It's hilarious how transparent a money grab this entire thing is.<p>"You need to show a Real ID for security, otherwise how do we know you won't hijack the plane?"<p>"Well I don't have a Real ID."<p>"Ok then, give us $45 and you can go through."<p>So it was never about security at all then, was it?<p>And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.
> <i>So it was never about security at all then, was it?</i><p>Never was.<p>I flew every other week prior to covid and haven't once been through the scanners. For the first ~6 years, I opted out and got pat down over and over again.<p>Then I realized I could even skip that.<p>Now at the checkpoint, I stand at the metal detector. When they wave me to the scanner, I say "I can't raise my arms over my head." They wave me through the metal detector, swab my hands, and I'm done. I usually make it through before my bags.<p>Sometimes, a TSA moron asks "why not?" and I simply say "are you asking me to share my personal healthcare information out loud in front of a bunch of strangers? Are you a medical professional?" and they back down.<p>Other times, they've asked "can you raise them at least this high?" and kind of motion. I ask "are you asking me to potentially injure myself for your curiosity? are you going to pay for any injuries or pain I suffer?"<p>The TSA was NEVER about security. It was designed as a jobs program and make it look like we were doing something for security.
<i>> The TSA was NEVER about security. It was designed as a jobs program and make it look like we were doing something for security.</i><p>To a great extent, it <i>is</i> security, even if it's mostly security theater, in the sense that it is security theater that people <i>want</i>.<p>A large portion, maybe even the majority, of travelers simply won't feel safe without it. I've had and overheard multiple conversations at the airport where somebody felt uncomfortable boarding a plane because they saw the screening agent asleep at the desk. Pro-tip, trying to explain security theater to the concerned passenger is not the right solution at this point ;-)<p>Even Bruce Schneier, who coined the term "security theater" has moderated his stance to acknowledge that it can satisfy a real psychological need, even if it's irrational.<p>We may be more cynical and look upon such things with disdain, but most people want the illusion of safety, even if deep down they know it's just an illusion.
> A large portion, maybe even the majority, of travelers simply won't feel safe without it. I've had and overheard multiple conversations at the airport where somebody felt uncomfortable boarding a plane because they saw the screening agent asleep at the desk.<p>I’d hazard that this may be true <i>now</i>, but this feeling was created by the same “security measures” we’re discussing.<p>Anyway, such major population-wide measures shouldn’t be about stopping people being “uncomfortable” - they should be about minimising risk, or not at all. If you start imposing laws or other practices every time a group of people feel “uncomfortable”, the world will quickly grind to a halt.
It is mostly security, but not to residents of the country. Those can enforce their rights. In my country, I can argue with airport security, and win. Foreigners can’t, so they follow whatever rules. A few times when landing in the US, security was extremely rude, I think just looking for an excuse (things like throwing your laptop a few feet away, while staring at you, etc). You take it bc you’re not home, and the cost of ruining your vacation is not worth it.<p>What I’m trying to say is that , while a lot of it is theater, TSA may be more effective security against foreigners but you as a resident don’t notice because you can opt out. Try going to the UK and telling them you can’t raise your arms while being a US citizen.
I tried to opt out in the UK last time I was there a few years ago. The agent looked at me, confused, and said "so... you don't want to get on the plane?". She told me the the UK didn't allow opt-outs.<p>This was the only time I've gone through the machine since they were introduced.
Taxpayers haven’t agreed to fund theater they agreed to fund safer travel. The failed audits of TSA are totally unacceptable
Security Theater Blanket
What ethnicity are you? I went through an airport -- and nobody else got screened except me. What was special about me? I was the only non-white person in the airport. Upon complaining, this was the response:<p>> Random selection by our screening technology prevents terrorists from attempting to defeat the security system by learning how it operates. Leaving out any one group, such as senior citizens, persons with disabilities, or children, would remove the random element from the system and undermine security. We simply cannot assume that all terrorists will fit a particular profile.
I used to have a Sikh manager who wore a turban. Whenever we traveled together, he would get "randomly" stopped. While they were patting him down, he would inevitably chuckle and say something like "So what are the odds of being 'randomly' selected 27 times in a row?"<p>I don't know the specifics of the process for selection, but I can confidently say that the process is bigoted.
