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.

Here's the Problem
 

Lots of names are similar....not only John Smith, but also Alberto Gonsalez. Frequently you will find 35 people named Alberto Gonzalez who were all about the same age and live in the same city. So, the birth date is another, more unique, feature.

The Constitution only guarantees the right to travel, not the right to fly or ride Amtrak. If you object, walking may be your best option, as long as you avoid looking like a vagrant.

Guaranteeing the right to travel is meaningless if it is limited to walking, just like freedom of the press would be meaningless if the government could require that you had to go to the printing plant to get the newspaper.

Congress is already talking about laws that would make it harder to get an ID card that was acceptable for airport screening purposes -- I can imagine the day that you wouldn't be allowed to fly if, for example, the pre-flight check turned up that you had unpaid parking tickets. Is that REALLY what you mean by "freedom to travel?"

Well said.

For the reasons you state I did not think it was stupid or that they should be exempt, but it is just not an optimal use of resouces. All our other packs and plenty of other people got through with less inspection as a result. As far as I know a family of US born citizens traveling together, one of which is a frequent flyer on that airline does not AT ALL match the profile of likely terrorists who are going to try to take over a plane. When presented with the all that information (based on our boarding passes, appearance and ID's) the TSA agent realized that it was a waste of time. Better use of the available information would provide better targeting.

Well, that's not the law, but another way of looking at it then is that the right to travel does not exist at all. That people once thought it did was incorrect.

And yes, people have no business having uncleared parking tickets. Advocating on behalf of the irresponsible simply makes society less functional.

Sorry if I misinterpreted your meaning in the original post...I agree you don't fit the profile of plane takeover terrorists, however terrorists are pretty well aware of many things that fit the profile--for instance does anyone (but the TSA) think that terrorists would buy one-way tickets at the last mintue if they were planning an attack? No, because it's so well known that those are 'flags'. Random checks are designed, in part, to counter terrorists getting around this by using people that don't fit the profile, and to be truly random, they should be applied to whomever happens to be picked. That being said, I agree with you that sometimes random searches will come off as being ridiculous, and that the TSA could do a lot of things much better. And I hope your son doesn't get SSSSd again!

Perhaps you have never been inconvenienced at security check points, or your loved ones have never been fondled at security check points. It's not so much that I don't like to comply with these security measures because they inconvenience me. If all these TSA measures do indeed make flying safer, I will comply without questions. The fact is, as many have pointed out, none of these have proven to be effective and yet the inconvenience/harm of these measures seems to far outweight the benefits. Why don't they just stop wasting our time and their resources (perhaps our resources??) with all these "security theaters" and still not make flying any bit safer??

The alternative is to do no harm! Don't implement anything that doesn't add to the safety, but quadruple the inconvenience, of a typical traveler. I would rather want them use my tax dollars to do something more productive.

LAX

The alternative is that the TSA should go out and learn how to do it the way that other countries do it: that is, other countries which have lived with serious terrorism for much longer than the US has, and which remain at the same level of risk of terrorist attack as the US, yet manage not to be either as hysterical or as incompetent as the TSA.

As for the searching of children etc, we should never forget the story of the man who was travelling with his girlfriend (then pregnant with his child) on holiday to Israel. He didn't manage to get tickets for both of them on the same flight, so they were booked on different flights. She was on El Al, he was on another airline.

At the security check at the gate in London, El Al found the bomb that he had put in her cabin baggage.

Well said and couldn't agree more!

LAX

According to a local TV news report, providing your DOB will not be required. Airlines will be required to ask you for DOB but you can decline to answer.

... and be suggested to more intense security for not providing your DOB.

Personally, I have no problem with providing a full name and a DOB. Both are relatively bening ways of identifying me (or anyone else).

Not to be harping on the subject, but how's a "benign" piece of information help with security? We can't just go along with senseless, perhaps useless, policies. Besides, what are they going to ask from us next, SSN or fingerprints? Get the point?!

LAX

It simply adds to help in identifying you - you have a name and a DOB.

I look at it the other way: what harm is there in identifying you as who you are?

Whenever people propose new legislation or regulations, I like to look at it the other way - what's the benefit.

As it appears that bad guys could simply lie about their DOB without too much trouble, requiring it seems to do nothing to improve security. Since I see no benefit, I don't have to get to your question of "what's the harm?" (Though I have already answered that question in detail in a related thread in Travel Saftey / Security.)

Under TSA regulations/rules, children who appear to be under 11 are exempt from addtional screening. You ticket counter agent did not do his/her job.

I agree, I don't think anyone should be exempt.

One potential benefit may be fewer false positives on the no-fly list. I suspect anyone who shares a name with someone on the list would consider this to be a great benefit.

As far as I can see, the only country that is at the same - actually higher - level of risk as the US is Israel. While I agree El Al security is likely more competent and effective, they are also significantally more intrusive.

I believe the US is the second-most hated country in the world right now.

I have been inconvenienced a few times. So what? They pat me down, open my carry-on and delay me for 10 minutes. Wow, what a catastrophe indeed!!!

If the TSA ever did an Israeli style security check, like you have to show up at the airport 3 hrs early, you'd be howling that they are wasting your time.

TSA is damned if it does, damned if it doesn't

Your DOB doesn't make any difference if the TSA's don't bother to look at anything on your BP. Twice my GF and me have gone through security check with each others BP by mistake. TSA's never caught it either time, our ID's were not even close to name on BP different first and last names.

You people are all so negative and cynical! I bet the nice people at TSA just want to send us all a nice birthday card each year, to thank us for our patronage.






;)

Just one more layer of intrusion for not much gain IMHO.

You bet we do.

Use the original homeland security device - the 2nd amendment.

Terrorist should be afraid to get on airplanes with Americans. It would be like hijacking a police station. Citizens carried firearms on board planes in the 50's and 60's all the time - how many terrorist acts were there then?

The government created a war on poverty and there is more poverty. The government created a war on drugs and there are more illegal drugs. The government created a war on terror and guess what we have.



See this website - www.projectsafeskies.org sometimes it is not available. Or this one that refers to it: http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2001/libe...011001-05.html

The 4th amendment gives us the right to free travel as well as the right to protect ourselves from illegal search and seizures. Which is defined as any search done without probable cause and warrants. Planning a family vacation or business trip is hardly probable cause for being a terrorist.

What part of the constitution allows the government to randomly search people?

I think there's a false assumption here that the most-hated countries are also necessarily the most at risk of terrorist attack. Of course, the belief that this is so helps to underpin the ineffective excesses of the TSA.