jkhuggins

Except that all the terrorists on 9-11 showed their government issued IDs. Showing IDs didn't make us any safer that day ...

NWstu

The 9-11 hijackers had valid IDs/driver's licenses, so how does checking ID add to security?

It doesn't.

IslandBased

First, welcome to Flyer Talk.
Second, welcome to a long standing heated discussion on the need for ID checking.

PTravel

Please explain how showing an ID makes you safer or would have prevented 9/11.

scotty72

Checking of ID against a PRESENTED boarding pass only makes sense if the TSA has a way of checking whether the boarding pass has not been altered. With the advent of 'bring your own boarding pass' where you print off a web page on your home printer, there is absolutely NO security around this at all and this has been proved multiple times with people getting through TSA screening with a fake boarding pass which matches the presented ID, but isn't necessarily the one they are going to fly with (if they even have a legitimate flight booked)

Until they put encoded data on the boarding pass that can be checked with a scanner at the TSA check point, the presentation of ID is nothing more than security theater and does nothing to actually increase security.

And before people scream "it can't be done", it has been done for years in the UK and other countries. Even my tiny local airport has a scanner that can check the barcode on the boarding pass (the same barcode the airline uses at the gate), and I'm pretty sure that it does a lot more than just decode the barcode these days...

ND Sol

timminn, would you care to elaborate on how showing ID to the TSA makes us safer? And welcome to FlyerTalk and this forum. Hope you stay around and keep apprised of the posts.

PTravel

How so? The airlines run the names against the "No Fly" list. In the interest of national security, the No Fly list does not contain the names of the most dangerous terrorists and potential terrorists.

So how does it make sense?

Spiff

9-11. The catch-all excuse for stupidity and giving up freedoms and civil liberties. Pathetic.

Awesome Doonesbury Comic

You might *think* you're safer from "Papers, please, Comrade!" but I think that I'm in more danger of ID theft, while reaping zero "security" benefits.

DtwnDude

Anybody notice that the Term 3 checkpoints at ORD (AA) now have rolling carts in the TSA area, where the agent scans the barcode on the boarding pass presented by the traveler. Up pops the name and (I believe) flight data. Along with a very large green light.... Which apparently alerts the "agent" that it is ok to let you pass..(Uhmmm, ok). Have never seen the red light. Assuming that this is tied into AA's data, kills the opportunity for someone to print a bogus pass at home and pass thru security with it. Lovely idea, but far too many holes in it (especially since they don't do it at either of the other two terminals through which you can traverse freely after security).

ID doesn't matter.

Boggie Dog

No one has forgotten 9-11.

How does showing ID make anyone safer?

leandrorar

Does the US constitution applies to foreign individuals visiting the US?

I will not take this as legal advice, so please fell free to speak.

PTravel

Yes.

john93711

Thank you, Phil. Just made an easy donation via PayPal.

frank_10b

Well I guess the airlines and the TSA have merged, b/c in MIA (like small european private airports served by Ryan Air) the TSA are not enforcing with Stazi like actions the carry on baggage limits invented by the airlines including wt and size.
great, i just love it when everybody co-operates against the consumer...

Maybe we should just stop buying, flying, and let them all go broke keeping their empty seats, empty new houses, and other chinese made consumer goods.

polonius

True, no one has forgotten 9/11, but what they never remembered in the first place is that 3000 people died in New York alone in 2001 (and an additional 3000 every year since) of car accidents. 40 000 in the USA, and half a million world wide. Yet those deaths are just sort of quietly accepted as a fact of life, as opposed to the alternative, which would be to create a "Department of Driving Security" and impose all kinds of pointless theatrics aimed at creating the appearance of "doing something" about all those deaths. Same approach could be taken to terrorism, and that way we'd still have the deaths (which, finally, are an almost trivial number in comparison with all the other dangers society faces with a yawn) without having handed a huge victory to terrorism.

Every airport ID check, every bottle of water confiscated, every name on the no-fly list, every dollar spent on the TSA, every centimeter of border fence, each and every last one of those is a victory for OBL, and that makes Ridge, Chertoff, Hawley and Napolitano all terror supporters.