Same thing used to happen to me when I had dreadlocks. Made the same joke too. "what are the odds I'd get randomly selected 100% of the time I go through a checkpoint..."
In proper English usage it would only be a <i>bigoted</i><p><pre><code> (obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group)
</code></pre>
check if it was <i>unreasonable</i> to suspect a Sikh of carrying a Kirpan.<p>The Rehat Maryada would suggest that is in no way whatsoever an unreasonable suspicion.<p>Sure, your manager likely didn't carry one on airplanes .. but that still falls short of being an unreasonable check.
As a white guy who was caught accidentally carrying a large knife once through security, at the bottom of a carry-on backpack I'd had since high school, I don't think it's in any way essential to use racial or ethnic markers to figure out whether someone is taking something dangerous onto a plane. I didn't even <i>know</i> I was trying to bring a knife onto a plane at a regional airport. There's no reason to think that Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.
A Sikh is far more likely to be carrying a little sword than the average population.
I have nothing against Sikh's, I've known a few for decades.<p>> There's no reason to think that Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.<p>... other than a small, curved sword or dagger that initiated (Amritdhari) Sikhs are required to wear at all times as one of the Five Ks (articles of faith) ordained by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 you mean?<p>It seems reasonable, and a number of actual Sikh's would actually agree, to guess that a Sikh who holds their faith to be a matter of importance would absolutely hide a symbolic dagger the size of a letter opener and capable of slitting a throat.<p>The question facing any border agent tasked with checking Sikh's, of course, is this specific Sikh one that will always try to carry a Kiran, or one that doesn't hold with all that articles of faith guff.
Honestly, I would just give them a pass to carry a ceremonial knife, if they could prove they were Sikhs and not someone pretending to be. But I guess that's why we can't have nice things and why the same rules have to apply to everyone. I think most reasonable people understand that they can't preserve every aspect of their personal beliefs or pride in a situation involving the safety of millions of people flying daily. Carrying a weapon is certainly a bit unusual as a pillar of faith, but there are plenty of others that could also be deemed antipathetic to the well functioning order of a modern society trying to move people safely from A to B. And the same way I would consider trained and licensed gun owners to be a relatively low threat and a rule-abiding group of citizens, that's how I would view Sikhs with their blades (or even more so). So if you're Amish, take a horse. If it's Shabbat, wait til Sunday. If you're the TSA and you <i>want</i> to be more efficient by discriminating, look at people who have no discrenable ideology, or those whose ideology actively conflicts with your mission of preventing attacks.
This is completely absurd and backwards. Violence on planes (at least, phsycial, weapon-assisted) is basically exclusively the purview of organized ideological groups, it's not like crime in the streets. While I'm not aware of any Sikh group who has ever attempted to hijack a plane, the extremely well established general pattern is exactly that extremist sincere believers in a religion or cause are the most dangerous people on a plain.
Sikh's carrying a knife, a bracelet, a comb, etc. has never bothered me in the slightest in all the decades I've known about this - the Khalistan movement in a particular location during a particular time aside, they're not exactly actual postcards for terrorism (despite what some might think when faced with people and turbans).<p>They always had a pass here in Australia for many years until things tightened up.<p>Not that I'm a fan, but in general Rules are Rules and making exceptions while fair in some senses will be unfair in others <shrug>.<p>Circling back to my initial comment- it is the case that there is an <i>actual reason</i> rather than a made up bit of bullshit, to reasonably suspect that a Sikh <i>might</i> be carrying a knife ... if they are they're almost certain to also have a comb .. so that's handy.
I'm brown, very brown. A Native American, in fact.
I used to work with a Kevin and a Mohammed.<p>Whenever we travelled to offsite offices Mohammed 100% of the time was picked for bag check, while Kevin was not picked once.<p>Mohammed was white, and Kevin was black.<p>It was completely racist, and never random.
Not defending the practice but the Mohammed thing has a possible origin that isn't directly racist. The common names among Muslims and their propensity to appear on various watch lists lead to a lot of false alarms on those with those names.<p>It may be a racist result but there is a pretty reasonable and understandable reason it happens, ignoring the legality and morality of that kind of tracking as well.
I am a white male and have TSA pre-check and after walking through the metal detector, maybe one out of several times I get randomly selected for the body scanner. I've never gotten the dreaded SSSS though. I've very rarely traveled alone not on a work trip and never alone on a one way ticket so maybe that helps.
