Originally Posted by
Superguy
So argue it then ... how does it provide safety?
It provides revenue protection for the airline. That's not the government's problem.
The ID isn't checked against against a database (and by TSA's admission, many terrorists aren't on the no fly list anyway lest we tip them off
) ... just an ID against a boarding. The names match ... so what? What did that just accomplish?
If a person is properly screened, it doesn't matter who they are - they're not going to be a threat to the plane.
It's theater. I went onto a government installation a few times in the last couple weeks. I had to go thru visitor control as I don't have a permanent badge yet. To get to the VC, I had to go thru a gate where one of their cops looked at my DL. Looked at my DL, looked at me, and waved me thru. What did that accomplish? He still didn't know who I was ... only that my DL picture matched me. I laughed about it every time I went thru the charade. A much more stringent check was done inside the VC to verify that I had reason to be there and I was who I said I was - for very good reasons not related to safety.
Requiring ID, a la "Papers, please" is an unamerican practice that we railed against in the Cold War as hallmarks of communism and fascism. We prided ourselves that we were free to associate with whom we wished and go where we wished. For some reason, America seems to be wanting to emulate those societies it railed against back in the day. Do you think, in a free society, that we should have to ask permission of the government by proving our papers so we can ride on a plane?
ID checks have their place. An airport isn't one of them though.
Super
It seems you don't understand what it means to go ahead
en arguendo. I wasn't stepping up here to go around about whether or not ID checks at the gate are a highly effective safeguard of our security or even a minimally effective one. I asked my question in an attempt to understand why anyone would find the screening "disgusting,"
if screening afforded any protection at all. Your "it isn't effective" answer is non-responsive to my question.
And your it's "un-American practice...hallmarks of communism and fascism" is silly. It's so obviously and fundamentally different for our government to exercise the police power granted it by the Constitution in this effort to protect us against those who would do us harm from a government using ID checks to suppress opposition to it, real or potential. (Why would "ID checks have their place," as you allow, but not at airports, where they are to be seen as "hallmarks of communism and fascism?" Is it also a hallmark of communism or fascism that I am asked to show ID when opening a bank account, something one didn't always have to do?)