saizai

I have a valid US passport issued with one name only. (It's in the 'surname' slot; the given name is empty.)

Last year, I had a TSA STSO demand that I show a driver's license or she wouldn't let me fly.

Two days ago, I had an Aeroflot rep demand the same. She also wanted to take a copy of my driver's license, which I said no to. I then asked if she was in fact accusing me of a felony (forging a passport) or not, 'cause that would be slander. (She called the TSA, specifically because of my name, to check if I'm on a no-fly list. Evidently I'm not, despite currently suing them. I guess that's some consolation.)

So, simple question: what laws and/or treaties, if any, say that airlines and/or TSA (or similar) may not require a traveler to present anything more than a passport as identification?


If it happens again I think I'll just straight challenge them on whether or not they think my passport is forged. If they are, they should call the police; if they don't, they have no basis to ask me to present a different ID.

Ari

Um, why? Do you not have a given name?

zebranz

Suggest the new TSA Representative-
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trust...tings-tsa.html

Finkface

I had a friend (South Asian) who has only one name, a surname. Apparantely it is not that uncommon. When he got his US passport, they said the procedure is to put FNU (first name unknown) in the given name field as they said, both the given and the surname fields needed to be populated. Perhaps the OP could ask what the current procedure is when he renews his pp next time?

Similarly, my husband has no middle name and we had to have some papers notarized in the US. They filled them in as John NMN Smith. NMN meaning no middle name. They said if they did not put something where the middle name should be, they would not be accepted. Strange to me, but this has been the case on a few official things we have had done in the US.

BSBD

I find it impossible to believe that this was necessary. My wife has been in the US for 18 years, through student visas, an H1B visa, a Green Card, and becoming a naturalized US Citizen. She does not have a middle name. There has never been a single US Government document involving any of these processes that required a NMN on it.

Further, there has not been any state or local government document (driver license, voter registration, taxation, etc.) that has required a NMN notation.

Nor has there ever been a banking, mortgage, or other financial instrument that has needed a NMN on it.

In every instance, she simply left the "Middle Name" space blank, and there was no problem at all. Even in the US it's acknowledged that not everyone has a middle name.

Whoever told your husband he needed to put NMN on the form was full of stupid.

Finkface

Well at the risk of taking this thread more off topic, we were in the process of buying a house in the US. My husband is Italian. It was clearly spelled out in the documents requiring notarization that NMN was required or the docs would be rejected. Since you seem to be an expert in all things, I will find the instructions/doc and post them here so you can see that there is in fact an exception to your statement that "Nor has there ever been a banking, mortgage, or other financial instrument that has needed a NMN on it.".

goalie

Can you imagine a TSO trying to figure out what FNU and NMM mean let alone a BDO asking you how you pronounce your first/middle name when the play "see SPOT run"

relangford

Harry Truman had no middle name other than "S" (without the period). Wonder if TSA had existed then, would he have been in trouble? Maybe that's why he picked "S" oven "NMN"? Even further back, Ulysses Grant's first name was "Hiram"; he worried about the initials "HUG" at West Point, but, luckily, his name was incorrectly recorded as Ulysses Simpson Grant (Simpson was his mother's maiden name) so he lucked out. If he weren't in prison, would Sirhan Sirhan have trouble with TSA?

BSBD

According to the US State Department document found here, your single-name US passport is perfectly valid. Contrary to what another poster suggested might be necessary, there's no need for silly TLAs like "FNU" or "NMN" or the like in the first name or middle name fields.

A US Passport is completely suitable as a sole source of identification. In fact, it typically trumps other forms of IDs from an acceptability and validity standpoint, even when other forms of ID are acceptable. As an example, the I-9 process requires two forms of ID, unless the ID is a valid passport. If the ID is a passport, it's the only one required.

I think your approach to challenge them is the correct one. Your passport is legal, and does not need to be changed to suit the whims of ignorant government agents. You do not need additional ID to travel.

BSBD

I recall a rather hilarious blog posted by a one-name guy who somehow got FNU listed as his first name on an ID, courtesy of an unknowledgeable clerk. His name was difficult for many Americans to pronounce, so well-meaning people who saw his ID called him by his new first name, "Mr. Fuh-noo."

