Originally Posted by shipcamein

Well - I really don't have a moment right now to research and post the relevant quotes - but there's no "infringement" as you can easily charter a small plane and fly all sorts of things everywhere with nary an ID.

But if you want to use a carrier that benefits from federal funding - as anything using a "real" airport is doing - then you have to play by their rules. It's pretty much right at the top of their rules: If they give you money to not go bankrupt, then you'll have to follow their rules. Which includes ID. Cheap blackmail? Maybe. But that's how it is.

You're truly free to travel by car, too, but there are rules. It's the cost of having paved roads and safe vehicles that result in having federal rules. Ain't no going back now.

It may be helpful (or infuriating) to realize that practically all other countries require ID to fly domestically. In the UK, a passport is recommended for DOMESTIC flights. Many countries (deregulation notwithstanding) still operate airlines primarily owned and managed by their government, and they certainly require ID. It's not about "revenue theft" in those areas. If you never travel abroad, then of course, you really don't care. The US is the last bastion of hold-outs of folks who feel some "bad thing" about carrying an ID.

Again, you do not have to get one. Only if you want to fly on a carrier that was bailed out by the gov't from an airport that was built by the gov't. That's not politics. It's just the facts of it.