perspective is unless I'm participating in an activity that definitely requires carrying and presenting ID, I don't need to.
Driving is such an activity. Transiting national borders as well. Maybe opening a bank account, but really it should be up to the bank if they want to see my ID.
If I'm travelling but not operating the vehicle, why should I need to carry and present ID? I'm pragmatic, and it's convenient to carry and present my papers to the nice officers, but I shouldn't need to.
Demanding ID when unnecessary is a hallmark of a police state.
You don't need to carry ID/license to operate a vehicle. People (including I'm sure some cops) think you do but you only have to possess the license and present it to the cops if asked. Presenting can include going home to retrieve it from your dresser drawer. The US isn't (or wasn't) a "show me your papers" country.
Can't speak for the "standard American perspective," but no, you should not have to show identification. Why should someone need to be tracked to travel? Why does a ticket need to be associated to identity?
I'm not stating that they should be. I first want to make sure this is not just a question of the "Real ID". I can think of a couple of reasons that would throw a wrench in the works:
- passengers on no-fly lists or criminals
- anyone who is underage -- do we let 10 year-olds fly alone? how do you assess age without ID? what if the child gets lost while traveling, and you can't even determine whether the child boarded their flight or not? (if you attach ID to the ticket, then that just seems like ID with extra steps? I could be missing something)
- baggage claim: if there is no link between ticket and person, what's to stop me from claiming anyone's luggage as my own?
I'm not firmly attached to any of these objections, actually -- and perhaps they're not even issues, because I'm missing something fundamental about the assumption. I admit my personal bias is that "taking a plane = passport" even when traveling domestically (I'm not a US citizen), so I have not thoroughly considered the possibility that "taking a plane = taking a bus".
We do have to show ID. But the federal government said it's not enough to use a normal state driver's license or passport. You need a special "Real ID" that's somehow allegedly better. Your old driver's license that you can pay for booze with, open a bank account with, and you know, drive with, isn't proof enough of who you are to ride on a plane.
Edit: I should note that I have one. But lots of people don't, because most people never replace their driver's license card.
I think this is where my confusion lies. It seems like many people are saying no ID of any kind -- passport, "real ID", driver's license, ... -- should be provided, period. So ostensibly a 10 year-old could show up at the airport and decide to travel on their own (and if we only ID "young-looking people" then we get into a similar discussion as to why one should always ask for proof of age when buying alcohol).
To be clear, I'm refraining from judgment on this (despite what the downvotes seem to suggest), I just want to make sure I'm understanding the distinction is not plain driver's license vs. Real ID. I don't like it very much that I have to show my ID (such as passport or European ID card) when I'm on a train in Switzerland. It seems like the majority perspective is that we shouldn't _at all_ be controlling the ID of people who get on a plane, and that's just interesting to me (it would force me to articulate what the difference is between a plane and a train ride).
Passport works. You don't need real ID. Its only purpose is to deal with states where the normal driver license issuing process isn't up to whatever standards the feds dictate.
It's hilarious how transparent a money grab this entire thing is.
"You need to show a Real ID for security, otherwise how do we know you won't hijack the plane?"
"Well I don't have a Real ID."
"Ok then, give us $45 and you can go through."
So it was never about security at all then, was it?
And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.
> So it was never about security at all then, was it?
Never was.
I flew every other week prior to covid and haven't once been through the scanners. For the first ~6 years, I opted out and got pat down over and over again.
Then I realized I could even skip that.
Now at the checkpoint, I stand at the metal detector. When they wave me to the scanner, I say "I can't raise my arms over my head." They wave me through the metal detector, swab my hands, and I'm done. I usually make it through before my bags.
Sometimes, a TSA moron asks "why not?" and I simply say "are you asking me to share my personal healthcare information out loud in front of a bunch of strangers? Are you a medical professional?" and they back down.
Other times, they've asked "can you raise them at least this high?" and kind of motion. I ask "are you asking me to potentially injure myself for your curiosity? are you going to pay for any injuries or pain I suffer?"
The TSA was NEVER about security. It was designed as a jobs program and make it look like we were doing something for security.
> The TSA was NEVER about security. It was designed as a jobs program and make it look like we were doing something for security.
To a great extent, it is security, even if it's mostly security theater, in the sense that it is security theater that people want.
A large portion, maybe even the majority, of travelers simply won't feel safe without it. I've had and overheard multiple conversations at the airport where somebody felt uncomfortable boarding a plane because they saw the screening agent asleep at the desk. Pro-tip, trying to explain security theater to the concerned passenger is not the right solution at this point ;-)
Even Bruce Schneier, who coined the term "security theater" has moderated his stance to acknowledge that it can satisfy a real psychological need, even if it's irrational.
We may be more cynical and look upon such things with disdain, but most people want the illusion of safety, even if deep down they know it's just an illusion.
67 replies →
What ethnicity are you? I went through an airport -- and nobody else got screened except me. What was special about me? I was the only non-white person in the airport. Upon complaining, this was the response:
> Random selection by our screening technology prevents terrorists from attempting to defeat the security system by learning how it operates. Leaving out any one group, such as senior citizens, persons with disabilities, or children, would remove the random element from the system and undermine security. We simply cannot assume that all terrorists will fit a particular profile.
65 replies →
Today was the second time in a year I went into one and my crotch got flagged because of my pants zipper. nothing in my pockets. no belt. nothing hidden. etc.
I was then subjected to full pat down and a shoe chemical test as a cherry on top.
Might need to try convincing them next time to let me do the metal detector instead.
What's the point of this higher fidelity scanner if it can't tell the difference between a fly and a restricted object?
6 replies →
It's hard to put into words, but you're eroding the social contract through your actions. People with conditions get accused of faking it all the time, and it sounds like you're actually faking it.
5 replies →
I’m genuinely confused by this take. Admittedly my knowledge of exactly how the TSA operates is quite shallow, but don’t they xray your bags and scan for weapons on your body?
Are we saying that if they stopped doing that there would not be an increase in incidents?
Or is it that they are overly performative? I’ve never been all that annoyed with raising my hands above my head, but it seems like, in your case, if a passenger can’t do that, they would make an exception for you anyways. Which seems fair?
Nice trick. I always opted out of the scanners, dozens of times, and just got used to bantering with guys while they were patting my balls.
4 replies →
> When they wave me to the scanner, I say "I can't raise my arms over my head."
IANAL but I would be very cautious about lying to a federal agent, or anyone acting in a capacity on behalf of a federal agent (this is all of TSA).
12 replies →
And it’s been confirmed by red teams sneaking weapons through checkpoints that it’s not even doing the basic job. Lots of hassle and expense for little to no gain in security.
So... You're lying about having a health condition in a loud and obnoxious way? Not sure what the point is.
Just because you can get around TSA checkpoints doesn't mean it's not "about" security. There's only so much that can be done when we have to balance safety and convenience.
1 reply →
You sound insufferable. Why do they need to be a moron? As you state, designed as a jobs program. So, these workers are low paying government employees who likely have trouble attaining a job or maintaining high job security. You likely live a far more privileged life than these workers. You think they want to do this job? And you call them a moron for simply attempting to do their job?
1 reply →
This is brilliant. I continue to opt out and get the pat down every single time. Which is annoying because they deliberately make it slow and anxiety inducing with your bags are out of sight for quite a while.