IIRC it took him about 6 months to get it removed from his ID and all the records it ended up in.

catandmouse

I recall a friend who came from a very small Swiss canton where the ID cards didn't have any numbers. Fed up with being asked for the number of his ID card, he loaded it into a typewriter and typed a random series of numbers on it. Note this was some time ago, his ID card was a piece of cardboard with a photo riveted on, long before there was IT.

saizai

I have only one name. It isn't legally specified whether it's my "given / first" or "family / last" name. It is neither my given nor family name; it is technically both my first and last name in that those are co-referential. (My name isn't "Sai Sai", it's just "Sai".)

My passport reflects my true legal name, as it is legally required to do. So does all my other formal government identification. (Government *backend* database systems, however, have all sorts of different "standards"…)

Airlines' ticketing systems require a separate "first" and "last" name, though. It varies how that's dealt with depending on who does the booking and where, but eg might be entered as "MR SAI" or "SAI SAI" or "FNU SAI" or "SAI NLN" or lots of other variants.

Particularly common in Indoensia.

FWIW, I also run a group for mononymic people in non-mononymic cultures which has a couple dozen people in it — some Indonesian, most not, nearly all in the US.

There's nothing at all wrong with my passport. The passport legally must show your true legal name. My true legal name is, in full, "Sai". I don't really care whether the State Department lists it in the "given" or "family" slot.

Under US law, that's just not the case in general.

Possible exception: if you're e.g. Teller (of Penn [Jillette] &), and you are notarizing a document saying that you are the person who is identified by e.g. Experian as "Teller Teller", then you'd need to say that.

But that's only because Experian's database was poorly programmed, not because there is any legal requirement to have 2 or 3 names.

Even more so, it would be illegal for me to sign something saying that my legal name is "Sai Sai". It isn't. I can say that I am the person identified as "Sai Sai" by a given third party, but it'd be perjury for me to swear that that (or "Sai NLN" or whatever other standin stuff) is my actual legal name.


Fixed link for you.

Relevant part:
Can you find any law, treaty, etc that says that this is true for the purposes of travel identification?

The above just says what the Passport Office will issue, which isn't the same as a mandate on others to accept just the passport.

BSBD

International recognition of passports is established by the 1920 Paris Conference on Passports, Customs Formalities and Through Tickets. To the best of my knowledge, this Conference did not attempt to establish any specific domestic recognition requirements; nor should it have.

The US does not have a National ID; thus, entities that require an ID for transactions/admittance/etc. are obliged to publish lists of acceptable ID forms. Since the passport is pretty much the only US Government-issued form of ID that most civilians are able to obtain, it is near-universal in its utility as an ID. As I noted previously, it tends to trump other forms as a result. Note that since there is not a National ID in the US, no one can force you to carry or produce a particular type of ID.

Nevertheless, there is no absolute requirement that any entity accept a passport as a form of ID, unless that entity has explicitly stated that they will accept it.

Along those lines, the TSA has explicitly stated that a US Passport is an acceptable form of ID - in fact, it's first on their list (http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/acceptable-ids). They must abide by their own rules, and they must have compelling evidence that an ID presented as valid is actually invalid. A TDC not understanding what he/she is looking at is not compelling evidence.

Similarly, all commercial airlines that fly in the US adhere to the TSA's list of acceptable documents, including the passport - even airlines that do not fly internationally.

As I said previously, if you encounter issues again, you should challenge. Base your challenge on TSA's list of acceptable documents, and follow up with formal complaints to TSA and to your Congressman/Senators.

gobluetwo

What did your boarding pass(es) show?

Not that it's really relevant but my wife is born in the US, has no middle name, and has never been asked to enter anything on official documents, including DL and passport, not to mention mortgage docs, etc.

saizai

If they have even a *claim* that my passport is invalid, then I would insist that they call the police and formally accuse me, on the record, of felony passport forgery.

That way I can more easily sue them for libel.


"SAI SAI" in the latest case. I don't remember what in the previous, but probably the same. Or "MR SAI" or some other similar variant.

Not my fault that the airlines (and TSA's Secure Flight database) are not coded properly and insist that I enter both a "first" and "last" name.