> 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.
I used to have a Sikh manager who wore a turban. Whenever we traveled together, he would get "randomly" stopped. While they were patting him down, he would inevitably chuckle and say something like "So what are the odds of being 'randomly' selected 27 times in a row?"
I don't know the specifics of the process for selection, but I can confidently say that the process is bigoted.
In proper English usage it would only be a bigoted
(obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group)
check if it was unreasonable to suspect a Sikh of carrying a Kirpan.
The Rehat Maryada would suggest that is in no way whatsoever an unreasonable suspicion.
Sure, your manager likely didn't carry one on airplanes .. but that still falls short of being an unreasonable check.
As a white guy who was caught accidentally carrying a large knife once through security, at the bottom of a carry-on backpack I'd had since high school, I don't think it's in any way essential to use racial or ethnic markers to figure out whether someone is taking something dangerous onto a plane. I didn't even know I was trying to bring a knife onto a plane at a regional airport. There's no reason to think that Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.
I have nothing against Sikh's, I've known a few for decades.
> There's no reason to think that Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.
... other than a small, curved sword or dagger that initiated (Amritdhari) Sikhs are required to wear at all times as one of the Five Ks (articles of faith) ordained by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 you mean?
It seems reasonable, and a number of actual Sikh's would actually agree, to guess that a Sikh who holds their faith to be a matter of importance would absolutely hide a symbolic dagger the size of a letter opener and capable of slitting a throat.
The question facing any border agent tasked with checking Sikh's, of course, is this specific Sikh one that will always try to carry a Kiran, or one that doesn't hold with all that articles of faith guff.
It's screwed up that skin color is a marker that would lead an ignorant provincial quasi-cop to assume someone is of a particular ethnicity, and even more so that that ethnicity would lead them to believe an individual adheres to a belief system that might lead them to blow up an aircraft. Very poor set of assumptions and flawed tooling, to say the least.
I was so confused last time I traveled as I watched this brown skinned family getting shaken down for ID by TSA and they literally just waived me past and said didn't need ID. Mind you I've never not been asked to show ID to TSA before this.
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?
Fair! I was going to go back and edit, but my comment was more for other people who read your comment thinking it was a good idea for them to do (assuming they can raise their hands over their heads).
Since the TSA cannot force you to prove it - after all, they're not medical personnel to evaluate it and not willing to risk your injury - whether someone lies becomes irrelevant.
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.
Another pro tip is to not pay at restaurants. If you can leave the restaurant fast enough before they give you the bill, they must have forgotten to charge you and sucks for them! The trick is not to bring bags so you can fake a trip to the toilet!
if you're not joking, actions like these are why we can't have nice things in society, it's cancerous behavior and just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
I think the two comments above yours are poking fun at the guy who is committing a felony by lying to federal agents. They're just making it obvious what he's doing is really shitty, anti-social behavior.
You are grossly misinformed and making an assumption.
You're thinking of being interviewed by a Federal agent. At no point are you being interviewed at a TSA checkpoint. Generally, they have two agents present for that so they can act as witnesses for each other. The FBI specifically uses the 302 for such an interview. Can you cite the relavant US Code here? I can.
Further, you're assuming I'm lying.
As someone who was present (in the room) as DHS was being formed and witnessed the negotiations around the TSA, the "really shitty, anti-social behavior" is sharing misinformation.
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.
I should not need to show an anonymous TSA agent my genitals, even if they are in black and white on some monitor theyre viewing in some back room, to get on a plane.
I could ask the same serious question, why should I have to? There is zero reason to suspect me of being a suicidal maniac. Should we have such scanners to walk into a busy store or bus or subway system? Why don't private pilots and passengers have such screenings?
Tangential: Here in India we have security guards with hand-held metal detectors in malls, railway stations, and urban transit rails (metro) stations.
The first time I visited a different country I was surprised to see my friend accompany me to the check-in counter and even further to drop me off. In India they wouldn't let you enter the airport if your flight doesn't depart soon enough.
It used to be normal in the U.S. to walk people to the gate until 9/11.
Now you can escort someone to the check-in counter and up to the security checkpoint, and meet people at the luggage area to help with bags.
But in practice it seems rare to do so if there isn’t a particular reason, probably because you’d have to pay to park or ride transit and it’s usually a trek beyond that. Honestly if they allowed you to go through security with the passenger and wait at the gate, I’m not sure how many people would even do it here (or how many passengers would want their loved ones to do so).
I don't think anyone in the US really cares about metal detectors, humans don't naturally contain metal and it is done completely hands off with no extra visual or biometric information or saved data. Plenty of people in this thread who opted out of other security measures still walked through a metal detector without any special note. Court houses and police stations have often have metal detectors that even a Senator or President would have to walk through. The same cannot be said of direct imaging of your body though or facial recognition or anything. If you wouldn't put your children through the process to go into school each day then it seems completely bonkers to require it for any form of mass transit.
Studies have all come out clean on pacemakers and mmWave. No detectable interference in the hardware or on an EKG while in a mmWave scanner.
I could imagine other conditions potentially but pacemakers have been ruled a non issue for mmWave by academic studies (albeit I can understand still exercising caution despite that).
Perhaps I haven't gotten a representative sample, but in 100% of the content I've seen from self-described "first amendment auditors", they're acting unpleasant and suspicious for absolutely no reason other than provoking a reaction. To me this seems like antisocial behavior that degrades rather than supports First Amendment protections. I consider myself a pretty strong First Amendment supporter, but if I routinely found strange men filming me as I walked down the street, I would support basically any legal change required to make them stop.
First Amendment auditors have usually been attention seeking individuals making click bait YouTube videos. It's been interesting seeing the transformation from that to what we're seeing with people monitoring ICE.
> I, too, dislike walking far. Here’s how I faked my way into a handicap parking tag.
Cute analogy, but.
Handicap parking tags provide value to those who need them. Depriving them of parking makes their lives harder.
On the other hand, TSA is pure theater, as TFA makes clear. Avoiding this needless ritual saves time for the passenger, for the TSA officers, even for the other passengers, and does not increase risk at all. It's pure win-win.
That’s fine and it is of course security theater / jobs program. I was put off by the feigning of disability to avoid a scanner and/or some inconvenience. This kind of behavior is okay, even great, but please come up with a more tasteful way. Otherwise I hope it’s a parody.
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.
The TSA is literally doing all this extra work though, whether or not you think it's required by law. They're not just pocketing the $45 and then blindly waving you ahead.
Let's be more precise. The TSA has created extra work for themselves, and are charging us for it, whether it's legally required or not (because they pretend that it is).
Sure. But it's not "pretend". It's genuine regulatory policy they've created because they believe it's necessary for security, and this has been a decades-long project. The article is arguing they don't ultimately have the legal authority to make that regulatory policy. Maybe that'll go to court and be tested, maybe they'll win and maybe they'll lose. If they lose, maybe Congress will pass explicit legislative authorization the next day, and maybe that'll be brought to court, and the Supreme Court will have to decide if it violates the 14th amendment or not. But it's not "fake work", it's actually doing a thing.
No, it's not "regulatory policy". It's been done entirely with some combination of secret "Security Directives" and "rulemaking by press release". As the article and the linked references explain, the TSA never issued any regulations, published any of the required notices, or obtained any of the approvals that would have been required even if Congress had passed an (unconstitutional) authorizing statute (which it didn't).
No. Policy or regulation would have a basis in law. This administration has aptly demonstrated their contempt for the law. Nobody gives a shit about some grunt federal employee getting extra work.
This is just a way to compel compliance and to push the agenda for ID with higher documentary requirements, ultimately to deny the vote.
I mean I could hire someone to continuously dig and refill the a hole in the ground. That would certainly be them doing a thing, but it would also definitely be fake work. There's been plenty of rhetoric thrown around but no real evidence has been produced that suggests the TSA isn't engaging in a bit of circular digging at the taxpayer's expense with this.
As I mentioned[0] a few months ago after the TSA announced the $45 "fee":
...The courts have repeatedly struck down limits on domestic travel over the
past couple hundred years.
