I could be wrong, but I suspect that the person sitting at the desk checking boarding passes and ID's does not remember the names on the no fly list.

"I am not interested in speaking to you." Lather, rinse, repeat.

No, the TDC cannot check your name against the list. But there are other places in the process where your name is checked against the list which could easily be thwarted by simply using a boarding pass with a name other than the passenger's own. So, in addition to revenue protection for the airlines, the TDC checking your boarding pass and ID is intended to prevent someone on the list from gaining access to the secure area using a boarding pass that wasn't originally issued in his own name.

So, like I said, I don't agree with the underlying policy - at all - but there is a logical reason why they match boarding passes to ID's.

It has always been about revenue protection. If a "bad person" gets as far as the security line at an airport without being detected, a LOT in the "system" has failed up until that point. Is the expense of all of those gadgets and ID security theater commensurate with the threat at that point? No, absolutely not.

There simply is no benefit for a citizen answering ANY question on any subject from a TSA clerk. The ID checker is taught that they are the last line of defense in the War on Terror/Drugs/Deadbeat Dads/Cash/etc, and that the survival of the United States is at stake. Therefore, everyone approaching them is evil until they are satisfied otherwise. Remember how it got started. Kippie once said, "ID matters."

No. If the screeners perform their stated tasks, no one is entering the sterile area with the means to jeopardize aviation safety. NO ONE. It doesn't matter who it is, the most dastardly villain of all time or an unwitting pawn or a completely innocent person. He/she will not have taken the means of compromising aviation security through the checkpoint.

Of course, someone could pass the TDC with fake IDs (the Israelis used fake Australian passports to get into Dubai to conduct an assassination, IIRC). Fake IDs are not a hazard to aviation safety.

Hint: there's no similar ID check at airports worldwide. Perhaps because checkpoint security there is not a dragnet for crime and revenue protection, it is focused on one mission, and only one: the security of the aircraft.

Yes, I agree that the theory is perfectly sound - I've stated as much many times on the boards - but I always follow that statement up by admitting that the system as it exists is so full of holes it could be defeated easily by anyone with nefarious intent. It's quite simple: 1) Get a phony ID under a phony name, 2) Book a flight under the phony name (which will pass the DNF list), 3) Don't forget the phony name on the phony ID when you transit the c/p. Viola! You're inside the sterile area and you've bypassed the DNF list checks at all points on your journey.

Unless you do something monumentally stupid which causes a real LEO to run a check on your ID that reveals that it's phony, the ID checks are totally and completely worthless.

Jeez, fellas.... I'm not at all endorsing ID checks. I don't agree with it and I don't support it. All I'm saying it that the stated reasoning makes sense in the theoretical system they've conjured up and that asking minor children their name is inappropriate and has nothing to do with "security".

And I wasn't saying anything about the name game. That's completely worthless and proves nothing and even the logic behind it is ludicrous.

Utter, utter rubbish. Unless, that is, you actually believe that Teh Tweerist's aren't capable of a cut & paste & print job on a boarding pass with a viable name. Or obtaining a name that isn't on a list.

Checking names & ID's at entry to the sterile area is laughable. There's no defending it.

ETA: I realize you said "intended" but it's so childish an intention on the TSA's part that it's not worth defending, and barely even worth mentioning. It's completely irrational for anyone to think it might work. It should be laughed out of Dodge for the joke that it is.