I used to "punish" the rude or particularly slow ones by insisting on a private screening (since that involves two officers, and Is A Whole Thing) but I haven't gotten a rude one in a few years. But that also just makes it take even longer.
I did this about a dozen times until I had too many TSA agents become extremely shitty and hostile towards me. The last two times they were making threats as I was walking away that they were going to "get me". I decided my protest opt out excuse wasn't worth dealing with attitude. They usually also made me stand there and wait sort of blocking everyone for 5-10 minutes until they even called someone over
[flagged]
Lots of society is like this. For example, red lights. I run them all the time and nothing happens. You just have to pay attention. It's why the police won't ticket you in SF. It doesn't matter. If anyone else complains you just yell "Am I being detained" a few times and then hit the accelerator. Teslas are fast. They can't catch you.
17 replies →
This is genius, thank you for sharing. I don't fly often, mostly because it became from glamorous to brutal experience.
2 replies →
Holy shit that's genius, but I do worry about the minor degradation of respect for actual disabled folks if it becomes 'weaponized' in a widespread way
Serious question: why?
Most people I know who object to full-body millimeter-wave scanners either do so on pseudoscientific health claims, or “philosophical” anti-scanner objections that are structurally the same genre as sovereign-citizen or First-Amendment-auditor thinking.
35 replies →
I, too, dislike walking far. Here’s how I faked my way into a handicap parking tag.
4 replies →
It may be many things, but I very much doubt the motivation is a money grab. A few people paying $45 isn't lining the pockets of some government official, or plugging a hole in any possible budget.
Dealing with the presence of travelers who haven't updated their driver's licenses requires a bunch of extra staff to perform the time-consuming additional verifications. The basic idea is for those staff to be paid by the people using them, rather than by taxpayers and air travelers more generally. As well as there being a small deterrent effect.
There is no legal requirement to show id or answer any questions to establish identification before flying. In other words there is no extra work required by law which the fee would cover.
34 replies →
Is this the case, I didn't see it in the article.
If they have to perform extra work then I'd say it's justified. If it's just a punishment for not getting a real ID I'm not sure if that's fair
$45 x millions of people (some multiple times) = an incredibly consequential amount of money
28 replies →
> "Ok then, give us $45 and you can go through."
It's not pay $45 to go though, it's pay $45 for someone to take you around back and look you up based on secondary identification, and if they can't positively identify you based on that you still can't go through.
This is a system that has been in place for a long, long time. You could always say you don't have ID and they'll look you up. The change is they're now charging for it.
> And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.
This is also not accurate. If you're talking about Clear, you just skip to the front of the normal line. If you're talking about Pre, those people are individually background-checked before hand, and it costs $19/yr, so it's not exactly a tophat and monocle only program. Especially since that's half the price of a one-way taxi ride to the airport, let alone the ticket. The airport self-selects for the fairly well off to begin with.
Fully agreed with you. Amazing how blatant misinformation gets to the top here.
It's not a money grab, it's a tactic to encourage compliance. This isn't evidence of a change in security posture, you've always been able to travel without a Real ID. They've been pushing Real ID for more than a decade, 90% of people have one already anyway, the remaining stragglers simply don't care because there have never been any consequences.
Now TSA is offering an ultimatum. Pay $45 once to renew your ID or pay it every time you travel. For most people this is enough motivation to renew the ID and never think about it again.
Exactly. I wish it was about money. It's about surveillance. The TSA even flatly says the quiet part out loud. "The fee is to make you _comply_."
That's madness.
For the $45 I should get a "TSA ID" that lets me fly for a year. That would be a cash grab. They don't even care enough to do that. They want to blur the line between state and federal and they're going to use your need to fly to accomplish that.
s/tactic to encourage compliance/blatant coercion/
FTFY
They've been trying to push this BS for over a decade but some of the states haven't been adopting it the way they'd like. The threats to ban travel without one were ultimately toothless as there would have been far too much backlash (and that would presumably be unconstitutional). This is what they figure they can get away with.
> the remaining stragglers simply don't care because there have never been any consequences
The default ID that my state issues has historically not been RealID compliant and I think that's a good thing. I have no interest in actively participating in the latest authoritarian overreach attempt.
It was about immigration. I remember around 2015 when I was on F1 visa - in Michigan - you could get drivers license and it would expire when your visa expired. However my few lucky friends in NY/NJ/CA? Just got blanket 5yr expiry on their licenses from the day of renewal. I.E. their visas could expire well before their ‘IDs’ could. RealID was introduced to eliminate these discrepancies. And to get a realId now you need to show your visa documents/approvals.
If the $45 is meant to be temporary, it can reasonably be looked as a fine to encourage people to get their RealID.
I don’t think the existence of the fine itself is necessarily evidence of a cash grab.
If it isn’t temporary and extends beyond a year or two, then it probably is just meant to be a cash grab.
The word for that is tax
And since Congress never approved it, well, that makes it illegal.
I knew the Real ID requirements wouldn't be enforced, at least here in California, about a year before, after I saw the requirements: California can't enforce it because it would prevent too many undocumented people from flying.
Although, I thought it would just be delayed indefinitely. I suppose it effectively has been.
Too much of our economy depends on them.
My wife, who was on a H1B visa and managed to fly without an ID a few years back. They took her to some side room, asked a bunch of questions and looked her up based on name, DOB, address etc.
TSA pre-check, Global Entry, and Clear _infuriate_ me. It is privatization of public transportation and a net negative for society. In New York, JFK has closed off half of the security entrances for priority lanes, meaning a majority of passengers are forced into 50% of the entrances. The airport was built with state+federal funds, and now tax-paying residents are second-class to those who can afford $100/year. It's not even the amount, it's the principle.
And before people start to argue that planes aren't public transportation - over 10 million _passenger_ flights a year. It is critical to the functioning of all aspects of society.
Airlines are not public transportation. Usually they're all privatized.
Any time the TSA comes back into the news I always go through old Remi videos all over again. They are masterpieces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrof3Rf3_L8
Real ID is/was needed because every state has different requirements to get one.
The whole debate is hilarious, you need one or two extra documents to get RealID. The exact same amount of time and trips to DMV.
The fact that Real ID was introduced when I was in college and has been pushed back every year since shows that we don't actually need it.
8 replies →
Major points are also missed. The fee is enabled at the federal law level: 49 U.S.C. § 114 & 49 U.S.C. § 44901
I had the option to get a "Real ID" the last time I renewed my driver's license, and did not. I forget which stupid bit of paper gave me trouble, but I had a valid passport (the Mother of All IDs), which was both insufficient to get a "Real ID" and sufficient to fly. It's a joke, a nuisance, and now a revenue source.
3 replies →
A general reminder that every extra obstacle to getting a valid ID (or voting) disproportionately impacts the poor. They often lack the paperwork, the free time, and the money to deal with the extra process involved.
6 replies →
terrorists don’t have $45 each
It's meant to deter poor people, but it sounds better the way you said it.
Awwwww. I was going to hijack this plane and use it as a weapon in a divide attack, but $45?! You got me, TSA! That's just too rich for my blood!
> And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.