I get it not infrequently when travelling from europe. It's annoying that they pretend that "oh this is random" .. I'm even going up to the airport employees at hte gate and telling them "I'm told I'm here to make new friends today"
White male who always flies alone and on one-ways here, never gotten SSSS.
It's screwed up that skin color is a marker that would lead an ignorant provincial quasi-cop to assume someone is of a particular ethnicity, and even more so that that ethnicity would lead them to believe an individual adheres to a belief system that might lead them to blow up an aircraft. Very poor set of assumptions and flawed tooling, to say the least.
I had like a +7 random screening hit streak once. Old and comfortable and that melts away as you become the system.
I was so confused last time I traveled as I watched this brown skinned family getting shaken down for ID by TSA and they literally just waived me past and said didn't need ID. Mind you I've never not been asked to show ID to TSA before this.
Today was the second time in a year I went into one and my crotch got flagged because of my pants zipper. nothing in my pockets. no belt. nothing hidden. etc.<p>I was then subjected to full pat down and a shoe chemical test as a cherry on top.<p>Might need to try convincing them next time to let me do the metal detector instead.<p>What's the point of this higher fidelity scanner if it can't tell the difference between a fly and a restricted object?
This podcast episode might be of interest. <a href="https://www.searchengine.show/a-perfectly-average-anomaly/" rel="nofollow">https://www.searchengine.show/a-perfectly-average-anomaly/</a>
Almost always my back sweat from wearing a backpack shows up on the body scanner. Then a TSA agent has to put their gloved hand on my sweaty back. What a shit job lol.<p>Whenever my backpack has been pulled aside for various reasons (large metal tools, too many loose wires, water bottle), I'll often get the bomb sniffer wipe.
Are you sure it was the zipper?
Derek Smalls?
Nice trick. I always opted out of the scanners, dozens of times, and just got used to bantering with guys while they were patting my balls.
This is brilliant. I continue to opt out and get the pat down every single time. Which is annoying because they deliberately make it slow and anxiety inducing with your bags are out of sight for quite a while.<p>I used to "punish" the rude or particularly slow ones by insisting on a private screening (since that involves two officers, and Is A Whole Thing) but I haven't gotten a rude one in a few years. But that also just makes it take even longer.
I did this about a dozen times until I had too many TSA agents become extremely shitty and hostile towards me. The last two times they were making threats as I was walking away that they were going to "get me". I decided my protest opt out excuse wasn't worth dealing with attitude. They usually also made me stand there and wait sort of blocking everyone for 5-10 minutes until they even called someone over
> When they wave me to the scanner, I say "I can't raise my arms over my head."<p>IANAL but I would be very cautious about lying to a federal agent, or anyone acting in a capacity on behalf of a federal agent (this is all of TSA).
Yep. It's asking for FAFO with civil $$ or even criminal penalties.<p>From what I see, it's low risk, though the parent's smartass approach might get you some punishment. Not worth skipping the detector via lie.
Who said I'm lying?
It seemed implied by:<p>> <i>Then I realized I could even skip that.</i><p>It would make sense that you weren’t injuring yourself prior to realizing this.<p>Again, implied. But agreed, you didn’t say it.
Fair! I was going to go back and edit, but my comment was more for other people who read your comment thinking it was a good idea for them to do (assuming they can raise their hands over their heads).
This is genius, thank you for sharing. I don't fly often, mostly because it became from glamorous to brutal experience.
[flagged]
Lots of society is like this. For example, red lights. I run them all the time and nothing happens. You just have to pay attention. It's why the police won't ticket you in SF. It doesn't matter. If anyone else complains you just yell "Am I being detained" a few times and then hit the accelerator. Teslas are fast. They can't catch you.
Another pro tip is to not pay at restaurants. If you can leave the restaurant fast enough before they give you the bill, they must have forgotten to charge you and sucks for them! The trick is not to bring bags so you can fake a trip to the toilet!
if you're not joking, actions like these are why we can't have nice things in society, it's cancerous behavior and just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
"Obeying the law, no matter how pointless, wasteful, or destructive, is a virtue."<p>Does it make you feel good to participate in a meaningless charade of security theater? Or would you rather spend your time doing some of value?
