The Identity Project (IDP) needs your help in an ongoing investigation into the right to fly without ID.

The 9th Circuit stated in its Gilmore decision that when traveling by domestic commercial air, citizens had a choice: they could either show ID or submit to additional screening.

Please try doing some or all of your air travel by declining to show ID and report back about what happens to you.

Be a Freedom Flyer: the Constitutional rights you protect and defend are your own.

If the TSA treats you like a SSSSelectee/haraSSSSee but still lets you fly, will this project end up affirming the despicable Gilmore decision?

I flew once w/o ID and I was haraSSSSed. It sucked but I still flew. I filed a complaint nonetheless.

I might be up for this some time when I get to the airport a little early.

My main concern is that the airline wouldn't let me board, however--not the TSA (since TSA doesn't even check IDs).

Does anybody have a copy of the transcript from the hearing where the gov't said we could fly without ID if we submitted to haraSSSSment?

Even if you get thru TSA can't the airline still refuse to let you board?

That's what happened to Gilmore, and that's definitely my concern.

But I suspect that it may not be as much a problem any more, since the airlines no longer check ID at the gate, so once you're through security (including both the airline contractcd ID checker and the TSA--who do not normally check ID), as long as your BP has the stamp of approval on the SSSS mark, you should be okay. Key word "should" (not "will").

If I did it, I'd still bring ID with me, but would try to avoid showing it.

I just checked Delta's Domestic General Rules Tariff,

RULE 35: RUFUSAL TO TRANSPORT
c) Proof of identity
When a passenger refuses on request to produce positive identification; provided, however, that DELTA shall have no obligation to require positive identification for persons purchasing tickets and/or presenting tickets for the purpose of boarding aircraft.

So when would they ask for ID?


I looked at United.com under ID requirements :


For travel within the 50 United States only.
For domestic flights � all passengers 18 and older are required to present valid and unexpired government-issued photo identification. (federal, state or local). For example: driver�s license or passport. All customers must carry government-issued identification with them at all times and may be asked to show identification during boarding.

In the absence of government-issued photo identification, two forms of identification are required. One must be government issued. Example: Social security card and credit card.

Customers without proper identification may be subject to additional security screening procedures.

Sort of vague. You are required to carry ID but may be subjected to additional security procedures if you don't have it.

Either you have to have it or you dont.

Someone should try to live a year in the US without carrying ID and write a book about it. I'd read it.

Assuming you already had credit and/or an ATM card, I'd say it would not be too terribly difficult.

I think given the dual purpose of requiring ID for travel, it would be very difficult to travel anomomously on any common carrier. For security purposes, requiring ID is nonsensical - it offers nothing to improve security.

However, the airlines (and other common carriers who issue tickets) have always had a vested interest in knowing who their customer is. In the past, given no competitive impetus to do so, airlines just assumed the person showing up to fly was the same person whose name was on the ticket. Way back when, before deregulation and restricted tickets, it probably didn't matter much either.

With restricted tickets barring transferability, the government gave the airlines exactly what they wanted - the right to demand ID to make sure the person traveling was the person named on the ticket. I doubt the airlines really believed this was for security...it was a revenue protection gift all along, even if the government really believed it would provide security.

In the past, ID was checked at the counter. With the advent of online check-in and kiosks, the responsibility to verify ID now falls to the ID checker positioned outside the screening area. This opens up a unique way to bypass the revenue protection requirement.

I can transfer a ticket to another person by having that person buy a refundable one-way ticket to get through security, I use online check-in to get their boarding passes for my ticket, then they use my ticket for passage. Upon their return, they just cancel the refundable ticket(s). Voila. Revenue protection is now bypassed.

Just proof positive that every new rule has its own loophole.

Airline revenue protection is not the government's business.

ID checking does nothing for security.

Ergo, the government should drop the ID requirement to fly or be additionally haraSSSSed. Moreover, it should get the hell out of the airline and airport security business.

One could argue it has never been in the security buisness in the first place.

Would you feel better about it if the airlines came all out and said: we won't issue you a boarding pass if you can't prove your name matches on the name on the ticket, and we will not let you on our plane unless you can prove that your name matches the name on the boarding pass you hold?

If it was all airline rules, and all airline personnel/contractors checking IDs, and the government was completely uninvolved, would that change anything in your opinion of the procedure?

Airlines would be within their rights to do that, but they probably wouldn't have in the same way that restaurants don't ask you to show your ID when you are paying with a credit card at your table.

It is the sort of intrusion that puts off customers in a hospitality based industry. Now, on the other hand, if you can convince people that it isn't you who are asking, but rather that the government is mandating it..

Yes, I would be fine with that. The airlines should be able to decide whether to do that or not do that themselves. The airlines that make it too much of a pain in the ... would rightly lose business to those who choose to eliminate or make the process painless.

The government should be 100% out of the process, however.

Fair enough. However, even with the government involved, what exactly is the problem you have with showing ID? It's useless for security, I agree, but what is it about showing your ID that annoys you so much? It's not like the IDs are recorded and your movements tracked, I would object to that as well, but I have no problem with showing my ID to some dolt who sees so many of them each day that he could care less about who you are, as long as you're the person whose name appears on the boarding pass.

Even if this guy is paid by the government, and complying with a government regulation, what does it matter? You're still anonymous, just one of thousands of flyers each day, it's just that some guy has matched the name on a little plastic card with your name on it against a name on a boarding pass. So what?

Where exactly is your problem with this? Is it about the waste of $$, or do you take issue with something else?

This is not meant as a criticism or anything along those lines, I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from.