In fact, the $45 "fee" is an acknowledgment that you aren't required to have
special documents to travel within the US. Otherwise, they just wouldn't let
you travel.
So instead, they're making more security theater and punishing you if you
don't comply with their demands...
And now the birds are coming home to roost. No real surprise there, IMHO.
I don't know what you mean by "full patdown treatment", but they're absolutely tracking down your information in databases and interviewing you about it. See replies to:
It's not just a patdown. They take you to a phone booth that has a direct line to some portion of the FBI IIRC, and they ask you a bunch of questions to confirm your identity. At least this is what happened to me about ten years ago when I lost my wallet in a different state and needed to fly home.
... and the law in most states requires only that you give your name and possibly your DOB to the authorities upon detainment. So as a purely academic exercise, what can they even do if you refuse to answer beyond that? Obviously in practice they will fuck with you or just straight up violate the constitution, but theoretically I'm unsure how they can continue to seize you after that.
They can't detain you (if you're not otherwise some kind of suspect, and you're not trying to assault them or sprint past security or anything), but they don't let you fly.
... if you aren't detained you are free to go. And if you are free to go, you are free to stay, unless the property owner has trespassed you. TSA doesn't own the airport, at least in my state. So how can they trespass you from the airport or otherwise continue to detain you from moving forward?
I mean, I know you're right, and I know you will always lose if you try, but I don't understand the legal basis.
It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID. In the context of airport security budgets, it's not that much. And it's used for hiring the additional staff required and putting together the identity verification systems they use.
> It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID
Those that did had to pay $30-$60 plus fees (actual cost differs by state) to get one and will have to pay that again and again each renewal. This is certainly making money somewhere for somebody and not at all about security
What states do you have to pay for your Real ID every time? Yes, you have to pay to renew your license or photo ID, but the Real ID fee in my state (PA) is one-time. Renewal costs are the same whether it's a Real ID or not.
As of the imposition of start of this new fee/fine, about 200,000 people a day fly without ID or without REAL-ID: https://papersplease.org/wp/2025/05/28/200000-people-a-day-f... - At $45 a pop, that would bring in >$3B a year. "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
That's a really disappointing source. The headline is '200,000 people a day fly without REAL-ID', which starts out quite interesting.
It then goes on to explain that the TSA has reported 93% of traveler's complied with REAL ID, citing a TSA blog from a week prior which in fact states the same.
They then take this and couple it with a single day, which they state was the busiest travel day of the Memorial Day weekend, and extrapolate that 7% of the travelers that day must've failed to provide a REAL ID.
For the sake of conversation, this is a reasonable statement. Going back and using it to suggest 200k fly without it on a typical day is not reasonable, nor is your suggestion that a 6 months later it's still at 7% (or even typical travel volume hasn't changed.) There has to be better data available.
I was curious about this, so I looked up travel volume. YTD the daily average is 2,130,136 passengers. At 7%, this is 149,109.5 passengers or $2.449 B a year in fees. This ignores that you only pay the fee once very 10 days and assumes that all travelers pay the fee on every occurrence.
“Most” people can have it and there’d still be millions (tens of millions, even over 100mill) of people who don’t. Multiple states don’t even require it. That guarantees several million people right there.
I think New York is one, so well over 10mill people don’t require it. Do you seriously think most of those people are getting one anyway? Guarantee you there are millions of people without it if not tens of millions. I’d put money on it.
So back to the point, we’re talking likely 100’s of millions of dollars. That is nothing to sneeze at. The TSA is an $11bill operation based on a quick search. $500mill (~11mill people) would be 5% of their annual budget.
America only has 340 million people to begin with. Then, half the population doesn't even fly in a given year. Those that do are mostly aware of the RealID requirement and either got it whenever they last renewed their driver's license, or renewed early because their DMV kept mailing them warnings about needing to do so if they wanted to fly. Yes, most people who fly either have it, or are getting it before their next flight. Part of the $45 fee is also to incentivize people to get the RealID, as that will obviously be cheaper for them over the long run.
That's the point. It's not to make money. The primary purpose is to get people to use RealID, and to cover the costs of the extra screening for those who don't. For however much more money they take in, you need to subtract the cost of the additional staff they need to hire and pay to handle it, plus the tech systems.
Also, remember you can just use a passport instead. That hasn't changed.
I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one. I certainly do not believe there are increased costs associated with my existing ID, that would be alleviated with a Real ID. At no point have I ever heard Real ID exists to reduce costs (though if that’s true, I’d love to read how). IMHO it may not be a “cash grab,” but it’s certainly punitive. And, for what it’s worth, there have been no extra steps I’ve had to take or increased screening when using my existing ID for the past year. Same photo machine, same scanner, as everyone else.
I will personally just renew my passport to avoid the fee until I need to renew my drivers license.
> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.
I guess that's because you haven't renewed your driver's license yet?
I did last year, precisely because I had to fly, and had to bring a bunch of new documentation I never needed for my previous driver's licenses, including, yes, multiple proofs of both citizenship and residency, and then had to go through a whole additional process because of a slight name discrepancy between documents that they had to get a supervisor to make a judgment call on. It's a totally different verification process that is actually quite meaningfully different.
> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.
You seem to have conveniently forgotten that residency was part of the discussion. DHS hasn't contested REAL ID as a means to verify your identity or your residency. They have contested it as a means to verify your citizenship and they are correct because it was never intended to be proof of citizenship or legal residency status.
You do need to show your residency paperwork or prove citizenship when applying as only lawfully present residents are eligible to receive a REAL ID, but only citizens and permanent residents have indefinite legal status and REAL ID doesn't track your status.
I would argue this is a silly gap, but Congress intentionally did not establish a National ID which you would expect to identify nationality. Instead, they created a system which makes it difficult to create ID in multiple states concurrently or under multiple names.
I would further argue that the database required to make REAL ID work ends up with all of the negatives of a national ID, without the most useful benefits. So really, we all lose.
I mean, that's one agency making a highly contested claim for obvious controversial political reasons.
It's absolutely a totally different and much stricter vetting process from before. Whether you or some other government agency thinks it still doesn't go far enough is a separate question.
CLEAR members are going out of their way to register their info in a biometric identification system. I don't think the people avoiding REAL IDs are the same demographic.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Absolutely. With Real ID, the biggest pain for a lot of people is proof of residency.
Rich people just print out some combination of a bank statement, a pay stub, and a copy of their mortgage or lease or the electric bill, but poor people may not have much of that. Think of someone staying with family and getting paid by a gig economy job to a Cash App card or just working under the table/doing odd jobs.
Once you start with less common documents, there seem to be more arcane rules, and the documents poor people do have often don’t quite fit the rules that were basically written around what people middle class and up are likely to have.
You need two documents for proof. It's really not that hard. Poor that can't produce these documents probably can't afford a plane ticket either, so how is it a problem? Y'all have some weird ideas about how poor people are incapable of have two pieces of paper that have: 1) their name 2) their address
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.
> 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.
It's a database lookup that takes 5-15 minutes once you get to an available officer, but then depending on what it returns you may need additional screening, which will also need to wait for someone available.
That's why if you don't have an ID, you should get to the airport at least an hour earlier than otherwise (already accounting for long security lines), and more during peak travel times. If you get slowed down, you're going to miss your flight. They're not going to speed it up for you.
To me this makes no sense at all. The visual (or computational) ID check takes a second. Why is a manual entry of someone's name/DOB something that takes 5-15 minutes? This is a process control issue, not a technical problem.
You're misunderstanding. What's preventing me from finding someone on Facebook who looks kind of similar to me, finding out their address and phone number, and then claiming I'm them but forgot my ID? Or if I'm a serious criminal planning ahead, applying for a legitimate driver's license in that other person's name with easily-forgeable documentation that less strict DMV's accept when they aren't RealID?
That's what they're guarding against. There's is no secure enough visual or computational ID check that takes a second when you're not already carrying a RealID or passport, that's the point. They have to start getting a bunch of information from databases, determining if it seems like a real person, and quizzing you on information you should know if you're the real you, and seeing if it all adds up or not.