It wasn't just pay for play! TSA-PreCheck and Global Entry approval requires a thorough background check of your residential, work, and travel history, also in-person interview. Unfortunately, some Privacy activists prefer not doing that over occasional convenience.
https://www.google.com/search?q=tsa+precheck+eligibility
Global Entry requires an in person interview, Precheck by itself does not
1 reply →
It was never about security only control of you and everyone else.
would love to know the revenue generated by bottled water pre and post 9/11
The TSA are literally terrorists. Their job isn't to stop terrorism, their job is to keep memory of terrorism fresh in the public's mind, to keep them afraid, to constantly remind people that they must be subservient to the federal government or else more people will die. It's flat out terrorism.
Or the fact that you have to re-up for Pre-TSA -- they already know who we are, they already have their databases, it's intentional money grab. But then again, so is PreTSA...
It is like the government loooed at Ryanair and thought "what if we were like that!"
"My ID? I identify as Andrew Jackson twice and Lincoln"
$45 pays for the cost of a much more tedious identity verification process.
No. In the early 2000s we called it security theater. Do we think that somehow they went from theater to serious? Hell no, it's all downward spiral. I constantly pen-test the TSA using humorous methods while traveling, it's a complete joke.
> Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.
Are these the same poor people that reputedly cannot get IDs to vote because of a government conspiracy to suppress their votes, yet can afford an airline ticket and commute to an airport?
No generally not, there's not any real connection between the two groups.
The $45 pays for extra checks and scrutiny.
What are these checks and scrutiny and how are they applied in the time available? Given the time available is not great ("I'm on the next flight") and the amount of money is modest if humans are involved I'm intrigued to know what could be done that $45 would cover.
11 replies →
Bullshit. Also not legally required.
Got a bridge to sell you
what the fuck extra checks and scrutiny could they possibly need? They already go through an x-ray machine and get molested before we get on the plane, "real ID" or not.
3 replies →
I'm almost positive they get paid the same at the end of the day either way and the $45 just lines the pockets of someone on the top.
10 replies →
I am only guessing but I'd be surprised if it was a money grab. My instinct is that it's a way of highlighting RealID citizenship verification.
RealID is unrelated to citizenship.
It's a proof of an address, akin to soviet-style "propiska", which was very important and hard to get without (it also affected ownership/inheritance).
What's more fun is that even though they accept different types of residence, they mostly trust utility bills -- but to set up utilities on your name even for your personal home utility company will ask a lot of documents, including credit score checks.
I personally felt that it's utility companies who do the heavy proof checking, not DMVs.
12 replies →
Let me just for one second give them the benefit of the doubt.
Could the $45 be a way to pay for some extra manual screening? Maybe? Or do they not deserve any benefit of the doubt.
They do not.
From what I've heard, the no-ID process does indeed feature additional screening. I think the passenger would fill out a form and the TSA would cross-check it with their information. This was free prior to the new ID push, but since now people need a special ID to fly instead of using their normal one, I'm guessing they made the process cost extra to disincentivize people from sticking with their IDs and just doing the free manual process every time. I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm just saying that this is probably why they decided to try this.
1 reply →
Saying that there is “no legal requirement to show an ID” is truthy but misleading. Federal law gives the TSA authority over “screening” passengers: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/44901 (“The Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration shall provide for the screening of all passengers and property, including United States mail, cargo, carry-on and checked baggage, and other articles, that will be carried aboard a passenger aircraft operated by an air carrier or foreign air carrier in air transportation or intrastate air transportation.”).
That means the TSA can do whatever it can get away with labeling “screening.” It doesn’t matter that Congress didn’t specifically require showing IDs. That’s just one possible way of doing “screening.” Under the statute, the TSA is not required to do screening any particular way.
From TFA:
> The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), which is set law, provides a “complete defense” against any penalty for failing to respond to any collection of information by a Federal agency that hasn’t been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), isn’t accompanied by a valid PRA notice, or doesn’t display a valid OMB Control Number.
As the article works through, as a Federal Agency the TSA cannot just label stuff "screening" and demand money, or at least, they can't do so and then make you pay it.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/11/20/2025-20...
Well apparently Congress passed a law that said TSA could just demand money as long as they published a notice in the federal register.
1 reply →
Would declining to let you through security actually be a "penalty" (legally speaking), though? There are a ton of things you need to show papers for in the US; I can't imagine that all of them were pre-approved by the OMB.
You seem to be under the impression that the word "screening" means TSA can do whatever it wants. When in fact, if you click on the link under the word "Screening" in the own link you posted, there is a definition provided.
> (4) Screening defined .— In this subsection the term “screening” means a physical examination or non-intrusive methods of assessing whether cargo poses a threat to transportation security.
You should consider reading what you posted.
The site is confusing since, if you click the link, you don't see the context. But that definition is for cargo screening only.
If you scroll down and look at it in context, that definition is under section (g): "Air Cargo on Passenger Aircraft".
And of course passengers aren't cargo.
>You seem to be under the impression that the word "screening" means TSA can do whatever it wants.
I assure you TSA thinks it can do whatever it wants. I say this as a white male and have certainly heard even worse stories that my own of egregious violations from people with other demographics.
And reading further...The Administrator may approve additional methods to ensure that the cargo does not pose a threat to transportation security and to assist in meeting the requirements of this subsection.
You clipped the first part while the definition was a lot longer including the above TSA can do anything they want escape hatch. Have a good day sir.
1 reply →
> doesn't matter that Congress didn't specifically require...
Actually it does matter. Chevron deference is gone. If Congress didn't specifically approve this method, it's not legal
Chevron just said that courts must defer to any reasonable interpretation of the statute by the agency. Getting rid of that just means that courts get to decide what words like “screening” mean. It doesn’t mean Congress needs to explicitly approve every method.
Chevron doesn’t change anything here. Checking IDs easily falls within the scope of the word “screening,” no matter who is deciding the meaning of that term.
To be fair, that's not exactly what Loper Bright says. It holds that the courts should read the statute independently and not assume that Agency rules or procedures are prima facie controlling where the statute is ambiguous.
That's not what the end of Chevron deference means. It means that if Congress didn't specifically approve this method, a court may find it illegal much more easily than was previously the case. The deference in "Chevron deference" was from the courts towards administrative agencies.
How can it be legally considered screening if you can pay $45 to bypass it entirely?
It doesn’t bypass the screening. It’s one screening method that’s cheaper to implement because the work is done by the Real ID verification, and another screening method that costs money to do different checks.
You have the right to travel without ID in the U.S. The TSA may demand it, and may tell you it's legally required, but that doesn't make that true.
"In fact, the TSA does not require, and the law does not authorize the TSA to require, that would-be travelers show any identity documents. According to longstanding practice, people who do not show any identity documents travel by air every day – typically after being required to complete and sign the current version of TSA Form 415 and answer questions about what information is contained in the file about them obtained by the TSA from data broker Accurint…."
https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/05/19/tsa-tries-again-to-im...
https://papersplease.org/wp/2024/03/18/buses-trains-and-us-d...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...
Explain to me how qualified immunity is better than any ill it is supposed to address? And how is it that if you sue the government and win, then the judgement doesn't automatically award reasonable legal fees?
The ill that it's supposed to address is people hassling government officials who are just doing their jobs. Their jobs require them to do things that people don't want them to do, like making you pay taxes or go to jail for committing crimes. They are prominent targets and can easily spend their entire career fighting off complaints.
Of course that promptly shifts the potential for abuse in the other direction. Supposedly, democracy is the control over that. If they are abusing their office, you vote them out. (Or you vote out the elected official supervising them, such as a mayor or sheriff.)
