First 48 Hours

20 people were prevented from flying.

It will be interesting to learn, if we do, how many of those 20 were arrested for being terrorists.

It make me nauseous to think that my tax dollars are even going to pay for this idiotic web site. First you have to pay for crappy security, then you have to pay for the idiots running it to tell us all what a wonderful job they are doing.

So, if you pass the (possible) no-ID 'interview' you may not (=unpredictable) be screened as throroughly as before ?

Yup, makes sense. If you're a complete moron, that is.

They didn't before, and they won't after.

Easiest thing for them to do is use a valid ID and a fake boarding pass. Whoop-de-doo.

Up yours Kippie.

One would hope that the company providing information to the TSA about those who "forgot" their IDs is confident that its data is correct, else they are opening themselves up for a tremendous lawsuit if someone is kept off a plane because they could not provide the "correct" answer to an Inquisitor (a/k/a screener).

Baghdad Bob sez: ...now we're funneling people with bad intentions towards our expert-trained document checkers and behavior experts.

630 of 650 were not "bad" people, nor did they have "bad" intentions. Yet you wasted 630 X ten minutes X maybe three TSA + 1 LEO + the victim themselves, or 525 man-hours to not catch them. When if you had just patted them down, and found no weapons, the skies would have been IDENTICALLY SAFE?!?!?

Idiots. Pure self-rationalizing idiocy.

He even used my phrase about "no self respecting terrorist", but entirely missed the point when he said: Could a bad person produce an excellent fake ID and get past document checkers... sure.

EVERY bad person is going to have excellent fake ID. Assume it's true and don't waste time confirming the obvious! Your true opponents are clever and competent. Emulate them!

650 out of 650 I'd say, pending evidence to the contrary.

While every skilled bad person is going to have excellent fake ID, as has been oft stated in this forum, fake ID is not needed for someone on the no-fly list to board a plane. So a skilled bad person will simply present real ID.

Yes, the most effective security measures are those the attackers don't know about. This latest boob simply ensures that IF a terrorist were to turn up for a flight, he would not do so without an ID.

As for "willfully refusing", yeah that would be REAL smart of him.

Unbelievable.

Since the well-read terrorist should also be a reader of FT, and this forum often speculates on tactics that are obvious to us and aren't discussed in public by the TSA, it seems clear that FT should be squashed and taken off the air by the Constitution-trampling squad.

Reminds me of the SF stories that John Campbell published in the 40's that had accurately-guessed details of atomic weapons, that got the FBI to visit and question him.

Don't these so-called security professionals know anything about the failure of security through obscurity?

The blog is awfully slow posting comments as only two new ones have shown up this morning. I think it's safe to say they are probably being overwhelmed with negative posts.

10 Rotten IDs per day in the Bad ID Ban Era. TSA has been the Front Line in the Waw on Twewwow for 6.5 years. Meaning 24,000 Bad ID Potential Terrorists have been allowed on airplanes. Number of resulting incidents: zero.

Which is bigger risk to aviation, BAD/NO ID or unscreened cargo? Problem: no birthday present in a cardboard box ever got their state legislature to pull a States Rights bit and tell Chertoff "Stuff your REAL ID" to receive a "I'll show you not to mess with Der Homeland Security Leader" retaliation.

From this odious, assinine compilation of attempted justification for the unjustifiable:

"What these folks aren't getting is that by requiring ID, you're closing that old loophole that allowed (up until Saturday) anyone, good or bad, to show up with any boarding pass (theirs or someone else's), say they lost their ID, get a pat-down and bag check and be on their way."

So TSA, in its attempt to maintain a shred of credibility via never-ending mission creep admits that this is about enforcing commercial contracts.

"Now, no self respecting terrorist is going to subject him or herself to all the additional attention the new procedures brings. .. This includes: the possibility of interviews with behavior detection officers, calls about them to our national counter-terrorism ops center, unpredictable physical and bag screening and the real possibility of a chat with a local or federal law enforcement officer. "

IANAL and actually slept through most of my required law courses, but I do seem to remember that it was fundamental in most modern legal systems that law enforcement resources could not, would not and did not get involved in commercial disputes until criminal activities began. Guess that was true until TSA decided no constraint, no precedent, no logic of any type could stop them in their zeal to unearth that last terrorist stupid enough to be unable to manipulate himself past this pathetic band of misanthropes.

Final quote
"... but forcing terrorists into what we want as opposed to what they prefer is just good security." OMG

George Orwell could not have written TSASpeak any better than this.

What is a self respecting terrorist? Again TSA shows that stupidity is bottomless.