How about we restrict airport and aircraft access based on individual's ability to do harm, rather than on the information in some trusted database? It sure seems like the major incidents in my lifetime would have been better prevented by keeping people with guns and bombs out than people with poor paperwork skills…
If you are able to follow simple written instructions and enter several pieces of information on a keyboard in less than five minutes... why would you work for the TSA?
This happened to me once, they just brought out someone (supervisor?) who asked questions about what addresses I've lived at, other similar questions I'd probably only know the answer to.
It does take longer than regular screening (most of the time was just spent waiting for the supervisor -- I'm not sure they were spending time collecting some data first), if that causes you to miss your flight you miss your flight.
It seems plausible to me that $45 could be about a TSA employee's wage times how much longer this takes. In aggregate, this (in theory) lets them hire additional staff to make sure normal screening doesn't take longer due to existing staff being tied up in extra verifications.
Data brokers already know everything about every American so the TSA is just buying existing information from them. Then they can quickly quiz you on the information to verify that you are you. https://network.id.me/article/what-is-knowledge-based-verifi...
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.
There are more criteria to get through security than "not carrying prohibited items". Several of those are dependent on identity, which is why they verify identity.
It seems to me that all those other consideration only matter for international travel, while for domestic travel its an obvious waste of time from every angle.
It's not that they'd pay individual employees more, it's that they'd hire more workers to account for the fact that their existing workers are tied up doing extra verification.
I wasn't flying 25 years ago but I'm not sure what you mean, or how that's relevant actually. The point is just that it takes them more time to do the "extra screening" if you don't have your ID than the standard screening if you did have your ID.
1. They're not doing screening. The screening comes later. At this stage, they're attempting to identify someone. That has never been the job. The job is to prevent guns, knives, swollen batteries, or anything else that could be a safety threat during air travel.
2. Regardless, the reality is that they do identify travelers. Even so, the job has not changed. If you don't present sufficient identification, they will identify you through other mechanisms. The only thing the new dictate says is that they don't want this document, they want that document.
> That has never been the job. The job is to prevent guns, knives, swollen batteries, or anything else that could be a safety threat during air travel.
A job that by their own internal testing, they do well less than 5% of the time (some of their audits showed that 98% of fake/test guns that were sent through TSA got through checkpoints).
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.
I think the comparison to the propiska system is incorrect. This Soviet system heavily controlled internal migration and was what ultimately dictated where someone was permitted to live. You couldn't relocate without one, and having this permission was tied to all sorts of local services. This system anchored people to where they were, and usually barred them from moving unless they had a good reason to.
The US currently has freedom of movement. You don't need the government's permission to live somewhere or to move somewhere else. An ID with your address listed isn't propiska. At best, you could compare it to the 'internal passport' that the USSR and most post-Soviet countries had, which acted as a comprehensive identity document and was the ancestor to modern national ID cards that are used in many countries.
Real ID/Drivers License being a proof of address is laughable. In my state (NY) they accept the following as proof of address for getting a new Real ID:
- Bank statement
- Pay stub
- Utility bill
- Any other state ID with the same last name, which I can claim is my parent or spouse.
I can change my mailing address on any of them with a few clicks online, no actual verification needed.
It's hardly proof of address. At best, I'd say it's proof of state residency.
I've moved several times since getting my Colorado driver's license (a REAL ID). Technically, you are supposed to submit a change-of-address form to the DMV online within 30 days of moving. They don't send you a new card when you do that; the official procedure is to stick a piece of paper with your new address written on it to your existing ID yourself, and then just wait until your next renewal to actually get a card with the new address on it. The change of address form does not require utility bills or any other proof of the new address-- that's only required when you initially get the driver's license.
I certainly got a new plastic ID card within 2 weeks after filing the change-of-address form on DMV website, with a new address on it. They sent it to the new address. But mine was not RealID compliant (nor before nor after).
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.
>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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
They might be defended by their agency (though being "in the right" doesn't appear to be a pre-requisite for that anyway). But they would/could still be subject to lawsuit after lawsuit, which hardly suits the intended goal of government, does it?
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.
It might be true, it might not. Probably more useful to say "as long as they are conducting it properly" seems to have little impact on any of cases in which such immunity has been an issue.
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.
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.
I didn't personally experience it (I was too young), but I think that was part of "the mission" since pre-9/11. The point of the ID check is to make sure the boarding ticket and ID match.
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...
The people eligible for passports are not the same group of people eligible for voter id since there are a few jurisdictions where non-citizens can vote in certain elections. Voting is also a responsibility of the states (even at the federal level), so there isn't really such thing as a federal voter id since each state has different eligibility requirements for voters that don't necessarily align with passport eligibility. Additionally, passport cards aren't interchangeable with passports in most countries.
Also, every four years? Elections happen more or less constantly in this country at some level or another. Federal elections are every two years, BTW, and that's if we ignore special elections for federal candidates. You should learn more about the system you live in.
The current round of stop-and-search would be enabled by making passport cards or some form of universal id. The current legal reality is that you do not need to prove your citizenship on demand if you are already in the US as a citizen. The burden of proof - rightly in my opinion - lies with the government to prove that you are not a citizen. Frankly, I'm quite uncomfortable with "paper's please" entering the US law enforcement repertoire. The fourth amendment was pretty clear about this.
With the CBP using mere presence validated by facial id only at legally protected protests as reason to withdraw Global Entry enrollment, it seems more and more clear that we do not need to be giving more power to the people who do not understand the 4th and first amendments. Removing people from Global Entry for protected first speech is, afaict, directly in violation of the first amendment even if Global Entry is a "privilege"
FWIW, REAL-ID is not about U.S. citizenship: A passport issued by any country is considered "compliant" with the REAL-ID Act for air travel or any other purpose, regardless of the person's U.S. immigration status. Some politicians seem to have deluded themselves to think that requiring REAL-ID will stop "illegal aliens" from flying. But it won't. Many foreigners in the U.S. (regardless of U.S. immigration status) have an easier time getting REAL-ID (a passport from their country of citizenship) than some U.S. citizens.
> But then how would we waste so many societal resources letting investors profit from basic infrastructure?
That, and Millenarian Christians would object to its being a required "mark of the beast." That bit from Revelations has held us back for quite a while.
I'm sure some young guns from a techbro company would love to dive into the data lake and make a proposal. They might need to take a few reels of tape away for offsite analysis, but don't worry..
The reels of tape already exist at Apple/Alphabet/Tmobile/ATT/Verizon/Meta/Microsoft/Chase/BoA/etc, subject to secret FISA warrants. What difference does it make?
I stand corrected, at least in Pennsylvania (1). I misremembering the issues surrounding requiring Id to vote. The law that was struck down did provide a free id that would have been suitable for voting; however, that isn't required and no longer exists, and there was no mention I could find of if it would have been realid compliant.(2)
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.
"once you get past the range of a tank of gas or two."
This is like the folks who say flying is more carbon friendly than driving. It's wrong, you're comparing a vehicle running cost with one passenger vs a full vehicle normalized by its capacity.
Traffic signs have symbols and shapes. You are allowed to drive in the US with an international drivers license if you don’t speak English. Are they going to arrest someone who doesn’t speak English and got a license in another state?
California offers both. I renewed my license last year. I opted for a non Real ID version because I could renew online rather than spend hours at the DMV.
Some states, including mine, don't offer RealID at all, but instead an "enhanced driver license" that is accepted alongside RealID. I don't even have that, because I already have a passport card, so there's no reason to spend the extra money.
I'm in Oregon, and that's the case - about $30 extra. More people than you think don't have access to supplemental documentation required to meet extra requirements – people who don't have current travel documents, people who've just moved into town, people who don't have current documentation of address (e.g. the homeless, people in the foster care system, etc.)
It's pragmatic to have: plenty of people don't or can't fly, and the cost of supporting this option is marginal.
yes, if there's one thing the working poor are known for, it's successfully extracting money from their employers. if uber wants you to rideshare, they should buy you a car, right?
If the answer is more than "zero" then the fee is harmful. Since I've been in similar positions (specifically as a contractor, where I had to front-load expenses and submit for reimbursement), it seems pretty likely to me.