It actually does work out most of the time. The cases of abuse are really few and far between. But in a country of 300 million, "few and far between" is somebody every single day, and a decent chance that it's you at some point.
That said, it should be zero, and there's good reason to think that for every offender you see there are dozens or hundreds of people complicit in allowing it. The theory I outlined above can only handle so many decades of concerted abuses before they become entrenched as part of the system. At which point it may be impossible to restore it without resetting everything to zero and starting over.
> The ill that it's supposed to address is people hassling government officials who are just doing their jobs.
How? If they're doing their jobs, then they are in the right and would be defended by their agency. If they are doing something illegal, they'd be in trouble. But that's the point!
5 replies →
Working in the criminal justice system for awhile in some capacity will really give you perspective on what people have to deal with.
Still. I understand the officers having "qualified immunity". But not the agency.
If an agency has shitty officers doing dodgy stuff, it's on the agency. The agents may be declared immune to direct litigation, but any claims and reparations should be automatically shifted to the agency.
4 replies →
Especially when the implication in the article is the police tried to delete a video from evidence -- and still ended up getting to hide behind qualified immunity.
Ugh.
Two separate things. Qualified immunity is just immunity from individual liability afforded to government agents when conducting government business, as long as they are conducting it properly.
> as long as they are conducting it properly.
I think ICE has clearly demonstrated that this is not true
Except the whole "as long as they are conducting it properly" part isn't actually true.
1 reply →
Have you ever looked at legal proceedings involving criminals? It’s 95% noise and 5% signal. Criminals are, in general, bad people with a lot of time on their hands, and without qualified immunity you’d totally swamp the legal system with frivolous lawsuits.
If true, unlikely to help the working poor flying (or attempting to fly) because recourse to courts here is in the realms of the rich or benificent.
So, Frommers should fund a test case.
How many of the “working poor” can afford to fly and don’t have a drivers license?
All 50 states and 5 US territories issue RealID compliant drivers license/ID
Flying domestically is usually cheaper than driving once you get past the range of a tank of gas or two. Also, RealID isn't fully permeated yet - my state won't fully phase out non-RealIDs until 2029.
14 replies →
RealID licenses cost extra where I live. Your job can buy you a plane ticket but they can't get you through TSA.
31 replies →
> How many of the “working poor” can afford to fly and don’t have a drivers license?
What he really means is illegals who have fake ids who now can't get RealIDs.
5 replies →
The poor trying to fly is exactly why economy and even "premium economy" seating sucks and is getting worse for everyone else not is business class.
Would be nice if we could get rid of them, eh?
2 replies →
It’s annoying we don’t offer passport cards for free to people as a national government credential. The cost is similar to this fee, and your app and photo could be taken by TSA right at the checkpoint. You head to your flight after identity proofed, and your passport card could then be mailed to you.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-pa...
It is, but I think that's a separate issue. There's no authorization, let alone a mandate, to prove identity to move about. The mission, ostensibly, is to make air travel safe by ensuring that passengers don't bring dangerous items onto the plane. It's not to track who is going where.
7 replies →
You could even double them up as government issued voter-ID and save all that hassle every 4 years. Or the current round of random stop-and-search going on...
8 replies →
~~~While it's not a passport, I believe most states have free id cards that are "realid" compliant.~~~
Edit: I'm wrong.
4 replies →
> Requiring ID won’t make us safer, but it enables surveillance and potential control of our movements.
Remember that you can opt out of TSA's facial recognition https://www.ajl.org/campaigns/fly
I tried but they lied and told me it wasn't an option.
So I told them the sign above me said it was.
So she lied and told me my ID had to be issued within the past year (mine was 14 mo. old).
So I asked to speak to her manager.
So she told me to step aside and lied that she'd call her manager.
After waiting five minutes looking at her not call the manager, I started whistling the anthem, loudly, at a crowded major city airport.
The manager rushed over.
He asked what the problem was, and asked to see my ID. So he sounded it into the scanner triggering my picture.
He pretended that that was a mistake. So I told him he was really cute piece of work.
I filled a complaint with the TSA.
They answered that they took the incident very seriously and never followed up.
You can and should. Some TSA workers get pissy over it, which is weird. It's there to replace them. The trainers don't, its an option you have the right to.
And exactly what good does that do? The government already has your face tied to your ID and knows you’re flying
19 replies →
Let's be honest, that just puts you on the extra scrutiny list going forward
Seems quite dangerous. In my country, this was the norm for local flights - usually smaller planes, 1-2hr flights. It was common that if you could not attend a meeting, a colleague would go with your ticket. Nobody cared.
Then one plane crashed. And some passengers weren't insured, as they were not officially on the plane. Those families could not get a body back, nor any compensation, as the company said that they could not prove they were on the plane.
I don't read the small print of IATA when getting a ticket, maybe I should someday.
TSA's searches without a warrant are illegal.
The fourth amendment:
>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
And no, you cannot convince me that searching families flying to see grandma for Christmas is a "reasonable search".
Unfortunately almost every court that has considered the question has concluded otherwise. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...
Also, the question has been largely sidestepped by the fact that travelers consent to search by voluntarily proceeding into the secure (airside) area of the airport, and there are usually--if not always--signs at the TSA screening point that say so. It’s not like you’re being involuntarily searched at the check-in desk.
The courts are allowed to be wrong, it's true.
1 reply →
You are entering government property so they have a right to search you. Just like if you enter a sporting event they have a right to search you. You are free to not use either service.
Now we could argue that this isn’t a desirable way to do things but I don’t how it would violate the fourth amendment.
Read the fourth amendment since you clearly didn't the first time.
16 replies →
If Real ID is so good, why do we have CLEAR? Why can I not skip the line with RealID?
If we are forced RealID, why not just make all the TSA checkpoints like Global Entry (or in several countries with IDs), fully automate them, using Real ID. That would get rid of CLEAR, and a lot of TSA agents.
Clear has nothing to do with security. You’re just paying to cut the security line.
Disagree.
CLEAR is basically (mostly) self-service pre-verification by a commercial entity, achieves near the same exact thing as it is done at the TSA agent with RealID now.
The CLEAR system uses CAT or CAT-2 to send info to TSA to validate. Same, exact protocol and information as it is with the TSA Agent.
The only meaningful difference is that the biometrics is pre-stored with CLEAR, while the other travelers are collected at the TSA agent stands and compared to RealID.
There are multiple countries where all of this is done with dark technomagic. You can see this witchcraft working with Global Entry (CBP, not TSA).
What is interesting about this is that CLEAR has a relationship with the airports (mostly), not TSA. Airports are the ones pushing CLEAR so they do not have insane queues, not TSA.
Wait till you see PreCheck Touchless ID.
Fun fact, I rarely have to show my ID when flying in the EU. But what I don’t understand is why so many people don’t have an ID in the US. Seems like one of the very basic service governments should provide.
I fly between various countries in western Europe a dozen times a year and have done so for a decade and every single time I've boarded a plane I have had to shown a photo ID with my name on it that matches my name on the plane ticket. Most of the time the gate agent barely looks at the ID/name, but it is required to hand it to them. I have never once just walked on a plane without showing ID with my name on it, and I have never seen anyone in line in front of me do so, ever, and I'm talking hundreds of flights at this point. It doesn't have to be a passport, I see older Spanish people showing their driver's license only all the time, but it has to have a photo and a name (to match the name on the ticket in some way) and be a state issued ID. Again, they seem very lenient with that whole name matching thing and checking the authenticity of the ID (it isn't scanned, just visually inspected), but I've never seen anyone just say 'no' and get on a plane.
