Originally Posted by
studentff
Until June 21 of this year, there was no requirement to show ID at the airport. You could blatantly and willfully refuse to show ID, receive a secondary screening, and be on your way.
So I personally don't find it that surprising. Particularly among people who haven't flown for a while, the ID that the USA has turned into a papers-please society where you have to present your documents to a government agent to request permission for domestic travel is quite foreign.
The post June 21 rule (
http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/...uirements.shtm) is still fairly new and to my knowledge has not been tested in court. IMO it is on pretty shaky grounds given the Gilmore ruling, given that it gives residents of AK and HI no means to petition the federal government without presenting travel papers, and given that it impedes free expression by discriminating between those who "willfully refuse" to show ID and those who just forgot ID.
I got you. You are missing my point though. This woman was not somebody trying to make a political point or get arrested with the hope to sue TSA. She was not a law student or ACLU rep trying to point out the fallacies of the system. She was a woman, who wanted to get on a flight that had no idea that there was a requirement to have some sort of identification. That I find surprising. No I have seen all of the "sticker" protests and what not and I may silently applaud somebody's effort to retain their limited privacy today, but I think it is hilarious that there are still people who think that you walk from the ticket counter to the runway and climb the steps onto the big airplane.
A couple of months ago I saw a woman who was irate that her paring knife was confiscated. She was a perfectly safe woman, no chance of being a terrorist, but she had a paring knife she used to peel fruit in her bag. She was shocked when she was singled out and the knife removed. She was not a law student trying to make a point, she was just a befuddled passenger that had no idea that this was 2008 and not 1988.