Originally Posted by
OrlandoFlyer
Not necessarily as if you check in on-line and only have hand luggage, you can go straight to the gate. It is likely that GA will ask to see your passport in the boarding process. However, I do not believe it is the TSA SOP to demand a passport when the see you are traveling internationally, rather than an acceptable form of ID as shown on their web-site.
This happened to my other half about 6 weeks ago when we were flying out EWR TATL, even though I was in front of her and the TDC did not ask me for a passport but asked her. When I questioned it he said that they had been told by the Airlines to do it. I find it hard to believe that the TSA take any instructions from the Airlines as they tend to make up their rules as they go along.
TSA is definitely not doing it because the airlines requested it.
CBP and TSA are both under DHS, and this is not the first time we've seen a softening of the lines between the two agencies.
TSA will call authorities if you are travelling with >$10k in cash. There are no restrictions on travelling with cash within the US. There are, AFAIK, no restrictions on how much you can take out of the country
as long as it is properly declared - and, IIRC, at some airports the customs offices are
past the checkpoint, so pax can still take care of the formalities past the checkpoint. Minetta Walters, BUF BDO was fired for escorting drug dealers on
domestic itineraries past the checkpoint so the large amounts of cash they were carrying wouldn't be detected.
TDCs on occasion have leafed through passports and challenged visas - expired visas from years prior, for example - clearly they didn't even understand the visa process.
I think we'll see more blurring of the lines between the two agencies (TSA and CBP) as we move forward. We have to have 'papers' to travel by air (and, in some instances, bus or train) within the borders of our own country. TSA steps in, without training or knowledge, and tries to apply CBP rules and restrictions to domestic travel.