How many of the ID checkers actually utter more than a grunt (if that) before handing the ID/boarding pass back? That's right, just about zero. Since you admit that this check has nothing to do with security why are we doing it? :confused:

I agree. I am not pleased that the nice lady at my regular checkpoint at DFW is going to be out of a job soon. SHe has told me that she and her contracted colleagues have been downgraded to "greeters". She now sits on a chair at the entrance to the checkpoint line and says hello to people while the TSA figure out if using different coloured highlighters to match names and check boarding times/dates is going to make people safer. Frankly, it's all good in my opinion as now there are TSO's concentrating on catching illegitimate ID's and bottles of water in bags, but no one's keeping an eye on me or my front pant pockets which can carry all manner of banned items including the multiple bottles of perfume I brought back for my wife recently (yes, I am mocking american security regulations).

Then I had the guy who almost didn't let me to the checkpoint at BWI because I didn't know the gate I was going to beforehand (online check-in, not on boarding pass).

A very serious-looking ticket agent once told me the gates are not on OLCI BP's for "security purposes," although I could go the the airline's web site on my PDA and find the gate.

"In this post-9/11 era..." do these people actually believe the crap they spew? :confused:

I asked the clerk behind bullet-proof glass at the pharmacy drive-through why their hours of operation couldn't simply be posted at the window as well as on the front door of the store. "Security" says the lass. Riiiiiight, says Bill Cosby.

You all have it wrong. The purpose of checking I.D. is to attempt to keep those people out of the secured area that dont have a legitimate reason to be there.

Right.

So I buy a ticket in the name of Joe Q. Sixpack, tell the burger flipper I have no ID, and after a swab of my smelly tennies Joe Sixpack is wandering around the concourse.

No -- it's revenue protection for the airlines. Remember the day of the newspaper ads that read, "EWR-SFO July 4th, 9:00 AM male" ?? I do.

Exactly how does that work with people who have no ID/forged ID?

And why, pray tell, does it still do nothing to address security?

Let's look at the statement of "legitimate reasons" to be there. I suppose you mean people who aren't traveling that day, like friends & family of people who are, or those who are just bored or who want to go airside for some innocent reason, because you sure don't mean would-be bad guys (to be addressed momentarily). I don't see why the TSA needs "document experts" for this purpose, and why the contract workers weren't good enough to keep out the riff-raff. Seems a total waste of my tax dollars to me.

Then, we're down to those who are trying to be illegitimately airside for nefarious purposes, like would-be terrorists. We've already addressed how ridiculous the notion that any sort of "document experts" would actually keep those intent on passing from doing so, so clearly they're ineffective at that, and as before, a total waste of tax dollars.

I can't see why the TSA would care about airline revenue protection (which is the only real reason anyone checks IDs and BPs, by the way), so it can't be that. It must just be their stupidity (or greed, since we're talking the expenditure of $$ and the requests for more in the annual budgets) at thinking they can do something legitimately in the name of security by looking at IDs.

Saving "face". Somebody at DHS decided, in the immediate post-9/11 meltdown, that ID was security. Since the DHS/TSA has never done a volte-face on anything of substance, they will never admit this was a bonehead move; assuming they even recognize that fact, which I seriously doubt.

Now now... not everyone at TSA and DHS is a bonehead, or even thinks like one. I am sure there are plenty of smart cookies working there, regardless of how they feel about the work they do. A paycheck is a paycheck, and if you happen to earn it working in the cubicles of Uncle Sam's Shack o'Conformity, so be it.

But that said...

Let's think in terms of the dude/dudes who came up with ID=Security. As we all know, most of the US doesn't travel often. In fact the majority of that group travels maybe once a year, to a wedding or some form of family gathering. The average John Q. Iaintneverleftmytown sees the footage of 9/11, the dead soldiers in Iraq, a flip/flopping Kerry and a "stand by my BS" Bush and they really think that they are in danger. Yea right you wanna say, but unfortunately they do think that way. So to ease their pain and suffering, the DHS brains came up with the great scheme that is now known as TSA. Mr. and Mrs. Iaintneverleftmytown drag their 2.5 kids and their hord of luggage through TSA checkpoint, carrying their ID and their Priceline bought ticket, feeling good about the savings, the chance to see their folks and above all their "tax dollars at work" in the form of an underpaid, overworked and underschooled TSA agent.
So, as a facade, this works great. Kippy the Hound comes on TV and says what a great job his agents are doing, some other elected official also praises the safety our country is now enjoying, and Bush does his "we're safer now but there's much more to be done" routine.

Ummm did I leave anything out?

Yes, "...and then I woke up!" -- because unfortunately this is neither a movie nor a bad dream :eek:

It's ok, because you'll go to heaven where all is good and TSA only a bar whose name has been abbriviated from Tropical Sangria Association.