Originally Posted by
studentff
Thanks for the info. How are they going to stop drug traffickers or people traveling under false identities without some sort of blacklist? Maybe not a no fly list but an equivalent to a US NCIC check (reports outstanding arrest warrants)
Checking ID without checking any sort of list, as the US started doing after TWA 800, is pure security theater that does nothing but prove passengers have a piece of laminated paper with a name and photo on it and condition passengers to showing it. It might catch a few people with bad fake IDs.
To gain any real security benefit there have to be blacklist checks.
As I said, I don't believe it
will be effective, except, as you say, against stupid people with bad fake IDs. But it makes them feel like they're "doing something" about organized crime.
Or maybe they
will check ticket purchases against a police database of people with ties to organized crime or drug trafficking. I'm not hugely in favor of that*, but at the same time, I'm not worried about it becoming a US-style NFL fiasco. Australia doesn't have a "Department of Homeland
Security" and it isn't gripped by the "OMG there's a terrorist under every rock!!!!" hysteria. Airport security is still (for now) done by private contractors. It's simply not the same environment that led to the (horrific, despicable, un-American - I agree completely!) US No Fly List scenario.
* I would prefer that they just go arrest the people with ties to organized crime or drug trafficking and put them on trial. But that's just me.
Originally Posted by
studentff
Really?
http://archives.californiaaviation.o.../msg26610.html
http://www.alternet.org/story/42646/
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/03/...n-no-fly-list/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/ny...watchlist.html
One a country starts down that slippery slope, it's very difficult to go back. These innocent victims and many others have suffered substantial indignities and been offered no effective redress or compensation by the government.
The US went down this slippery slope over the course of almost a decade. In 1996 after TWA 800, they started checking IDs, which the airlines liked because it meant people couldn't sell non-refundable tickets to others. Sometime between then and 9/11, they started having the airlines secretly check a no-fly list that had about a dozen names on it. After 9/11, the infrastructure was already in place to massively expand the list. But for months, maybe years, after 9/11, the government denied the existence of any sort of blacklist and dismissed the experiences of the innocent victims. Even after acknowledging the list existed, they refused to provide actual information or effective redress to victims.
And it all started with asking for ID to get a boarding pass.
My understanding is that it was the airlines who initiated the ID checks, to prevent people trading tickets, and the gov't took over (well after 9/11) under the guise of national security, rather than the other way around.
I agree that innocent people have suffered, and continued to suffer, because of the US NFL. Refusing to tell people whether (or why) they're on the list is wrong. Triggering on just names, where you can get 1000s of innocent people with the same name as one "Bad Guy" is wrong. Making it hard for people to get off the list is wrong. Treating six-year-olds like terrorists because their name matches is wrong. But I would attribute all these horribly wrong components to the post-9/11 idiocy in the US gov't, none of which I see in Australia.
Originally Posted by
Majuki
Technically it's against the merchant agreement to ask for ID when paying by credit card in the US. They are supposed to verify the signature to the one on the receipt just as they consistently do in Australia.
I know. But I've read many times here of US merchants asking anyway, while I've never been asked in Australia.
Originally Posted by
Majuki
The article didn't say whether or not the ID checks would be done at boarding time or at check-in. Keep in mind, as another poster indicated, ID checks started after TWA 800 in 1996. It wasn't new after 9/11. However, OLCI didn't exist back in 1996 nor self-serve bag check. When the requirement was made to have a boarding pass at the checkpoint (and establishing the TDC position), OLCI was available. This means that the TDC is the only one who sees your boarding pass if you don't check bags. I'll leave this to the reader as to why the no fly list and Secure Flight systems and thus ID check are all useless...
I don't think they've gotten that far. A committee was asked to make recommendations. They recommended checking IDs on domestic flights. That's all so far. We don't know whether the gov't will accept the recommendation, or how they would implement it... (By way of comparison, two years ago a gov't committee recommended that nude-o-scopes be installed in (at least) int'l airports, and the gov't accepted the recommendation. Yet Oz airports remain NoS-free, and it's all gone very quiet.)
Originally Posted by
Majuki
If I had to guess, I would say the airlines would do this check at check-in time for those who still use the counter. I remember handing my passport to the check-in agent when I flew domestically in Australia, but that was more so they could look up my ticket information without having to spell my name.
...except we do know it won't be THIS. At the major domestic terminals in Australia, there are
no check-in counters. It's all OLCI or self-serve kiosk. Self-serve bag drop. Maybe one roving airline employee to answer the odd question if you can find them. Which is why *A flyer said it would most likely be done on boarding.
Originally Posted by
Majuki
We might say that this is no big deal now, but I don't remember any problems people had with the ID check in July 1996.
And it
wasn't a big deal until the US completely lost the plot in 2001.