Undocumented immigrants can have authentic, non-"RealID" ids, as things such as drivers licenses are the purview of the states, and infringement there upon is an attack on their constitutional sovereignty. California, for example, is perfectly happy to give out drivers licenses to anybody who can establish residency and pass the test, since there's no sense in creating a double jeopardy situation wherein because someone has committed one crime (illegally immigrating to California), they are forced to commit an additional crime (driving without a license). It's the same reason the IRS gives you a spot to declare your bribes and other illegal income.
> It's the same reason the IRS gives you a spot to declare your bribes and other illegal income.
The California example makes sense. They aren't asking a question that would lead to the admission of a crime. The IRS example doesn't make sense, since they are asking a question that would lead to the admission of a crime. Even if the answer was legally protected, a government who does not respect the law (or one that changes the law) could have nasty repercussions.
The IRS doesn’t ask for specifics so I don’t think it’s legally an admission of a crime. Saying “I took a bribe” doesn’t make you legally guilty of taking a bribe. You’d have to say when, from who, and for what.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you are flying domestically, the airline doesn’t care. They know that someone bought a ticket to get pass security and that ticket matched the ID of the person who got through security. They don’t lose money and thier is no increased safety risk.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
It's a deep-seated cultural paranoia that the federal government is out to get us. Initially, the US tried to be a confederation like the EU or Canada, but it turned out that we needed slightly more federal power than that to stay as a unified country. But the tension between "loose coalition of independent states" and "unified government that grants some powers to the states" is a pretty fundamental theme throughout US politics.
Among the man weird corners of US national ID politics, is the set of Americans who think a national ID is an unforgivable invasion of liberty but that an ID should be required to vote.
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?
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
They've been pushing it back every year because states haven't implemented it uniformly. Washington gave me a non real-ID card in 2022. IIRC the only real-ID option at the time was an Enhanced ID which can be used to cross the border from Canada and costs $100.
As the other comments inform you, many states were not coerced into adopting it until very recently. In these ~dozen states the majority of people do not have the new federal ID. There are Enhanced Driver's Licenses as alternatives the to the invasive federal ID but most just have the normal state ID that work perfectly well; excepting these contrived situations the feds use to try to force people with.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
I used to have a Sikh manager who wore a turban. Whenever we traveled together, he would get "randomly" stopped. While they were patting him down, he would inevitably chuckle and say something like "So what are the odds of being 'randomly' selected 27 times in a row?"
I don't know the specifics of the process for selection, but I can confidently say that the process is bigoted.
In proper English usage it would only be a bigoted
check if it was unreasonable to suspect a Sikh of carrying a Kirpan.The Rehat Maryada would suggest that is in no way whatsoever an unreasonable suspicion.
Sure, your manager likely didn't carry one on airplanes .. but that still falls short of being an unreasonable check.
As a white guy who was caught accidentally carrying a large knife once through security, at the bottom of a carry-on backpack I'd had since high school, I don't think it's in any way essential to use racial or ethnic markers to figure out whether someone is taking something dangerous onto a plane. I didn't even know I was trying to bring a knife onto a plane at a regional airport. There's no reason to think that Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.
I have nothing against Sikh's, I've known a few for decades.
> There's no reason to think that Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.
... other than a small, curved sword or dagger that initiated (Amritdhari) Sikhs are required to wear at all times as one of the Five Ks (articles of faith) ordained by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 you mean?
It seems reasonable, and a number of actual Sikh's would actually agree, to guess that a Sikh who holds their faith to be a matter of importance would absolutely hide a symbolic dagger the size of a letter opener and capable of slitting a throat.
The question facing any border agent tasked with checking Sikh's, of course, is this specific Sikh one that will always try to carry a Kiran, or one that doesn't hold with all that articles of faith guff.
I used to work with a Kevin and a Mohammed.
Whenever we travelled to offsite offices Mohammed 100% of the time was picked for bag check, while Kevin was not picked once.
Mohammed was white, and Kevin was black.
It was completely racist, and never random.
I'm brown, very brown. A Native American, in fact.
It's screwed up that skin color is a marker that would lead an ignorant provincial quasi-cop to assume someone is of a particular ethnicity, and even more so that that ethnicity would lead them to believe an individual adheres to a belief system that might lead them to blow up an aircraft. Very poor set of assumptions and flawed tooling, to say the least.
I was so confused last time I traveled as I watched this brown skinned family getting shaken down for ID by TSA and they literally just waived me past and said didn't need ID. Mind you I've never not been asked to show ID to TSA before this.
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?
This podcast episode might be of interest. https://www.searchengine.show/a-perfectly-average-anomaly/
Are you sure it was the zipper?
it's a guess from looking at the screen where the red square is placed right around that zone.
/r/bigdickproblems
Derek Smalls?
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.
I did that for a long time. My favorite part is when they say "Do you have any sore or sensitive areas?"
I always say "my penis" and they say "uh.. well.. I'm not going to touch that"
Me: "When you slide your hand up until you meet resistance? That resistance is my penis. You're going to touch my penis and it's a sensitive area."
> 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).
Yep. It's asking for FAFO with civil $$ or even criminal penalties.
From what I see, it's low risk, though the parent's smartass approach might get you some punishment. Not worth skipping the detector via lie.
Who said I'm lying?
It seemed implied by:
> Then I realized I could even skip that.
It would make sense that you weren’t injuring yourself prior to realizing this.
Again, implied. But agreed, you didn’t say it.
Fair! I was going to go back and edit, but my comment was more for other people who read your comment thinking it was a good idea for them to do (assuming they can raise their hands over their heads).
Since the TSA cannot force you to prove it - after all, they're not medical personnel to evaluate it and not willing to risk your injury - whether someone lies becomes irrelevant.
"i can't raise my arms over my head" doesn't contain the word "medically". could be religious reasons, or simply personal superstition.
This is genius, thank you for sharing. I don't fly often, mostly because it became from glamorous to brutal experience.
The Republicans say you should dress up better, then it’s glamorous.
Make sure you bring a change of workout clothes too for the exercise room between flights.
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.
Another pro tip is to not pay at restaurants. If you can leave the restaurant fast enough before they give you the bill, they must have forgotten to charge you and sucks for them! The trick is not to bring bags so you can fake a trip to the toilet!
if you're not joking, actions like these are why we can't have nice things in society, it's cancerous behavior and just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
I think the two comments above yours are poking fun at the guy who is committing a felony by lying to federal agents. They're just making it obvious what he's doing is really shitty, anti-social behavior.
You are grossly misinformed and making an assumption.
You're thinking of being interviewed by a Federal agent. At no point are you being interviewed at a TSA checkpoint. Generally, they have two agents present for that so they can act as witnesses for each other. The FBI specifically uses the 302 for such an interview. Can you cite the relavant US Code here? I can.
Further, you're assuming I'm lying.
As someone who was present (in the room) as DHS was being formed and witnessed the negotiations around the TSA, the "really shitty, anti-social behavior" is sharing misinformation.
Lying to TSA and other government representatives is patriotic
"Obeying the law, no matter how pointless, wasteful, or destructive, is a virtue."
Does it make you feel good to participate in a meaningless charade of security theater? Or would you rather spend your time doing some of value?
Quite a modest proposal.
What if the police department has Teslas?
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.
I should not need to show an anonymous TSA agent my genitals, even if they are in black and white on some monitor theyre viewing in some back room, to get on a plane.
At least currently the images are never seen by a person and are deleted after ATR.
Sure thing, and my Facebook account was hard deleted when I asked them to.
Are you implying that Mark Zuckerberg is a liar, sir?
You'll need to add a /s, else most here won't realize you're being sarcastic.
You are, right?
"Fool me twice...can't get fooled again"
> I should not need to show an anonymous TSA agent my genitals
Unless you want to!
I could ask the same serious question, why should I have to? There is zero reason to suspect me of being a suicidal maniac. Should we have such scanners to walk into a busy store or bus or subway system? Why don't private pilots and passengers have such screenings?
Tangential: Here in India we have security guards with hand-held metal detectors in malls, railway stations, and urban transit rails (metro) stations.