So what the hell part of the EU are you talking about where they don't ask for any ID at the point where you are boarding, whatsoever?
For reference, here is Iberia's page for required ID when flying, and I've seen that this is absolutely enforced every time when checking in and boarding.
https://www.iberia.com/es/fly-with-iberia/documents/spain/
Plenty of people have an ID in the US, the issue is whether or not those IDs are considered valid to get past security in the airport.
Did you know that Norway only introduced a national ID card in 2020? Until then if you didn't have a driver's license the only other state-issued ID option was a passport, and 10% of Norwegians don't have one. Until around 2015 or so banks would issue your bank card with a photo and your birthdate on it, and that was used as a de facto ID.
I've flown between plenty of EEA countries without ever having to show an ID. The requirement to have one in the US is incredibly stupid and only serves to make it harder for decent people to travel. It provides no actual value to safety.
It's a product of the lingering sentiment of a country founded on not wanting to pay taxes, mixed with (often warrented) mistrust of the government and truely insane immigration laws all jumbled togeather. Yeah, we would be better of with something universal and more robust then the toilet paper they print social security numbers on, but we got the system it was possible to pass through congress.
That’s completely false. You ALWAYS have to show your ID card to fly in the EU. Always.
Seriously, just stop trying to use us to justify silly arguments about the USA. Yes, Europeans must show ID to travel, must absolutely show ID to vote (it would just be ridiculous if we didn’t) and getting the ID costs us money and must be renewed every 10 years (and paid for).
A number of years back I somehow managed to lose my driver's license between the car and the airport door. Even called the limo company to have the driver look. But <poof> apparently. Normally I have a backup ID but this was a very last minute and short trip.
Amazingly (to me) the TSA process was easy. What wasn't easy was checking into a crappy Travelodge near the airport. I imagine if I were staying at one of my usual chains where I have a loyalty card, a manager would have waved away any problems. (I did have photo ID and I was plastered all over the Web; I just didn't have backup government issued photo ID which I now make a particular point of carrying.)
I once told TSA this: "I lost my Driver's License, and the state won't issue another for a month maybe. I understand there's an extra screening pat-down."
Before entering the porno scanners I put everything in my pockets on the scanner belt, and they didn't bother to pat me down. YMMV.
"YMMV"
I've had my testicles squeezed, fondled, but thankfully, mostly avoided.
Don't tempt me with a good time.
What if an airline requires ID, is that legal? (Say to e.g. sell discounted tickets to 65+ people, or to avoid people selling tickets on)?
Yes, because private companies aren’t subject to the PRA like federal agencies are.
FWIW, I’m not sure that TSA ID verification does indeed have a PRA claim in the way the article asserts, and I am very sure that the PRA is a dumb law that needs to be removed: https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/why-the-paperwork-reduction-a...
TSA has been an elaborate ruse to create a recurring revenue service program called “clear” and tsa-pre. Of course they are also able to monetize the ruse itself.
It's an elaborate ruse to condition Americans to the 4th amendment not being a real thing. The PATRIOT ACT which created the TSA was written by Joe Biden after the Oklahoma City bombing and passed after being reintroduced following 9/11 to end-run around the 4th amendment.
And conveniently, international airports "count" as "border zones" for the supposed "100-mile border zone" exception
Not quite. The bush administration exploited the 9/11 situation and did it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Patriot_Act
> The PATRIOT ACT which created the TSA was written by Joe Biden
Citation needed. I believe you are mistaken.
It's a real head-scratcher that the cohort that claims government ID is unattainable for some people hasn't taken up this issue. "Real ID" isn't something that is just delivered to you. Now we're going to charge money not to have it?
In my state Real ID is just delivered to you.
It used to cost $10 for a replacement ID printed in the DMV. Now I pay $25 for a third-party vendor to line their pockets and mail me a new ID weeks later!
What REAL ID-compliant document doesn't require an office visit? Also, if you're paying for it, it isn't accessible.
Democrats usually complain that ID requirements suppress voters’ rights. Your right to travel isn’t as thoroughly suppressed by this as the right to vote is. It’s not a strong excuse, but it’s not totally inconsistent either. And, at least before this change, there were still ways to go through security screening without ID. If those are not allowed any more, maybe Dems will take up the issue.
Which cohort is that? In my experience, the left has been against requiring internal passports since day one.
Frankly, the entire agency is unconstitutional. From the fact that they basically exist under a general warrant issued by the supreme court (although they invented a new catagory, "administrative search", which doesn't fundamentally change what it is) to the restrictions on the right to assembly requires free travel as well, although the current legal underpinnings are "creative", the 10th admendment which grants all non enumerated powers to the states, to the restrictions on bearing arms on the plane and a half dozen other parts. About the only part they might be able to stand on is commerce again, but then so much travel in the larger states remains in the state (ex dallas/houston, san fran/LA) requiring seperate security zones.
Bush should have _NEVER_ nationalized them, at least as a private entity they existed in a sorta gray area. Now they are clearly violating the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 10th amendments.
And the solution isn't another bullshit supreme court amendment of the absolutist language in the bill of rights/etc but to actually have a national discussion about how much safety the are providing vs their cost, intrusiveness, etc and actually find enough common ground to amend the constitution. Until then they are unconstitutional and the court makes a mockery of itself and delgitimizes then entire apparatus in any ruling that doesn't tear it down as such.
And before anyone says "oh thats hard", i'm going to argue no its not, pretty much 100% of the country could agree to amend the 2nd to ban the private ownership of nuclear weapons, there isn't any reason that it shouldn't be possible to get 70% support behind some simple restrictions "aka no guns, detected via a metal detector on public airplanes" passed. But then the agency wouldn't be given free run to do whatever the political appointee of the week feels like. But there are "powers" that are more interested in tracking you, selling worthless scanners, and creating jobs programs for people who enjoy feeling people up and picking through their dirty underwear.
Inventing categories is what the court does. The Constitution is incredibly brief, and gives zero guidance on how to clarify conflicts. It has always been full of "common sense" exceptions, like criminalizing threats (despite the unqualified "freedom of speech" language) or probable cause (police can invade your house if they know you are committing a crime right now).
The sum total of these "common sense" exceptions, and the "legal reasoning" that extends them to the modern world, means that the document itself doesn't actually mean anything. Your rights, such as they are, consist of literally millions of pages of decisions, plus the oral tradition passed down in law schools.
The constitution doesn't provide a "common sense" loophole. Much of it is written in absolutist language because that was the actual intention. The amendment process is provided to open "common sense" loopholes if everyone agrees they are common sense, not for the courts to gradually erode the language until the federal goverment is doing things the founders explicitly fought the revolutionary war over.
Put another way, Writs of Assistance, were perfectly legal common sense way for the British government to assure their customs laws were being enforced, and it was one of the more significant drivers of the revolution.
