cbn42

True, but what does that have to do with ID? Anyone can draw their own conclusions about what the constitution requires, but if a court had ruled that TSA is violating the constitution, their procedures would have changed by now.

The ID isn't checked against the no-fly list. The boarding pass is checked against the no-fly list, and the ID is checked against the boarding pass.

GUWonder

There are reasons -- not just practically but also legally -- that the US decided to have procedures in place to allow passengers to fly domestically without ID.

The TSA-accepted ID (which may end up being checked against a boarding pass) may be for a different person than the person for whom the boarding pass was issued. That gets by the TSA even for blacklisted persons because the person and/or ID is not checked (by the TDC) against the aviation blacklists.

The transitive property (of equality) applies to math but not to the TSA.

WillCAD

Yeah, just because a court hasn't ruled on a heinous violation of civil rights means it's perfectly okay.

Placing an ID requirement on the free exercise of civil rights is an unreasonable restriction on those rights. Maybe SCOTUS has never ruled on that, but I think anyone would agree that not being allowed to exercise freedom of speech, press, or religion without presenting an ID that meets the TSA's current list of acceptable IDs would be an egregious violation of the First Amendment, so why would showing ID to exercise freedom of movement be any less egregious?

Yes, and the stupidity of that so-called check is blatantly obvious - since neither the ID nor the BP is checked against ANYTHING for validity, one or both of them could be fraudulent. It is childishly simple to forge a BP, and it's not terribly difficult to get a fake ID in the US (just ask any underage kid who wants to buy booze or visit bars). So the ID check is a complete failure at that particular purpose.

The ID check was put into place for one reason only - to insure that only ticketed passengers passed through the c/p, with the intent of limiting the number of people screened, since the post-9/11 screening took so much more time than pre-9/11 screening. The misconception that ID somehow provides even the tiniest shred of security is so widespread, however, that the original intent has been completely lost, and the ID check is now regarded as an actual layer of security by everyone, especially TSA.

An ID check will never, ever be an effective means of security, because even a 100% genuine ID can be issued in a fraudulent name. In other words, it is possible to bring fake documents to the DMV and get a real, 100% genuine drivers license issued by the actual state government, with your real photo on it, a license which checks out as valid and clean in every database there is, but in a name which isn't yours and doesn't appear on any blacklist or watchlist. This, in turn, allows a person to book a flight in the fraudulent name, pass security, and board the plane, all while completely evading the no-fly and watch lists.

ID is not security. It never has been, it never will be, and any claim to the contrary is either delusional or wishful thinking.

Blogndog

An even bigger joke are the TSA's ID checks at Amtrak stations. i've boarded trains where they announced they would be checking IDs of all passengers, and we were instructed to have them out and "ready for inspection". A TSA agent stood at the top of the escalator leading down to the platform. Each passenger shuffled by the TDC in turn, while she glanced at each proferred ID with a cursory "thank you ...thank you...thank you". She didn't spend more than a second on each one, and she certainly didn't compare the ID to anything -- not the passenger's ticket, no to any sort of list or database, and not even to the person standing in front of her. She couldn't have, because she never looked up at anyone's faces. I could have presented an ID that said "santa Claus, North Pole" and she would have said "thank you".

yet, waiting for my turn to flash my ID, i pointed out this absurdity to another passenger, and they gave me a blank look, like they couldn't grasp why i saw anything wrong.

catocony

The reasons for checks are:

1) Airline revenue protection
2) Reduce the number of people coming through a checkpoint
3) Placebo effect for paranoid, scared public

It's certainly not for security at all.

Blogndog

Precisely.

Also terribly annoying that not only has the government tried to turn what is supposed to be a simple weapons screenings process into a dragnet for drugs, cash, kiddie porn and who knows what else, there are actually people on this thread who apparently want to turn the screening process into an illegal immigration checkpoint. What next? Dental exams? Clean underwear checks?

cbn42

Again, all of that is your opinion. It is not the current state of law in the US.



Any document can be forged. Nothing is 100% secure. But just because it's not 100% doesn't mean it's 0% secure. I think TSA can catch many fake IDs, certainly more than your neighborhood bartender.


Of course it's possible, although with REAL ID starting to take effect it should get more difficult. However, just because it's possible to fake doesn't mean it's worthless. By your logic, CBP should stop checking passports at points of entry, because those can be faked as well and therefore provide no security benefit.

GUWonder

REAL ID doesn't make it more difficult to circumvent the no-fly or other aviation blacklists.

That is your opinion, but I wouldn't be so sure about that. The research indicates that "trained" government employees are not much better than the "untrained" in negative matching a person against a "fake ID" that is real. And there is a body of evidence (being used by a few private sector companies) that indicates that a two-year old is better at this kind of stuff than "trained" adults working passport control. And I won't even go into what the evidence indicates about cross-"racial" matching.