The first time I visited a different country I was surprised to see my friend accompany me to the check-in counter and even further to drop me off. In India they wouldn't let you enter the airport if your flight doesn't depart soon enough.
It used to be normal in the U.S. to walk people to the gate until 9/11.
Now you can escort someone to the check-in counter and up to the security checkpoint, and meet people at the luggage area to help with bags.
But in practice it seems rare to do so if there isn’t a particular reason, probably because you’d have to pay to park or ride transit and it’s usually a trek beyond that. Honestly if they allowed you to go through security with the passenger and wait at the gate, I’m not sure how many people would even do it here (or how many passengers would want their loved ones to do so).
I don't think anyone in the US really cares about metal detectors, humans don't naturally contain metal and it is done completely hands off with no extra visual or biometric information or saved data. Plenty of people in this thread who opted out of other security measures still walked through a metal detector without any special note. Court houses and police stations have often have metal detectors that even a Senator or President would have to walk through. The same cannot be said of direct imaging of your body though or facial recognition or anything. If you wouldn't put your children through the process to go into school each day then it seems completely bonkers to require it for any form of mass transit.
There are legit health reasons to opt out of the scanner. I know because I have one of those conditions and have never been through the scanner.
That's fine, but you don't need a health condition, legit or otherwise, to opt out. It's enough to say "I would like to opt out."
Millimeter wave scanners have a health exemption? Like because it would always detect something on your body?
What is an example of such a condition?
Pacemaker, pregnancy, probably others.
Studies have all come out clean on pacemakers and mmWave. No detectable interference in the hardware or on an EKG while in a mmWave scanner.
I could imagine other conditions potentially but pacemakers have been ruled a non issue for mmWave by academic studies (albeit I can understand still exercising caution despite that).
To me it's just a vote against the profiteers who make those machines.
Also I kinda like the process better; the pat-down is nothin', and you can a full table to yourself to recombobulate.
> First-Amendment-auditor thinking.
Uhhh, I like that kind of thinking. Is there something wrong with first amendment auditors now?!
Perhaps I haven't gotten a representative sample, but in 100% of the content I've seen from self-described "first amendment auditors", they're acting unpleasant and suspicious for absolutely no reason other than provoking a reaction. To me this seems like antisocial behavior that degrades rather than supports First Amendment protections. I consider myself a pretty strong First Amendment supporter, but if I routinely found strange men filming me as I walked down the street, I would support basically any legal change required to make them stop.
First Amendment auditors have usually been attention seeking individuals making click bait YouTube videos. It's been interesting seeing the transformation from that to what we're seeing with people monitoring ICE.
I, too, dislike walking far. Here’s how I faked my way into a handicap parking tag.
> I, too, dislike walking far. Here’s how I faked my way into a handicap parking tag.
Cute analogy, but.
Handicap parking tags provide value to those who need them. Depriving them of parking makes their lives harder.
On the other hand, TSA is pure theater, as TFA makes clear. Avoiding this needless ritual saves time for the passenger, for the TSA officers, even for the other passengers, and does not increase risk at all. It's pure win-win.
That’s fine and it is of course security theater / jobs program. I was put off by the feigning of disability to avoid a scanner and/or some inconvenience. This kind of behavior is okay, even great, but please come up with a more tasteful way. Otherwise I hope it’s a parody.
There may be no more tasteful way, this is likely the only way.
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.
The TSA is literally doing all this extra work though, whether or not you think it's required by law. They're not just pocketing the $45 and then blindly waving you ahead.
Let's be more precise. The TSA has created extra work for themselves, and are charging us for it, whether it's legally required or not (because they pretend that it is).
Sure. But it's not "pretend". It's genuine regulatory policy they've created because they believe it's necessary for security, and this has been a decades-long project. The article is arguing they don't ultimately have the legal authority to make that regulatory policy. Maybe that'll go to court and be tested, maybe they'll win and maybe they'll lose. If they lose, maybe Congress will pass explicit legislative authorization the next day, and maybe that'll be brought to court, and the Supreme Court will have to decide if it violates the 14th amendment or not. But it's not "fake work", it's actually doing a thing.
No, it's not "regulatory policy". It's been done entirely with some combination of secret "Security Directives" and "rulemaking by press release". As the article and the linked references explain, the TSA never issued any regulations, published any of the required notices, or obtained any of the approvals that would have been required even if Congress had passed an (unconstitutional) authorizing statute (which it didn't).
No. Policy or regulation would have a basis in law. This administration has aptly demonstrated their contempt for the law. Nobody gives a shit about some grunt federal employee getting extra work.
This is just a way to compel compliance and to push the agenda for ID with higher documentary requirements, ultimately to deny the vote.
I mean I could hire someone to continuously dig and refill the a hole in the ground. That would certainly be them doing a thing, but it would also definitely be fake work. There's been plenty of rhetoric thrown around but no real evidence has been produced that suggests the TSA isn't engaging in a bit of circular digging at the taxpayer's expense with this.
Ah, digging holes and refilling them - that'd be literally the NREGA program in India
As I mentioned[0] a few months ago after the TSA announced the $45 "fee":
And now the birds are coming home to roost. No real surprise there, IMHO.[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46128346
It's security theatre, someone has to pay the performers
Flying without ID just gets you the full patdown treatment. It’s not like they’re tracking down people to vouch for you.
I don't know what you mean by "full patdown treatment", but they're absolutely tracking down your information in databases and interviewing you about it. See replies to:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46864182
It's absolutely not just enhanced physical screening.
It's not just a patdown. They take you to a phone booth that has a direct line to some portion of the FBI IIRC, and they ask you a bunch of questions to confirm your identity. At least this is what happened to me about ten years ago when I lost my wallet in a different state and needed to fly home.
... and the law in most states requires only that you give your name and possibly your DOB to the authorities upon detainment. So as a purely academic exercise, what can they even do if you refuse to answer beyond that? Obviously in practice they will fuck with you or just straight up violate the constitution, but theoretically I'm unsure how they can continue to seize you after that.
...they don't let you fly.
They can't detain you (if you're not otherwise some kind of suspect, and you're not trying to assault them or sprint past security or anything), but they don't let you fly.
... if you aren't detained you are free to go. And if you are free to go, you are free to stay, unless the property owner has trespassed you. TSA doesn't own the airport, at least in my state. So how can they trespass you from the airport or otherwise continue to detain you from moving forward?
I mean, I know you're right, and I know you will always lose if you try, but I don't understand the legal basis.
I don't think it's a matter of whether or not you are free to go. It's a matter of whether they let you on the plane.
It's just federal law.
Cities don't own restaurants either but can fine them and close them if health inspections fail, because there's a law for that.
The legal basis is the federal laws written specifically around airport security.
I think the question here is, which laws?
at least, hold or delay you long enough to make you miss your flight.
Like someone who would deliberately show up to work in a speedo because "show me where in the employee handbook it says I must wear pants"
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
It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID. In the context of airport security budgets, it's not that much. And it's used for hiring the additional staff required and putting together the identity verification systems they use.
> It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID
Those that did had to pay $30-$60 plus fees (actual cost differs by state) to get one and will have to pay that again and again each renewal. This is certainly making money somewhere for somebody and not at all about security
What states do you have to pay for your Real ID every time? Yes, you have to pay to renew your license or photo ID, but the Real ID fee in my state (PA) is one-time. Renewal costs are the same whether it's a Real ID or not.
WA state it is an extra $56 every time you renew for Real ID
California would be one, because they issue Real IDs to non-citizens that are tied to their documentation, which needs to be reviewed each time.
As of the imposition of start of this new fee/fine, about 200,000 people a day fly without ID or without REAL-ID: https://papersplease.org/wp/2025/05/28/200000-people-a-day-f... - At $45 a pop, that would bring in >$3B a year. "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
That's a really disappointing source. The headline is '200,000 people a day fly without REAL-ID', which starts out quite interesting.
It then goes on to explain that the TSA has reported 93% of traveler's complied with REAL ID, citing a TSA blog from a week prior which in fact states the same.