2 replies →
It seems to me it is more of a penalty to encourage people to get Real ID while still allowing them to fly. I would imagine most air travelers have some kind of real id, passport, actual real id DL or global entry card. Very few people cannot get real id due to name inconsistency issues, but most are just lazy. Allowing them to fly for $45 seems reasonable to me, particularly if they cause delays at security.
There are 15 other forms of ID that TSA accepts, so Real ID isn’t necessary: https://www.cchfreedom.org/national-id/
Here's the actual TSA list: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification
But fun fact: even if an ID is on that list, if it's not one that their little scanner machines know how to read, then it's effectively not on that list. I've been hassled every single time I try to use my TWIC card at TSA, and they invariably demand to use my (non-REAL) driver's license, since their dumb scanners can manage to read that one. They often then have the gall to give me one of their "You need to have a REAL ID" pamphlets. I can't wait to see what happens next time I travel with this new fee in effect.
Lazy or worried about an encroaching government?
This has to make you wonder if the entire Security Theater is for security or money. I mean, if the RealID is supposed to increase security, then how does plopping $45.00 down help security? I'm pretty sure most terrorists can afford that. There is also the possibility that the RealID is simply another way the government is using to keep tabs on us 24/7/365.
In the USA it is possible to fly without an ID?
Yes, because the federal government can't assume that everyone has an ID, since they don't issue a universal ID. Any attempt to fix the fact that Americans don't have universal federal identification has met stiff resistance from a variety of angles, from privacy proponents to religious nuts who think universal identification is the mark of the beast.
It ties into why we still have to register for the draft (despite not having a draft since the 70s, and being no closer to instituting one than any other western country), and why our best form of universal identification (the Social Security card) is a scrap of cardstock with the words "not to be used for identification" written on it.
So, there's no universal ID, it's illegal to mandate people have ID, and freedom of movement within the United States has been routinely upheld as a core freedom. Thus, no ID required for domestic flights.
>Yes, because the federal government can't assume that everyone has an ID
But this does not have to be a federal ID. Could be just any ID.
It feels to me like the more into the future we get the more backwards these policies seem. Bring on the national ID, I say.
> Yes, because the federal government can't assume that everyone has an ID, since they don't issue a universal ID.
I'm from a 3rd world country and we have a national id, the usa is weird in the strangest things.
12 replies →
A lot of people are making general statements, and I'm not sure how valid they are. For example, in my neck of the woods (Canada), I have flown without ID and without passing through security. I would be surprised if the same wasn't true in the US. What I left out: the flights weren't through an international airport and didn't connect to an international airport. Same airport, different flight (one that did connect to an international airport) and passing through security was a requirement. In that case, as well as domestic flights through international airports, ID checks were the domain of the airline.
Within the Schengen area, you don't really need an ID to get on a plane either. In fact you can go through security screening in many places without an ID or a valid ticket.
We do have smaller regional airports in the US, but those smaller airports do still have TSA-staffed security if they serve commercial flights. The TSA considered eliminating security at those smaller domestic-only airports back in 2018, but after it hit the media, they reversed course on it.
The only exception would be airports solely for things other than commercial flights, like hobbyist pilots/flight schools where people are flying their own planes, or airports serving only government/medical/whatever "essential" traffic. Airports that don't have TSA-staffed security are still under TSA jurisdiction, and have to pass regular inspections by TSA to ensure their own security's at a sufficient level.
There are whole catagories of people without "ID" as such, like say underage children or people unable to drive. ID's in the USA have traditionally been either drivers licenses or passports. Many states have added non-drivers license IDs for handicapped, elderly, etc, but AFAIK they aren't particularly popular since those catagories of people don't tend to need them until they suddenly find themselves in a situation needing one.
It is, but it’s difficult. I am down visiting New Zealand and 3 times I have flown domestically here and there no ID check. I buy a ticket online, check in online, and scan a barcode at the gate. Is New Zealand an exception, or do a lot of countries not require an ID for domestic flights, and the US is the exception?
EU technically doesn’t require government-issued ID to fly either. They often don’t check for ID at all, and in cases where they do, legally any card with your name and photo on it would work for this „identification“. EU generally doesn’t legally require you to carry ID - but they can and will hassle you more and more if you don’t.
I had a friend who flew out of SFO without an ID for many years without much issue. It was much more difficult for them to get back.
SFO is one of the few international airports with private security instead of TSA.
Yes.
If you lost your ID while traveling, what would another option be?
Usually you go to either a police station or an embassy and receive a temporary permit that has a validity of one week, just enough to get to the place of registration and re-issue your ID.
3 replies →
It's definitely just to get people to fly with a valid ID without ambushing the enormous number of people who have been living under a rock and don't realize they need a real ID. Otherwise they'll have a dozen or so people freaking out at the airport every single day for years.
Practically speaking, could I fly inside the U.S. without an ID? Just ask for the manual pat down? I assume I’ll need to show up like an extra hour early to give them time to harass me about it, but what are the chances that this works at all, vs just being turned away regardless of what’s legal?
I was pickpocketed a few years ago and was able to fly domestically without ID.
They had some service that gave them a bunch of identity verification questions about my past and I had to go through a little rigamaroll answering them.
Huh, interesting. This is fascinating, would love to see an edutainment YouTube video on this, I’ll have to see if there is something
You have the right to try and fly without an ID. The airlines also have the right to tell you to buzz off and get lost and the airport operator has the right to decide they don’t want you in the building and trespass you if you don’t scram.
This isn’t like the 1st amendment.
Public carriers like airlines are not allowed to refuse service for the reason of refusing to show ID.
They can refuse for other reasons, but the are not “in the loop” when passengers currently get screened by the TSA, which is where RealID is “required”.
They very much are in the loop if you get on a plane to fly internationally
You have an absolute "right to travel" (see the 14th amendment and other cases as recently as 1999), but you're also absolutely correct that "common carriers" can can refuse commercial service and you can be criminally trespassed from an airport, BUT TSA can not charge you a fee to attempt to fly.
Unlike other service providers, a common carrier by definition cannot refuse service to anyone willing to pay the fare in the tariff. Common carrier laws are some of the oldest consumer protection laws, enacted to protect travelers and shippers of goods against predatory and discriminatory pricing. Federal law recognizes the "public right of transit" by air, and requires boith airlines and Federal agencies to respect it.
3 replies →
But the airlines don't really give a crap, southwest started basically as an air bus, show up buy a ticket get on. No reservation, no id, nothing.
The airlines don't even check ID most of the time with these electronic boarding passes if your not checking luggage.
1 reply →
The airlines are not in charge of airport security. TSA, a government agency, handles that.
Kinda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screening_Partnership_Program
I understand peoples argument ... but isn’t this like a restaurant sign saying “no shoes, no shirt, no service”.
Yes, the law doesn’t require people to wear shirts. But the law also doesn’t require you to be serviced.
About 75% of the time I don't get asked for ID at all when flying within Schengen Europe. I understand technically there isn't any border crossing, but they have absolutely no idea who is actually on the plane. Wild.
That's because you have the right to travel freely between Schengen countries.
Asking for an ID or passport when embarking/disembarking would be similar to having an ID check at a border, and would therefore be a border control, i.e. no longer free travel.
Of course Schengen countries have the right to temporarily re-enable border checks.
You also have the right to travel freely within the domestic US.
Interesting, the main and probably only reason I know this is a legitimate site and not some random person's blog post is because I heard about Frommers from the movie Eurotrip.
