You can only predict behavior from past behavior (despite what the BDO's might think). Of course checking ID would not keep a nutjob off a flight if said nutjob has no history of being a nutjob. But let's say said nutjob attempted to open the exit while in flight last year and was arrested and prosecuted for it and served his time in jail. I don't want that guy on my flight and secure ID checking could help prevent him from getting on my flight.

I'm not saying that securely checking ID is some kind of silver bullet in aviation security. I am saying that it is has some value if done correctly. I don't buy the argument that checking ID at the checkpoint could never have any value but I fully agree that it has almost no value as TSA does it today for all the reasons posted by others (inscure ID, insecure BPs, etc etc)

nrg

And do you really want the alternative: let anyone with a pulse fly?

If we can agree that there are some people who should not be permitted to fly, then there needs to be a means to prevent them from flying.

Yes I do. If they get through a metal detector and appear not to be a threat to others, they should be able to fly.

If they appear unfit to fly (intoxicated, boisterous, etc...), the airline is able to legally deny them boarding.

I don't want the government determining who is fit to fly and who is not.

I guess we can't agree. ;)

I don't want those types of people walking by me in a shopping mall, sitting next to me on the subway, or walking down my street either, but I'm not willing to pay the price of a checkpoint-ridden papers-please society to reduce that risk.

The best way to keep drunks, criminals, and the criminally insane off the streets let alone off of planes is for the police to do good legal police work, prosecutors to prosecute the offenders in open court, and judges and juries to sentence the offenders to long harsh sentences.

The best way to keep domestic or foreign terrorists off planes is a combination of some (proper, legal) domestic law enforcement and a lot of overseas intelligence gathering. The best way to keep foreign terrorists off of planes to and within the USA is to do good intelligence gathering and not let them into the USA, and to secure the border. The best way to keep foreign terrorists from attempting to enter the USA is for the US military to kill as many of them as possible as close to their homes (and as far from ours) as possible.

None of this is enhanced by TSA ID checks or ID checks by anyone else for that matter. The only point of TSA ID checks is to enforce the secret, un-American, unconstitutional blacklist that is the no-fly-list (which doesn't even include the names of many actual terrorists) and to condition us to a papers-please government-permission-based travel regime.

If a terrorists makes it to a domestic airport and tries to clear a checkpoint, the military, intelligence, immigration control, and domestic law enforcement have already failed. At that point, do you really think that asking for an ID is going to matter? The only thing that would help after all those failures is effectively screening the passenger for weapons, explosives, and incendiaries. Now that cockpit doors are secure and we've abandoned the policy of hijacker cooperation, it's extremely unlikely that any terrorist is going to bring down a plane without some sort of weapon/explosive. Unfortunately TSA is too obsessed with toothpaste and ID checks to effectively screen for those real threats.

(BTW attempting to open emergency exits in flight is more of a joke than a threat. There is no way for human force to overcome the thousands of pounds of pressure differential on a door at even a fairly low altitude and speed. That's one of several reasons the doors have to come inside the plane a bit before they go out; the other key reason being so that the door doesn't randomly fly out of the plane.)



The terrorists win if the USA engages in irrational knee-jerk changes in our way of life that bankrupt us and make the USA resemble East Germany.

There's where we fundamentally disagree. I'm willing to show my ID if it would prevent some nutjob from flying who has been tried and convicted of jeopardizing the lives of other PAX on some previous flight.

We will have to agree to disagree on that point.

Ah yes, here we have it. The Fox News view of the world. "The terrorists are coming to destroy our way of life and impose Islamic law on the US".

Guess what. Pure nonsense.

Terrorists terrorize because they have a political agenda and use terror to strongarm the public into changing their government or policies. They are not going to come to the US and impose Islamic law, that is the most ridiculous suggestion out there.

They hate the US not because of our freedoms - but because we stick our fat nose in the business of other countries, abandon our allies (Afghanistan post-Soviet liberation, Balkans, etc.) and continue to support countries these people don't like.

As far as 'do nothing' after 9/11 - in actuality, that's pretty much where we're at outside of a number of draconian and ineffective, hostile policies that were implemented. There is almost nothing the government has done to stop a determined terrorist - they are trying to plug holes in the dike with their fingers.

The most effective thing done since 9/11? Hardened flight deck doors and a no-cooperation policy with hijackers.

The lease effective thing done? No port security to speak of, no air cargo security and the ID check we're debating here.

ID checks are useless even if boarding passes are made tamper proof - why? Because identities themselves are not secure. With some money and the right contacts, I can assume the identity of almost anyone, actual or ficticious. I can create a new identity for myself or take someone else's.

It's the principle of garbage-in, garbage-out.

All this does is interfere with 'casual' terrorists - the ones who lack the full-on training and determination of the 9/11 group. Casual terrorists are not going to attack our airplanes or ports - they're going to show up in a mall with a backpack bomb. The people who planned and orchestrated 9/11 are not going to be deterred by what we're doing - they will find a way around it.

As you can see, when someone wants to do harm, they will. We should take reasonable measures to protect ourselves, but wasting resources on ineffective measures or low-priority threats leaves us more vulnerable to bigger threats.

Apples and watermellons. I have several options when dealing with a nutjob in a mall but far,far fewer on board an aircraft, in-flight, at 35,000 feet.

Yes, wouldn't that be nice, but it doesn't happen. The streets are full of nutjobs. Take a walk through any major city if you need proof.

No arguments here.

Oh really? So we shouldn't check passports at the border?

That's all well and good at the gate but not so much at 35,000 feet. I'd rather show my ID than have my flight diverted so some idiot can be kicked off and arrested that might have been kept off the flight if we'd had secure ID's checked against secure BP's and against a real no-fly list.

