TSA to require birthdate at time of reservation
 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155541,00.html

This will allow them make sure you are not confused with a terrorist with the same name.

In reality it will give terorist the opportunity to give a false date of birth since it won't be verified and hassle hundreds of millions of honest folks.

What a crock of s**t! It isn't supposed to happen until later this year but they are going to start asking for the information now. If you don't comply, you get extra screening. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

This organization needs to be stopped!

This will probably make it easier for terrorists to bypass this stupid no-fly list. :rolleyes:

Full name I can understand (I actually didn't know one can purchase a domestic ticket without providing his/her full name until now), but DOB?? How is that going to help with security? How are they going to verify the DOB provided? Besides, I would imagine a real terrorist carrying out an order wouldn't be foolish enough to provide his/her real name and DOB when purchasing a ticket. In addition, whatever ID (most likely fake) he/she produces at the checkpoint would certain match the name and DOB on the ticket.

Ahhh! Can the TSA ever implement something that would actually increase air traffic security, not air traffic-related hassle??

By the way, I will continue to provide my full name on all the tickets I book (domestically and internationally), but I will refuse to provide my DOB. They treat me (and a majority of flyers nowadays) like a criminal every time I fly already anyway, what more are they going to do now? Take me into an isolated room and interrogate me for reasons not to provide them my DOB??

LAX

More business for AMTRAK. IIRC the Library of Congress ID as well as many other federal photo IDs do not show a birthdate, so how will a TSA screener validate that the name corresponds to the given birthdate?

Good point! Unless the TSA makes another new requirement for ALL passengers to carry IDs with DOB!

LAX

It might help improve the selection process for extra screening
 

While I don't think it will directly help stop/capture/deture terrorists, it may have a beneficial side effect. Let me explain....

Yesterday I picked up the boarding passes at IAD for a vacation week in PHX. I got them at the airport on the way home from a quick 96 hour MR/biz trip (IAD/LAX/SEA/NRT/SIN/NRT/SEA/LAX/IAD) which had gone extremely smoothly with not a single "extra search" or delay at any customs point. Examining the boarding passes I noticed that one of us had been selected for extra screaning. OUR SEVEN YEAR OLD SON! When we got (back) to the airport later that day, Benjamin went through the magetometer handed his BP and school ID to the TSA agent, who looked at, looked at me says "your kidding...", I said "I know...pretty crazy", he shakes his head and says.... "ok stand here... which is your back pack...." The whole routine.

So if at least using the year of birth avoids silly situations like this, it would be better. One might fudge the date by a couple of years, or give the wrong month/day, but some one who puts down that they are 7 years old to avoid screening isn't going to get through when they present their drivers license for ID.

When I think of the grenades which went off at the British Consulate this morning four blocks from my building in New York, I wonder exactly how birthdays would have prevented these explosions.

The answer is sensitive security information. Even by asking you are giving aid and comfort the terrorists. Now be a good little citizen and stop asking questions about your government. ;)

What does one have to do with the other? You are talking about DOB to get on a plane, not to walk in front of the embassy.

Amazing to me how much hatred of the TSA there is on FT. You all ***** and whine but never offer alternatives. Exactly what should they do? You don't like showing ID. You don't like giving DOB. You don;t like pat-downs. You don't like taking off your shoes. You don't like that they make you wait in line to go through.

So what is the alternative? Do we all just get on a plane like we do on a bus and hope for the best?

I'm one of those FTers who complains the least about the TSA....just ask anybody! :D That said, the TSA is a joke. Let's have the kind of security available in Frankfurt. You have to go through security when you walk into the airport and again later on toward the gate. You don't have to be strip searched and fondled because the equipment is excellent.

I'm sick of the long TSA lines and when you can have two bombs go off in the middle of the night 3 blocks from my building, I have to wonder why we are tinkering with halfwits who want to fondle breasts at the airport or strip search grandma because you can't focus on those who might fit the category of terrorist better because it's not PC.

Actually, if you read the Travel Saftey/Security forum, there have been plenty of suggestions. Things like, "screen people for bombs and weapons, but don't make people take off their shoes for no reason." And "no secondary screening if you don't set any alarms off."

All of this non-security or security theater stuff they do makes us less safe by diverting resources from looking for bombs and guns to wishing people happy birthday!! and taking away their lighters.

I've read and heard from a lot of people upset when children or others (nuns, for example) get SSSSd. While I certainly don't agree with many of the TSA's ideas, I don't think children (or nuns) should be exempted from searches.

If someone is insane enough to believe that killing themselves and potentially thousands of other people in an attack is the right thing to do/will make them an honored martyr/etc., do you think they would really hesitate to use their own child to carry a bomb onto a plane if they knew children were expempt from searches? (As for nuns, there are costume shops in every city where you can rent a nun's habit--do you think a female terrorist wouldn't dress in a rented nun's habit to avoid being SSSSd?)

Ask someone who works 'loss prevention' from a retail operation, and you'll find it's quite a common tactic for adult shoplifters to use childern as "accomplices"--bring your six-year-old child into the store with you, shove the product under junior's jacket, and then if junior gets caught, it looks like a six-year-old did it, and who's going to prosecute a six-year-old for shoplifting? (The adults get caught on camera shoving the items under the child's jacket/shirt, which is how retail security people are well aware of this tactic).

Terrorists are people who are so deluded that they think what they are doing is right. If someone is that crazy, what is there to stop them from putting a bomb in their own child's backpack? Nothing that I can think of. If they know it will make the carry-on with bomb exempt from additional screening because it's being carried by a child, this will inspire them to go this route. Again, I'm not trying to defend every TSA policy, but I don't think SSSSing children is stupid.

YES

But stop giving "the man" ideas about bus travel

What about folk who purchased tix before any new requirement comes in but travel after? Does this mean greater chance (certainty?) or secondary? Booo.