No one should be forced to give an ID for a domestic flight. It always used to be that way. Every day there is huge amount of chipping away at our freedoms.
Someone pointed out amazing advice on how to skip certain checks in this thread, well done.
Any chance you get to regain freedom, by any means, take it.
Does a small part of you not feel the urge, however, to check who people are before letting them on your plane. By which I mean, after 9/11 and all that happened there.
No, why would it? When I take the bus, subway, or train, nobody is checking IDs - at most they check if I have a valid ticket, which can be bought with cash.
I've flown many times within the EU/EEA without showing an ID, so I fail to see why traveling within the US should be any different. I've spent most of my life in the US, but the only times I've been in close proximity of terrorist events have been in Norway (Breivik's bomb went off two blocks away from where I worked at the time, and more recently the shooting outside London Pub that killed two and injured multiple others).
I wish I understood why the US feels the need to overreact to everything.
Let's say in theory the TSA is doing their job and verifying there is nothing dangerous on the plane, it would seem to me then anyone should be allowed to fly. I don't see what we're supposed to even be achieving beyond a warrantless harassment campaign against people the government decides it doesn't like?
Not at all. I wouldn't allow an event such as that in history to remove everyone's freedom, including mine.
There are many other ways a person can inflict damage much larger than that without a plane and easier.
1 reply →
Citizens Council for Health Freedom has a whole page about Real ID. [0] Senator Rand Paul has a bill to repeal it. Crucially, you can still fly without a Real ID - there are 15 other forms of acceptable ID.
[0]: https://www.cchfreedom.org/national-id/
There was no TSA in 1996 just private security screeners.
I don't care, sure it's a clear money grab but it's a small price to pay for the (admittedly little) privacy
My procrastination is starting to turn into a political stance. This isn't the first time it's happened.
I don't have a real ID and don't plan to get one, but I also basically never fly anymore (been over 5 years). However this is certainly further incentive for me not to fly - wonder if airlines will see a slight decline in travelers over next few years due to this.
> As described by Clinton’s counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, this idea was conceived overnight as a way to show that the government was “doing something” in response to a plane crash that turned out to have been caused by a faulty fuel tank, not terrorism.
To be honest the worry about terrorists hijacking planes under Clinton proved to be quite prescient only a few years later.
And they had their IDs checked at the airport when they boarded the planes they hijacked. The security theatre here had no benefit.
Don’t think legality matter anymore
$45 for KBA is crazy. They call somewhere and ask you what addresses you recognize, companies you may have loans with etc. The old stuff.
I want to talk about Chevron deference. Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.
For those that don't know, Chevron deference was a legal doctrine established by the Supreme Court in the US in the 1980s that basically said that there is ambiguity in law, the courts need to defer to the agencies responsible for enforcing that law. Different agencies handled this differently. In some cases, they established their own courts. These aren't ARticle 3 courts in the Constitutional sense like Federal courts are but because of Chevron deference they had a lot of power.
There was a lot of good reason for this. Government is complex and Congress simply does not have the bandwidth to pass a law every time the EPA wants to, say, change the levels of allowed toxins in drinking water. Multiple that by the thousands of functions done by all these agencies. It simply doesn't work.
So for 40 years Congress under administrations of both parties continued to write law with Chevron deference in mind. Laws were passed where the EPA, for example, would be given a mandate to make the air or water "clean" or "safe" and that agency would then come up with standards for what that meant and enforce it.
Politically however, overturning Chevron has been a goal of the conservative movement for decades because, basically, it reduces profits. Companies want to be able to pollute into the rivers and the air without consequence. They don't like that some agency has the power to enforce things like this. The thinking went that if they overturned Chevron deference then it would give the power to any Federal court to issue a nationwide injunction against whatever agency action or rule they don't like. They standard for being to do that under Chevron was extremely high.
Defenders will argue that agencies are overstepping constitutional bounds and that vague statues aren't the answer. Congress must be clear. But they know that can't happen because of the complexity and that's the point. They don't want complexity. All those "legal" reasons are an excuse. Proftis are the reason.
Anyway, they succeeded and now agencies are governemend by what's called the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA") instead. Companies and the wealthy people who owned them celebrated this as a win but I don't think they understand what they've done.
You see, there are complex rules under the APA about the process by which an agency has to go through to make a rule or policy change and, from waht I can tell and what I've read online, most of them aren't doing it correctly or at all. They seem to operate under the belief that overturning Chevron means they can do whatever they want.
So the TSA is a government agency. If they want to add a fee like this well, you need to ask if that's a major rule change. If so, there are procedures for comment periods, review, etc. If these aren't strictly followed, you can simply go into court and say "the TSA didn't follwo procedure" and the courts can issue a nationwide injunction until the matter is resolved and if there was any technical violation of the APA policy change procedure, the entire thing can get thrown out.
So if anyone doesn't like what this administration is doing and wants to take legal action to block it, they should probably look to the APA and see if they can block it on technical grounds. I suspect this applies way more than people think and APA-based injunctions will only increase.
Since this is proof that the original and stated point of supplying ID is not valid can we just dispense with the whole charade? It clearly isn't about security if a measly $45 is all it takes to circumvent it so let's just get rid of it entirely.
The emperor not only has no clothes, he's shouting that fact at us.
I recently started going through The Mary Tyler Moore show and was struck by the timeliness of this quote from the very first episode:
Lou Grant: What religion are you?
Mary: Uh, Mr. Grant, I don't quite know how to say this, but you're not allowed to ask that when someone's applying for a job. It's against the law.
Grant: Wanna call a cop?
Fun fact: for internal flights in New Zealand you don't need (and aren't asked for) ID. There is security but pretty lightweight. No shoes, laptops, belts, liquids, scanner crap.
This is a really stupid situation. We shouldn't be obstructed from flying without ID as long as we pass the regular security checks, and those security checks shouldn't be unreasonable.
What can we do to get there? Is anybody organizing?
I want to open my wallet. Where can I donate?
Oh good another poor tax, there hasn't been one for a hot minute.
bankroll for president's private militia aka ice
Don't forget federal sales taxes in the form of tariffs.
And also the $8 trillion he added to the national debt push interest payments to be more than the previous defense budget or Medicare.
I've flown without ID twice. Once because I lost my ID, once to prove to a friend that it could be done. This fee will fail for the same reason that flying without ID works at all - the law is quite clear on it.
Did you have to show the airline your ID when checking in?
As far as I can tell, the TSA is one thing, while airline policy is another.
The law says it’s not required for security, but airlines might be justified in carrying out their own policies? Honestly curious.
My brother did this once and if you print your boarding pass before arriving you don't have to check in (obviously this is for a domestic flight with no checked bags). The TSA will question you and swab everything in your suitcase though.
> Did you have to show the airline your ID when checking in?
No.
Most airlines only start asking for ID if you want to check a bag. But not for check-in.
Airlines do not care. American was once, United another time. I had a boarding pass and they were happy with that
So when TSA asked for your ID, what did you do and what did they then do?
You just tell them "Don't have one". Then they (most likely a second TSA agent so you don't hold up the line) run a quick interview to try and establish who the heck you are, and if you can be trusted to be let onto a plane.
Do not have one. Asked for my name, if i had any proof of it (i had a few credit cards in my name) lots of other questions. very thorough pat down. disassembled by bag slowly. took 40 min.
