NY-FLA and Hoshman: Regardless of when they check a passenger's name for matches with those on their blacklists, DHS is using the identification of people at airport checkpoints to facilitate their restriction of people's freedom of movement using blacklists. This is reportedly done at some time prior to the issuance of a passenger's boarding pass.

That the use of fraudulent documentation allows people to circumvent the policy is one example of why the policy is so absurd. Note that TSA is working on improvements, including the inclusion of encrypted, bar-coded, data on boarding passes in order to make forgery more difficult.

TSA's identification policy mainly affects honest people. Paraphrasing the words of The Identity Project on their "What's Wrong with Showing ID" page:

No matter how sophisticated the security embedded into an I.D., a well-funded criminal will be able to falsify it. Honest people, however, go to Pro-Life rallies. Honest people go to Pro-Choice rallies, too. Honest people attend gun shows. Honest people protest the actions of the President of the United States. Honest people fly to political conventions. What if those with the power to put people on a 'no fly' list decided that they didn't like the reason for which you wanted to travel? The honest people wouldn't be going anywhere.