They then take this and couple it with a single day, which they state was the busiest travel day of the Memorial Day weekend, and extrapolate that 7% of the travelers that day must've failed to provide a REAL ID.
For the sake of conversation, this is a reasonable statement. Going back and using it to suggest 200k fly without it on a typical day is not reasonable, nor is your suggestion that a 6 months later it's still at 7% (or even typical travel volume hasn't changed.) There has to be better data available.
I was curious about this, so I looked up travel volume. YTD the daily average is 2,130,136 passengers. At 7%, this is 149,109.5 passengers or $2.449 B a year in fees. This ignores that you only pay the fee once very 10 days and assumes that all travelers pay the fee on every occurrence.
“Most” people can have it and there’d still be millions (tens of millions, even over 100mill) of people who don’t. Multiple states don’t even require it. That guarantees several million people right there.
I think New York is one, so well over 10mill people don’t require it. Do you seriously think most of those people are getting one anyway? Guarantee you there are millions of people without it if not tens of millions. I’d put money on it.
So back to the point, we’re talking likely 100’s of millions of dollars. That is nothing to sneeze at. The TSA is an $11bill operation based on a quick search. $500mill (~11mill people) would be 5% of their annual budget.
America only has 340 million people to begin with. Then, half the population doesn't even fly in a given year. Those that do are mostly aware of the RealID requirement and either got it whenever they last renewed their driver's license, or renewed early because their DMV kept mailing them warnings about needing to do so if they wanted to fly. Yes, most people who fly either have it, or are getting it before their next flight. Part of the $45 fee is also to incentivize people to get the RealID, as that will obviously be cheaper for them over the long run.
That's the point. It's not to make money. The primary purpose is to get people to use RealID, and to cover the costs of the extra screening for those who don't. For however much more money they take in, you need to subtract the cost of the additional staff they need to hire and pay to handle it, plus the tech systems.
Also, remember you can just use a passport instead. That hasn't changed.
There’s quite a bit of evidence to say there are still millions without one, especially depending on the state, this article is from 9 months ago:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/real-id-deadline-weeks-away-mos...
I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one. I certainly do not believe there are increased costs associated with my existing ID, that would be alleviated with a Real ID. At no point have I ever heard Real ID exists to reduce costs (though if that’s true, I’d love to read how). IMHO it may not be a “cash grab,” but it’s certainly punitive. And, for what it’s worth, there have been no extra steps I’ve had to take or increased screening when using my existing ID for the past year. Same photo machine, same scanner, as everyone else.
I will personally just renew my passport to avoid the fee until I need to renew my drivers license.
> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.
I guess that's because you haven't renewed your driver's license yet?
I did last year, precisely because I had to fly, and had to bring a bunch of new documentation I never needed for my previous driver's licenses, including, yes, multiple proofs of both citizenship and residency, and then had to go through a whole additional process because of a slight name discrepancy between documents that they had to get a supervisor to make a judgment call on. It's a totally different verification process that is actually quite meaningfully different.
I thought that too, having seen the requirements, but it turns out it does not really do anything (at least as far as I can tell):
https://reason.com/2025/12/31/dhs-says-real-id-which-dhs-cer...
Allow me to remind you of what you said:
> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.
You seem to have conveniently forgotten that residency was part of the discussion. DHS hasn't contested REAL ID as a means to verify your identity or your residency. They have contested it as a means to verify your citizenship and they are correct because it was never intended to be proof of citizenship or legal residency status.
You do need to show your residency paperwork or prove citizenship when applying as only lawfully present residents are eligible to receive a REAL ID, but only citizens and permanent residents have indefinite legal status and REAL ID doesn't track your status.
I would argue this is a silly gap, but Congress intentionally did not establish a National ID which you would expect to identify nationality. Instead, they created a system which makes it difficult to create ID in multiple states concurrently or under multiple names.
I would further argue that the database required to make REAL ID work ends up with all of the negatives of a national ID, without the most useful benefits. So really, we all lose.
I mean, that's one agency making a highly contested claim for obvious controversial political reasons.
It's absolutely a totally different and much stricter vetting process from before. Whether you or some other government agency thinks it still doesn't go far enough is a separate question.
You keep saying “most” which I agreed with for starters and still leaves a ton of people.
Also almost half the population flies annually, so we’re starting around 150mill.
You need numbers at this point. I am willing to bet millions flying don’t have it.
Here’s an article from April 2025: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/real-id-deadline-may/
Assuming 100M "classic" ID checks (being generous): congrats, you just paid for two days of running the military!
So trump can use this money to invade and finish taking over Greenland!
Right after he finishes the wall Mexico is paying for I’m sure
5% of TSA’s annual budget ain’t nothing to scoff at.
But everyone would have to take advantage of that benefit not having ID have with themselves.
The roughly 7.6 million CLEAR members paying $209/yr grosses them north of $1 billion/year. It's not hard to see why TSA wants to get in on it.
CLEAR members are going out of their way to register their info in a biometric identification system. I don't think the people avoiding REAL IDs are the same demographic.
Laziness comes in many forms
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.
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.
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.
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!
terrorists don’t have $45 each
It's meant to deter poor people, but it sounds better the way you said 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.
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
> Precheck by itself does not
Now! But, when it started it definitely required.
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.
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.
Absolutely. With Real ID, the biggest pain for a lot of people is proof of residency.
Rich people just print out some combination of a bank statement, a pay stub, and a copy of their mortgage or lease or the electric bill, but poor people may not have much of that. Think of someone staying with family and getting paid by a gig economy job to a Cash App card or just working under the table/doing odd jobs.
Once you start with less common documents, there seem to be more arcane rules, and the documents poor people do have often don’t quite fit the rules that were basically written around what people middle class and up are likely to have.
You need two documents for proof. It's really not that hard. Poor that can't produce these documents probably can't afford a plane ticket either, so how is it a problem? Y'all have some weird ideas about how poor people are incapable of have two pieces of paper that have: 1) their name 2) their address
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.
It is like the government loooed at Ryanair and thought "what if we were like that!"
$45 pays for the cost of a much more tedious identity verification process.
> 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.
It's a database lookup that takes 5-15 minutes once you get to an available officer, but then depending on what it returns you may need additional screening, which will also need to wait for someone available.
That's why if you don't have an ID, you should get to the airport at least an hour earlier than otherwise (already accounting for long security lines), and more during peak travel times. If you get slowed down, you're going to miss your flight. They're not going to speed it up for you.
To me this makes no sense at all. The visual (or computational) ID check takes a second. Why is a manual entry of someone's name/DOB something that takes 5-15 minutes? This is a process control issue, not a technical problem.
You're misunderstanding. What's preventing me from finding someone on Facebook who looks kind of similar to me, finding out their address and phone number, and then claiming I'm them but forgot my ID? Or if I'm a serious criminal planning ahead, applying for a legitimate driver's license in that other person's name with easily-forgeable documentation that less strict DMV's accept when they aren't RealID?
That's what they're guarding against. There's is no secure enough visual or computational ID check that takes a second when you're not already carrying a RealID or passport, that's the point. They have to start getting a bunch of information from databases, determining if it seems like a real person, and quizzing you on information you should know if you're the real you, and seeing if it all adds up or not.
How about we restrict airport and aircraft access based on individual's ability to do harm, rather than on the information in some trusted database? It sure seems like the major incidents in my lifetime would have been better prevented by keeping people with guns and bombs out than people with poor paperwork skills…
Don't forget about the critical check for whether or not you possess JD Vance meme contraband.
If you are able to follow simple written instructions and enter several pieces of information on a keyboard in less than five minutes... why would you work for the TSA?
This happened to me once, they just brought out someone (supervisor?) who asked questions about what addresses I've lived at, other similar questions I'd probably only know the answer to.
It does take longer than regular screening (most of the time was just spent waiting for the supervisor -- I'm not sure they were spending time collecting some data first), if that causes you to miss your flight you miss your flight.
It seems plausible to me that $45 could be about a TSA employee's wage times how much longer this takes. In aggregate, this (in theory) lets them hire additional staff to make sure normal screening doesn't take longer due to existing staff being tied up in extra verifications.