This article seems oddly hung up on the legality of providing ID.
That’s all well and fine, but airlines have the discretion to refuse to board passengers, including for potential security risks.
So yeah, there are no laws saying you have to provide ID, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get to board the plane.
Common carriers can refuse to board you for legitimate reasons. Not having ID is not one of those as far as I know. (Obviously international travel is an entirely different beast. That's neither here nor there.)
I hadn't heard about this, but this is blatantly against the explicit and implied "right to travel" that's baked into the 14th amendment and had over a 156 years of precedence since Paul vs. Virginia.
"illegal"
At what point has that stopped literally anything this government has done?
Not sure why the title was editorialized, but this is literally just one person's opinion. The title makes it sound like the legal community universally agrees, which is not true.
It’s also bad legal commentary . The TSA seems to have broad legal authority. The more vague a law is, the more authority the executive branch has , not less (assuming it’s constitutional, and our constitution is also deliberately limited)
There are two avenues for recourse: lobbying your congressman or suing the TSA . I’m guessing the ACLU / EFF and other groups haven’t yet sued because the TSA’s legal authority is broad.
As discussed in the original article, John Gilmore (co-founder of EFF) did sue. "His complaint was dismissed on the basis of TSA policies that said travelers were still allowed to fly without ID as long as they submitted to a more intrusive 'pat-down' and search. The court didn’t rule on the question of whether a law or policy requiring ID at airports would be legal, since the TSA conceded there was no such law."
1 reply →
It's an interesting argument. Is there a highly-credible, authoritative source? Maybe someone like the EFF or ACLU? There are lots of ideas online about the law, of varying credibility, and I'd hesitate to risk a lawsuit over Internet advice.
The author has been qualified as an expert witness in several venues.
Expert witnesses are not reliably credible authorities. They are people with credentials hired to help win lawsuits. I'm sure the author knows more than I do, but that doesn't say much.
2 replies →
While I concur with your hesitation, my first reaction on hearing about the fee was "Didn't they say you couldn't fly without a realid? Why am I able to fly without one then?" The idea that they may not be able to bar you without one jives with how this is playing out. Another commenter in this post also mentioned flying without id, which I also thought wasn't possible.
If you don't have Real ID they perform an equivalent background check at the airport which they charge you $45 for.
1 reply →
of course none of this nonsense applies to those than can afford private travel
Previously:
US air travelers without REAL IDs will be charged a $45 fee
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46138101
Yep. It's important to highlight this is not about flying without ID. It's flying without the new federal ID and their attempt to coerce people into getting the federal ID.
“New” Real ID is 21yrs old at this point.
6 replies →
I remember flying before the TSA, it was pretty great in part because you could do things like go to the gate to meet arriving family, or walk your child to the gate before they departed as an unaccompanied minor, with the expectation someone was meeting them at the gate on the other side. There has never been a single observation or piece of information that has indicated anything other than the TSA is an unconstitutional waste of money doing security theatre to support a jobs program for societal rejects. All that said, I've been enrolled in Global Entry since it started, CLEAR since it started, and Pre-Check since it started (which later was included w/ Global Entry) because I have places to be and people to see, and I need to just get on with my life.
I really hate everything about the TSA, it fundamentally should not even exist as a national entity, and most of their processes and policies are not only illegal but also stupid. But, if you need to travel often there's not a lot you can do about it, you just have to deal with it or not travel. I'm a multiple million miler, been to over 75 different countries and nearly every US state, I travel at least 10 times per year and usually more, what else is there to do about it?
45 dollars? Form 415? Maybe I'm jumping at shadows but this smells like a Trump dogwhistle.
Where does the fee money go then? Into 45’s pocket?
The government, of course.
I think I must be confused, but after reading many of the replies, I can't figure this out. Is the standard American perspective that one shouldn't have to show any form of identification to go through security, get on a plane, and travel anywhere within the United States? How does anyone associate your ticket to your identity?
My American perspective is unless I'm participating in an activity that definitely requires carrying and presenting ID, I don't need to.
Driving is such an activity. Transiting national borders as well. Maybe opening a bank account, but really it should be up to the bank if they want to see my ID.
If I'm travelling but not operating the vehicle, why should I need to carry and present ID? I'm pragmatic, and it's convenient to carry and present my papers to the nice officers, but I shouldn't need to.
Demanding ID when unnecessary is a hallmark of a police state.
> Maybe opening a bank account, but really it should be up to the bank if they want to see my ID.
KYC rules make it require much more than showing an id.
You don't need to carry ID/license to operate a vehicle. People (including I'm sure some cops) think you do but you only have to possess the license and present it to the cops if asked. Presenting can include going home to retrieve it from your dresser drawer. The US isn't (or wasn't) a "show me your papers" country.
Can't speak for the "standard American perspective," but no, you should not have to show identification. Why should someone need to be tracked to travel? Why does a ticket need to be associated to identity?
I'm not stating that they should be. I first want to make sure this is not just a question of the "Real ID". I can think of a couple of reasons that would throw a wrench in the works:
- passengers on no-fly lists or criminals
- anyone who is underage -- do we let 10 year-olds fly alone? how do you assess age without ID? what if the child gets lost while traveling, and you can't even determine whether the child boarded their flight or not? (if you attach ID to the ticket, then that just seems like ID with extra steps? I could be missing something)
- baggage claim: if there is no link between ticket and person, what's to stop me from claiming anyone's luggage as my own?
I'm not firmly attached to any of these objections, actually -- and perhaps they're not even issues, because I'm missing something fundamental about the assumption. I admit my personal bias is that "taking a plane = passport" even when traveling domestically (I'm not a US citizen), so I have not thoroughly considered the possibility that "taking a plane = taking a bus".
We do have to show ID. But the federal government said it's not enough to use a normal state driver's license or passport. You need a special "Real ID" that's somehow allegedly better. Your old driver's license that you can pay for booze with, open a bank account with, and you know, drive with, isn't proof enough of who you are to ride on a plane.
Edit: I should note that I have one. But lots of people don't, because most people never replace their driver's license card.
I think this is where my confusion lies. It seems like many people are saying no ID of any kind -- passport, "real ID", driver's license, ... -- should be provided, period. So ostensibly a 10 year-old could show up at the airport and decide to travel on their own (and if we only ID "young-looking people" then we get into a similar discussion as to why one should always ask for proof of age when buying alcohol).
To be clear, I'm refraining from judgment on this (despite what the downvotes seem to suggest), I just want to make sure I'm understanding the distinction is not plain driver's license vs. Real ID. I don't like it very much that I have to show my ID (such as passport or European ID card) when I'm on a train in Switzerland. It seems like the majority perspective is that we shouldn't _at all_ be controlling the ID of people who get on a plane, and that's just interesting to me (it would force me to articulate what the difference is between a plane and a train ride).
Passport works. You don't need real ID. Its only purpose is to deal with states where the normal driver license issuing process isn't up to whatever standards the feds dictate.
1 reply →
> How does anyone associate your ticket to your identity?
Why does anyone in this picture need to associate my ticket with my identity?
Just replying here in case it's more visible, but:
- what if you're on a no-fly list? wanted criminals?
- underage?
Why would there be a need to associate my ticket to my identity?
Just replying here in case it's more visible, but:
- what if you're on a no-fly list? wanted criminals?
- underage?
1 reply →