I am fed up with this TSA rule where your ID has to match exactly your full name. Why not just provide the TSA with your State ID or Drivers License Number or Passport number at the time of booking. In fact doesn't the TSA know who you are by your first and last name and middle initial? Is the TSA doing this to make us work hard to travel? I mean don't they have access to our government/State ID info already?

If we stored our driver license number state ID number or passport number we could use one Windows Live type system to book our reservations without doing anything. Also most online booking websites only allow for your middle initial.

My point here is if you only wrote Joe Doe in stead of Joe Dave Doe or Joe D Doe and they see your picture and boarding pass isn't this enough to prove who you are? How could they deny boarding to someone with all the proper documents?

I thought Obama is smarter than this. We need a simplified system where upon checkin the agent just swipes our ID or Passport into the computer at checkin just like they do on international flights. This could be setup in the kiosk as well before printing a boarding pass in case the customer made an error it would automatically switch the info. Or at least give us another chance at online checkin to enter our middle name if there is a mistake and select a box stating the info is correct.

What if you make a mistake or someone else who is booking does not know your middle name let alone middle initial like an associate booking your trip using the companies credit card. We are the only ones who know what is exactly printed on the boarding pass.

We are like the only country that does this asking for this info.

What is your opinion on this post?

BTW The next thing the TSA could ask us to do is to recite the ABCs backwards before passing through security. Or asking us where were we in 1998. Or what is the capital of California? See my point?

I fully support having safe flights but there comes a point when it gets a bit too much.

o.O You want all IDs to have MRZ's?

How about the TSA just follows the law and not look at ID at all.

I didn't think middle names had to be present at all.

If your ID says John Doe your BP needs to say John Doe.

If your ID says Jonathan Doe your BP should say Jonathan instead of Jon

I haven't had a middle initial or name on any of my BPs even though my passport has my full middle name.

I think the Secure Flight initiative is a good idea but there are so many problems associated with implementation and inadequate time for compliance. All your ID cards and passports used for travelling will have to reflect your full name. As someone on this forum previously said, at our own expense. As another forum member stated, noncompliance will be a factor. I believe it will create more problems than it will solve. A better method would be to set a date when Secure Flight is implemented and from that date forward, all identification documents issued would contain the requisite information. IDs issued prior to that date would still be acceptable. That would give pax more time and at no additional cost.

Amen to that!

(In)Secure Flight is a bad idea from conception to implementation.

Free persons should not be subjected to law enforcement dragnets just because free persons decide to exercise the right to travel and go by air. Free persons should not be subjected to authoritarian control orders in the absence of a judicial sentence. However, these two principles are what will be violated by (In)Secure Flight.

The idea of (In)SecureFlight is to assert authoritarian government-like control over persons who are too innocent for the government to convict and sentence in a free and fair trial in court and yet who are presumed guilty by the government in the absence of a free and fair trial in court.

Good heavens, man, don't give them any more (stupid) ideas!! I can just hear Blogdad Bob trying to explain why knowing the capital of California is essential to air safety.

I support having safe flights too; illegal ID checks have nothing to do with safety, however.

Disclaimer: I fully believe ID does NOT = Security. Osama B.L. can fly if he and his bags (and those of his companions and the cargo, as he might want to go out as a martyr on an flight with the infidels )are properly checked for WEI. One crippled old man is not going to take over a plane by ESP, The Force, or a Vulcan mind trick.

However, as discussed on this thread, Page 3(page 6 of the pdf) of the Secure Flight Data Definitions does what you propose.

"Known Traveler Number", 25 alpha-numeric characters, "assigned passenger number DHS uses to facilitate passenger clearance" and "Known Traveler Number will be for TSA-approved programs and is a future functionality."

25 characters is enough to assign a unique Driver License type ID number to every person on earth. (OT trivia: everyone tends to say "drivers" but the State of Florida officially calls it "driver" license. ) When it is used, can the public request or FOIA their own KTN? It would save all the other time at reservations, and especially in lost ID situations, if the pax could simply recite his KTN and say "look that one up, that's me."

I do not think Big Brother DHS/TSA should be assigning a World ID Serial Number to every person, but since they seem to be unstoppable and are going to do it anyway, then at least tell us our number and let us use it for booking and flying. KTN seems to be a free mini version of Global Entry type programs, just without the fingerprints and $100 fee, because once they have your PNR info with credit card info and internet info and your passport number with link to your stored digital picture plus your CBP travel history all linked in the computer to a single KTN, ID matching will no longer depend on whether your BP and DL says "F." or "Frank" for the middle name. "Here is my KTN which is not on the No FLy List, get out of my face workfare TDC." ^

Just like how when Dateline was interviewing some illegal immigrant he said he's not likely to be deported b/c he knows that the US flag has 51 stars...1 for puerto rico.

During the last presidential campaign our current president made reference to there being 57 states.....

Isn't the ball really in the court of all domestic commercial carriers insofar as they have to have the capability to print your full first, middle and last name as shown on your ID? In other words, if a particular carrier still can't do that for any technical reason and the majority of their passengers that day have ID that does in fact show a middle name, does that mean that TSA is going to block all those passengers getting onboard? How ridiculous is that.

There are 57 states & territories... most of the latter were not eligible to vote

51. DC
52. Guam
53. Federated States of Micronesia
54. Puerto Rico (commonwealth)
55. United States Virgin Islands
56. American Samoa
57. Midway Islands

http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/State_and_Territories.shtml

Then Senator Obama was correct.

Hmmm, then this video must be wrong in that he said 57 states, not 50 states and 7 territories.

I don't see how Obama has anything to do with this.

In case you don't actually read about the programs before you whine and complain, this is from http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/secureflight/

For those who can't remember because they've been Obama-bashing for so long, he took office in January of 2009.

Complain about the program all you want, but let's at least place the blame on the correct administration.

That last word above should be plural as in this regard the current Administration is continuing to play the same game along with its allies in Congress.

Also, the actual manifestation of government interest in names of passengers being checked at airports began during the Clinton Administration. The Bush Administration and Congressional allies across the political partisan divide made it a lot worse and then had the 9/11 Commission give a de facto nod in approval of what the Bush Administration and Congress then and now defended and funded. Even today the Obama Administration and Congress have not attacked the name checking at airports -- they have even gone on to continue to back funding of the name checking at airports.