Data brokers already know everything about every American so the TSA is just buying existing information from them. Then they can quickly quiz you on the information to verify that you are you. https://network.id.me/article/what-is-knowledge-based-verifi...
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.
There are more criteria to get through security than "not carrying prohibited items". Several of those are dependent on identity, which is why they verify identity.
It seems to me that all those other consideration only matter for international travel, while for domestic travel its an obvious waste of time from every angle.
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.
It's not that they'd pay individual employees more, it's that they'd hire more workers to account for the fact that their existing workers are tied up doing extra verification.
Though they might not do that either.
Even that fails a sanity test. They're not doing anything more than they would have done 25 years ago when the whole damn thing started.
I wasn't flying 25 years ago but I'm not sure what you mean, or how that's relevant actually. The point is just that it takes them more time to do the "extra screening" if you don't have your ID than the standard screening if you did have your ID.
Sure. A couple of things to clarify:
1. They're not doing screening. The screening comes later. At this stage, they're attempting to identify someone. That has never been the job. The job is to prevent guns, knives, swollen batteries, or anything else that could be a safety threat during air travel.
2. Regardless, the reality is that they do identify travelers. Even so, the job has not changed. If you don't present sufficient identification, they will identify you through other mechanisms. The only thing the new dictate says is that they don't want this document, they want that document.
> That has never been the job. The job is to prevent guns, knives, swollen batteries, or anything else that could be a safety threat during air travel.
A job that by their own internal testing, they do well less than 5% of the time (some of their audits showed that 98% of fake/test guns that were sent through TSA got through checkpoints).
Do you not see how an organization discouraging the use of something inefficient benefits as a whole?
Thats why cashless businesses exist, why you pay more for things that involve human attention instead of automated online solutions etc.
Who does it benefit? Not me. Maybe it benefits Mastercard and Visa.
Yes it benefits the consumer through lower prices, and in the case of cashless specifically, less tax fraud, etc
Most businesses near me offer lower prices to people paying with cash.
High interchange fees?
https://www.clearlypayments.com/blog/interchange-fees-by-cou...
or tax fraud, otherwise cashless is obviously cheaper
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.
I think the comparison to the propiska system is incorrect. This Soviet system heavily controlled internal migration and was what ultimately dictated where someone was permitted to live. You couldn't relocate without one, and having this permission was tied to all sorts of local services. This system anchored people to where they were, and usually barred them from moving unless they had a good reason to.
The US currently has freedom of movement. You don't need the government's permission to live somewhere or to move somewhere else. An ID with your address listed isn't propiska. At best, you could compare it to the 'internal passport' that the USSR and most post-Soviet countries had, which acted as a comprehensive identity document and was the ancestor to modern national ID cards that are used in many countries.
My passport card is RealID compliant and doesn’t have my address anywhere on it.
Citizenship or lawful status, sorry! And you’re right.
But it’s totemic when you dig into conspiracy theories about undocumented immigrants voting. RealID comes up a lot.
Real ID/Drivers License being a proof of address is laughable. In my state (NY) they accept the following as proof of address for getting a new Real ID:
- Bank statement
- Pay stub
- Utility bill
- Any other state ID with the same last name, which I can claim is my parent or spouse.
I can change my mailing address on any of them with a few clicks online, no actual verification needed.
What they do NOT accept as proof of address:
- My passport
How does that make any sense?
> What they do NOT accept as proof of address: > - My passport > How does that make any sense?
It makes sense because, if you look closely, you will see that your passport does not indicate your address.
It's hardly proof of address. At best, I'd say it's proof of state residency.
I've moved several times since getting my Colorado driver's license (a REAL ID). Technically, you are supposed to submit a change-of-address form to the DMV online within 30 days of moving. They don't send you a new card when you do that; the official procedure is to stick a piece of paper with your new address written on it to your existing ID yourself, and then just wait until your next renewal to actually get a card with the new address on it. The change of address form does not require utility bills or any other proof of the new address-- that's only required when you initially get the driver's license.
I certainly got a new plastic ID card within 2 weeks after filing the change-of-address form on DMV website, with a new address on it. They sent it to the new address. But mine was not RealID compliant (nor before nor after).
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.
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...
The courts are allowed to be wrong, it's true.
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.
As an attorney, I can tell you that a naive reading of words in the Constitution is not how law is decided.
Believe it or not, I don't care what authoritarians feel about the 4th amendment that was designed to be read and interpreted free of the courts.
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.
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.
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.
> 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
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.
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!
They might be defended by their agency (though being "in the right" doesn't appear to be a pre-requisite for that anyway). But they would/could still be subject to lawsuit after lawsuit, which hardly suits the intended goal of government, does it?
Make the losing side pay attorney fees. (This is a general fix for a lot of issues in the legal system.)
Working in the criminal justice system for awhile in some capacity will really give you perspective on what people have to deal with.
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.
It might be true, it might not. Probably more useful to say "as long as they are conducting it properly" seems to have little impact on any of cases in which such immunity has been an issue.
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.
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.
> The mission, ostensibly, is to make air travel safe by ensuring that passengers don't bring dangerous items onto the plane.
No, it is to make it safe for any reason, which goes beyond whether or not they brought box cutters.
Ok, I'll concede that. That boils down to someone bringing something on the plane that can be used to cause trouble.
I didn't personally experience it (I was too young), but I think that was part of "the mission" since pre-9/11. The point of the ID check is to make sure the boarding ticket and ID match.
In effect that tracks 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...
The people eligible for passports are not the same group of people eligible for voter id since there are a few jurisdictions where non-citizens can vote in certain elections. Voting is also a responsibility of the states (even at the federal level), so there isn't really such thing as a federal voter id since each state has different eligibility requirements for voters that don't necessarily align with passport eligibility. Additionally, passport cards aren't interchangeable with passports in most countries.
Also, every four years? Elections happen more or less constantly in this country at some level or another. Federal elections are every two years, BTW, and that's if we ignore special elections for federal candidates. You should learn more about the system you live in.
The current round of stop-and-search would be enabled by making passport cards or some form of universal id. The current legal reality is that you do not need to prove your citizenship on demand if you are already in the US as a citizen. The burden of proof - rightly in my opinion - lies with the government to prove that you are not a citizen. Frankly, I'm quite uncomfortable with "paper's please" entering the US law enforcement repertoire. The fourth amendment was pretty clear about this.
With the CBP using mere presence validated by facial id only at legally protected protests as reason to withdraw Global Entry enrollment, it seems more and more clear that we do not need to be giving more power to the people who do not understand the 4th and first amendments. Removing people from Global Entry for protected first speech is, afaict, directly in violation of the first amendment even if Global Entry is a "privilege"
FWIW, REAL-ID is not about U.S. citizenship: A passport issued by any country is considered "compliant" with the REAL-ID Act for air travel or any other purpose, regardless of the person's U.S. immigration status. Some politicians seem to have deluded themselves to think that requiring REAL-ID will stop "illegal aliens" from flying. But it won't. Many foreigners in the U.S. (regardless of U.S. immigration status) have an easier time getting REAL-ID (a passport from their country of citizenship) than some U.S. citizens.
My comment was addressing passport cards as a national ID and voter ID.
And also provide an API for online services to use so we are not beholden to Alphabet and Apple.
And while they’re at it, provide an electronic money account that allows for free and instant transfers.
But then how would we waste so many societal resources letting investors profit from basic infrastructure?
> But then how would we waste so many societal resources letting investors profit from basic infrastructure?
That, and Millenarian Christians would object to its being a required "mark of the beast." That bit from Revelations has held us back for quite a while.
I'm sure some young guns from a techbro company would love to dive into the data lake and make a proposal. They might need to take a few reels of tape away for offsite analysis, but don't worry..
The reels of tape already exist at Apple/Alphabet/Tmobile/ATT/Verizon/Meta/Microsoft/Chase/BoA/etc, subject to secret FISA warrants. What difference does it make?
"government issued voter-ID"
Gasp! Checking for IDs while voting is fascist! It's like Germany 1937.
