Originally Posted by BillScann
None of which are made the slightest bit more secure by checking IDs. Again,
from the website's section on ID :
Showing ID only affects honest people.* If you're dishonest, you can obtain false documents or steal the identity of an honest person.
If a 19 year-old college student can get a fake ID to drink, why couldn't a bad person get one, too?* And no matter how sophisticated the security embedded into the ID, wouldn't a well-financed terrorist be able to falsify that, too?* The answer to both questions is obviously 'yes'.
Like any criminal enterprise the window for detection is during the phase they have to "get the goods" necessary for their criminal acts. It is not an easy thing to get false IDs, especially getting those past LEOs and screeners. It is one thing to pass a fake ID to get beer. It is harder to pass it by 3 different people and to know if you fail your mission is aborted. To not even check IDs at all would eliminate one layer of security, making it that much easier for the bad guy.
No one thinks that ONLY the ID checkers or ONLY the screeners or ONLY the FAMs or ONLY the passengers or ONLY the armed pilots will deter/stop the bad guys. It is the layering that makes it difficult for them. The same hassle that you go through they go through too - and it makes them nervous. Nervous people (indeed those people that have to run around securing things like documents, training, etc.) are more likely to make a mistake, more likely to be detected, more likely to screw up.
But that is only my BS opinion. Your mileage may vary.