That seems to be the prevailing sentiment around here, or more accurately:

I don't want the government (fill in the blank)_________

and probably not for the first time.:) But hey, this is what free speech is all about.

1 or 2 planes a month? Now THAT would be the terrorists winning ;)

Of course that's not going to happen. But there are terrorists of a certain variety who would love to see it happen.

There are extremists out there who would love nothing better than to do exactly that.

Completely true for some terrorists and completely wrong for others. The list of reasons to hate the US is long.

I agree. I did a lot of travel before 9/11 and can remember some security checkpoints that were a complete joke. I saw equipment that didn't work and security guards that couldn't get a job at Burger King. Yes, TSA has more than it's share of boneheads, but let's not pretend that security was just fine before the TSA came along.

Of course the ID must also be secure or checking it is meaningless. No ID is 100% secure but some are quite secure. You might be able to buy a fake DL in any major city but buying a fake passport that will get out in and out of the country is another matter.

I agree with you. One of my original points was that the TSA exists mainly to keep out the terrorist riffraff. The casual terrorists don't target planes partly because it's difficult for them to successfully execute an attack for the reasons you mention, not because they don't want to target commercial aviation.

This is a non-argument. TSO may not deny access to the sterile area to someone based on the fact that they (1) have a criminal record, (2) have been committed to a mental institution, (3) have outstanding warrants (which could be for anything from traffic tickets to murder), (4) based on their possession of controlled substances, (5) based on their possession of cash in any amount, or (6) based on their possession of potentially illegal items, e.g. child pornography, patent-infringing articles, etc.

If you are a citizen of the United States, I would suggest you re-read the Constitution and attain a better understanding of what it means. You are, literally, arguing for, "a little tyranny."

It's not their primary mission, nor is it the primary mission of their leadership even if some of the underlings have been led to believe that's their goal.

From the standpoint of finding guns, bombs, and knives, a 20% screener pass rate indicates to me that there is no difference in effectiveness with the TSA.

I wasn't talking about fake ID - but fake or assumed identities which yield legitimate IDs. These can be bought for a significant premium over good fake IDs and come with a real identity. The passport issue is not really relevant - there are still countries who will 'sell' you citizenship and issue a passport. I think Belize still does officially, and I think a few other countries do as well. It might not get you IN the US, but it will certainly let you out or enable you to travel under a different identity within.

1. How TSO knows by looking at your ID, that you commited any of these?

2. How your ID helps with No fly list? I've never seen them matching it against any list, do they know all the names by heart?

3. If you go to Russia, Ukraine, Afganistan etc and buy there passport with your picture and a different name, how TSA is going to know that it's fake? Are they trained to determine legitimacy of passports of all the countries of this world?

May be someone can experiment and create a passport of the country that does not exist, like Rebublic of Provance, and see if TSA will let you in.

I can't believe I need to explain this but here goes:

Let suppose for a minute that the BP is secure and the no-fly list contains only genuine bad guys. Then the list would contain names of those banned from flying because of previous convictions of aviation offenses. If that were true, then there would be no way for a person on the list to get a BP under his own name. So the next option is to fly under the name of someone else. So the bad guy buys a ticket under some bogus name and gets a BP issued. So far so good. Now he tries to go to the gate. The only way he gets stopped is if he cannot produce ID that matches the BP. That's easy enough to do today by getting a fake DL. But if the ID were secure it would be a lot harder but not impossible. Sure he could fly to Belize and buy a passport but most people would not be willing to do so. Capiche?

No but they could be. They do just that at customs and it doesn't take long.

I'd bet you'd get in.

As you're so fond of saying ... apples and oranges.

At an international border, you're asking permission as a citizen of one county to enter another country. It is not unreasonable for the country you are entering to exercise its prerogative to control who may, and may not, enter the country.

At a TSA checkpoint, a U.S. citizen is effectively reduced to asking for permission from the U.S. government to travel within their own country ... indeed, sometimes within their own state. That is a completely different matter.

And your notion that those on the no-fly/selectee lists are a clear and present danger to aviation is somewhat speculative. We have no idea how anyone gets on the list, much less how anyone gets off the list. Worse, the most important threats to aviation aren't on the list at all, for fear that they might find out that they are on the list itself.

There's your problem. The NFL doesn't have the names of actual terrorists or know threats to aviation security. The list includes a huge number of Caucasian names (John Smith) that have nothing to do with middle-eastern terrorists, a plethora of people added during the Bush era for doing nothing more than protesting government policies, and a few names of individuals suspected of aiding or financing terrorism, but without the means or intent to actually harm aviation.

If the list was designed to do exactly what it was suppose to do, there would be only a few hundred names on it or so, and it wouldn't be maintained by the TSA, although they could run passenger names against it to find a match.

Even then - not even close to foolproof. The alternate identities are still far too easy to get and are a simple bypass to this entire apparatus.

You are correct of course. I was responding to this statement which suggested (to me at least) that ID checks never help security:

As one who's name is on the selectee list, I couldn't agree more.:D

Back to my original argument: IF BPs where secure and IF ID's were secure and IF the NF list was accurate, then checking IDs at the checkpoint would help make flying more secure. No, checking IDs by itself would not stop every bad guy or terrorist who wants in to the sterile area. But if the above conditions were met, then I think the inconvenience and intrusiveness of showing ID could be justified as a legitimate security measure.

What I take issue with are those who claim checking ID's can never make us safer.

What kind of "aviation" offence you can comitt, that would still allow you walk the streets, but not fly airplane? Is it similar to the "sex offenders" list? Will it stand in court? What about if you have a friend with a private airplane?

Another question: I know someone who bought a ticket under OBL name (when Spirit had $0 fare sale) as a joke. the airline website did not block the sale and OLCI. Should it? Or it's not a known terrorist?