~~~While it's not a passport, I believe most states have free id cards that are "realid" compliant.~~~
Edit: I'm wrong.
> I believe most states have free id cards that are "realid" compliant.
None in the mid-Atlantic or SE that I've seen. Some states offer free gov docs under limited programs, eg:unaccompanied homeless youth.
I stand corrected, at least in Pennsylvania (1). I misremembering the issues surrounding requiring Id to vote. The law that was struck down did provide a free id that would have been suitable for voting; however, that isn't required and no longer exists, and there was no mention I could find of if it would have been realid compliant.(2)
(1) https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dmv/resources/payments-and-fees
(2) Applewhite v. Commonwealth https://pubintlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Voter-ID-Fi...
Scanning https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/real-id/ I'm not sure there is a single state that provides ID without a fee of some sort, across the board.
Exactly zero states give you real IDs for free.
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.
"once you get past the range of a tank of gas or two."
This is like the folks who say flying is more carbon friendly than driving. It's wrong, you're comparing a vehicle running cost with one passenger vs a full vehicle normalized by its capacity.
No one flies 30 mi commutes.
Few drive 600+ mi empty or alone.
> Few drive 600+ mi empty or alone.
Is there a study on this? As I would have thought the opposite and would bet that the number driving alone is increasing as more people live alone.
For a single person going between two major metro areas, for sure.
But a lot of the working poor have families and travel to/from places that aren't major metro areas, and this can change the math really fast.
RealID licenses cost extra where I live. Your job can buy you a plane ticket but they can't get you through TSA.
Are you saying our state offers both RealID and none RealID driver’s licenses?
All states do (for now). Not everyone qualified to drive is capable of proving their identity to the level RealID requires.
As far as I know, Florida does not issue documents that are not REAL ID compliant.
And this is the same state that said they will have drivers license tests in English only
That would be sensible if the traffic signs were in English.
Can you read Chinese? Can you identify what this traffic sign means? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/CN...
How about Japan?
Traffic signs have symbols and shapes. You are allowed to drive in the US with an international drivers license if you don’t speak English. Are they going to arrest someone who doesn’t speak English and got a license in another state?
Only if being illiterate also forbade you from driving, which it does not. You don't need to read the law to follow the law.
Well, there's a written exam.
Which can be completed by someone reading it verbally and writing down their answers, pretty much the same thing as financial and legal documents can.
California offers both. I renewed my license last year. I opted for a non Real ID version because I could renew online rather than spend hours at the DMV.
I renewed mine in May and still have a non-Real ID license.
I know for a fact Kentucky offers both.
Some states, including mine, don't offer RealID at all, but instead an "enhanced driver license" that is accepted alongside RealID. I don't even have that, because I already have a passport card, so there's no reason to spend the extra money.
> RealID licenses cost extra where I live.
Where is that? I’m curious.
Around here, RealID is just what you’re issued when you renew various forms of ID. I don’t even recall an option to get a non-RealID version.
I'm in Oregon, and that's the case - about $30 extra. More people than you think don't have access to supplemental documentation required to meet extra requirements – people who don't have current travel documents, people who've just moved into town, people who don't have current documentation of address (e.g. the homeless, people in the foster care system, etc.)
It's pragmatic to have: plenty of people don't or can't fly, and the cost of supporting this option is marginal.
for what its worth, my state made it unpleasant enough that it was easier to just got a non-real id and a renew the ol passport
In CA it was cheaper and (far) easier to get a normal license and a passport.
Washington State. $7/yr more for a Real ID license - $42 more the 6 year license and $60 more for the 10.
https://dol.wa.gov/driver-licenses-and-permits/driver-licens...
If your job wants you to fly, it should buy you an id that lets you fly. Have you never applied for a visa to travel on a business trip?
yes, if there's one thing the working poor are known for, it's successfully extracting money from their employers. if uber wants you to rideshare, they should buy you a car, right?
How many “working poor” have jobs that require business travel?
If the answer is more than "zero" then the fee is harmful. Since I've been in similar positions (specifically as a contractor, where I had to front-load expenses and submit for reimbursement), it seems pretty likely to me.
> 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.
Undocumented immigrants can have authentic, non-"RealID" ids, as things such as drivers licenses are the purview of the states, and infringement there upon is an attack on their constitutional sovereignty. California, for example, is perfectly happy to give out drivers licenses to anybody who can establish residency and pass the test, since there's no sense in creating a double jeopardy situation wherein because someone has committed one crime (illegally immigrating to California), they are forced to commit an additional crime (driving without a license). It's the same reason the IRS gives you a spot to declare your bribes and other illegal income.
> It's the same reason the IRS gives you a spot to declare your bribes and other illegal income.
The California example makes sense. They aren't asking a question that would lead to the admission of a crime. The IRS example doesn't make sense, since they are asking a question that would lead to the admission of a crime. Even if the answer was legally protected, a government who does not respect the law (or one that changes the law) could have nasty repercussions.
The IRS doesn’t ask for specifics so I don’t think it’s legally an admission of a crime. Saying “I took a bribe” doesn’t make you legally guilty of taking a bribe. You’d have to say when, from who, and for what.
What exactly makes RealID more secure than the drivers license my state has issued for the last 20 years?
> 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.
Let's be honest, that just puts you on the extra scrutiny list going forward
And exactly what good does that do? The government already has your face tied to your ID and knows you’re flying
- 2D ID photo vs 3D scan
- ID photo is x years out of date
- old identifying info + new identifying info is more valuable than just old identifying info
- if it really doesn't matter, then why do they need to collect it? they can just not collect it, since it doesn't matter.
And my fingerprints too, but I don't have to be a willing participant.
So it’s meaningless…
Does facial recognition work better with one photo or many?
Does it matter? If you carry your phone with you they can already track you as well as tag readers when you are driving.
Why should the default be "more tracking" and not "as little as justifiably necessary"?
It doesn't even save time, in fact it takes more time screwing around with the camera
What problem is any of this solving?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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/
Lazy or worried about an encroaching government?
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.
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/
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.
$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.
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.
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.
There are customers banned from airlines for various reasons.
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.
If you are flying domestically, the airline doesn’t care. They know that someone bought a ticket to get pass security and that ticket matched the ID of the person who got through security. They don’t lose money and thier is no increased safety risk.
They do check your ID for international flights
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
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 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.
My procrastination is starting to turn into a political stance. This isn't the first time it's happened.
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.
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.
> 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.
It's a deep-seated cultural paranoia that the federal government is out to get us. Initially, the US tried to be a confederation like the EU or Canada, but it turned out that we needed slightly more federal power than that to stay as a unified country. But the tension between "loose coalition of independent states" and "unified government that grants some powers to the states" is a pretty fundamental theme throughout US politics.
Among the man weird corners of US national ID politics, is the set of Americans who think a national ID is an unforgivable invasion of liberty but that an ID should be required to vote.
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?
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.
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.
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.
...how? California doesn't have an embassy in New York.
> 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.
"illegal"
At what point has that stopped literally anything this government has done?
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.
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.
But it's something they're choosing to do, not something that is required.
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.
Previously:
US air travelers without REAL IDs will be charged a $45 fee
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115731
TSA's New $45 Fee at U.S. Airports Unfairly Punishes Families in the Fine Print
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.
They've been pushing it back every year because states haven't implemented it uniformly. Washington gave me a non real-ID card in 2022. IIRC the only real-ID option at the time was an Enhanced ID which can be used to cross the border from Canada and costs $100.
Washington gave me a non real-ID driver's license in November 2025. I don't plan on upgrading it unless forced to since I also have a passport.
As the other comments inform you, many states were not coerced into adopting it until very recently. In these ~dozen states the majority of people do not have the new federal ID. There are Enhanced Driver's Licenses as alternatives the to the invasive federal ID but most just have the normal state ID that work perfectly well; excepting these contrived situations the feds use to try to force people with.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
of course none of this nonsense applies to those than can afford private travel
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?
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?
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.
> How does anyone associate your ticket to your identity?
Why does anyone in this picture need to associate my ticket with my identity?
Why would there be a need to associate my ticket to my identity?