> Does it make you feel good to participate in a meaningless charade of security theater? Or would you rather spend your time doing some of value?<p>I think there is a lot of value in being part of a democratic society that has structured dispute-resolution processes. Part of the cost of that is occasionally going along with something pointless (even if some things warrant civil disobedience, not everything does), and that's a vital democratic responsibility. So yes, I do feel good doing that - the same kind of good I feel when I pick up someone else's litter or give up my time for jury service. If anything, going along with a law you disagree with is harder, and more virtuous, than those.
Quite a modest proposal.
What if the police department has Teslas?
Holy shit that's genius, but I do worry about the minor degradation of respect for actual disabled folks if it becomes 'weaponized' in a widespread way
Serious question: why?<p>Most people I know who object to full-body millimeter-wave scanners either do so on pseudoscientific health claims, or “philosophical” anti-scanner objections that are structurally the same genre as sovereign-citizen or First-Amendment-auditor thinking.
I should not need to show an anonymous TSA agent my genitals, even if they are in black and white on some monitor theyre viewing in some back room, to get on a plane.
I could ask the same serious question, why should I have to? There is zero reason to suspect me of being a suicidal maniac. Should we have such scanners to walk into a busy store or bus or subway system? Why don't private pilots and passengers have such screenings?
Tangential: Here in India we have security guards with hand-held metal detectors in malls, railway stations, and urban transit rails (metro) stations.<p>The first time I visited a different country I was surprised to see my friend accompany me to the check-in counter and even further to drop me off. In India they wouldn't let you enter the airport if your flight doesn't depart soon enough.
I don't think anyone in the US really cares about metal detectors, humans don't naturally contain metal and it is done completely hands off with no extra visual or biometric information or saved data. Plenty of people in this thread who opted out of other security measures still walked through a metal detector without any special note. Court houses and police stations have often have metal detectors that even a Senator or President would have to walk through. The same cannot be said of direct imaging of your body though or facial recognition or anything. If you wouldn't put your children through the process to go into school each day then it seems completely bonkers to require it for any form of mass transit.
It used to be normal in the U.S. to walk people to the gate until 9/11.<p>Now you can escort someone to the check-in counter and up to the security checkpoint, and meet people at the luggage area to help with bags.<p>But in practice it seems rare to do so if there isn’t a particular reason, probably because you’d have to pay to park or ride transit and it’s usually a trek beyond that. Honestly if they allowed you to go through security with the passenger and wait at the gate, I’m not sure how many people would even do it here (or how many passengers would want their loved ones to do so).
Then why do they routinely send kids through the (non-invasive) metal detectors, while adults get sent through the millimeter-wave scanners?
There are legit health reasons to opt out of the scanner. I know because I have one of those conditions and have never been through the scanner.
That's fine, but you don't need a health condition, legit or otherwise, to opt out. It's enough to say "I would like to opt out."
Millimeter wave scanners have a health exemption? Like because it would always detect something on your body?
What is an example of such a condition?
To me it's just a vote against the profiteers who make those machines.<p>Also I kinda like the process better; the pat-down is nothin', and you can a full table to yourself to recombobulate.<p>> First-Amendment-auditor thinking.<p>Uhhh, I like that kind of thinking. Is there something wrong with first amendment auditors now?!
Perhaps I haven't gotten a representative sample, but in 100% of the content I've seen from self-described "first amendment auditors", they're acting unpleasant and suspicious for absolutely no reason other than provoking a reaction. To me this seems like antisocial behavior that degrades rather than supports First Amendment protections. I consider myself a pretty strong First Amendment supporter, but if I routinely found strange men filming me as I walked down the street, I would support basically any legal change required to make them stop.
First Amendment auditors have usually been attention seeking individuals making click bait YouTube videos. It's been interesting seeing the transformation from that to what we're seeing with people monitoring ICE.
I, too, dislike walking far. Here’s how I faked my way into a handicap parking tag.
> I, too, dislike walking far. Here’s how I faked my way into a handicap parking tag.<p>Cute analogy, but.<p>Handicap parking tags provide value to those who need them. Depriving them of parking makes their lives harder.<p>On the other hand, TSA is pure theater, as TFA makes clear. Avoiding this needless ritual saves time for the passenger, for the TSA officers, even for the other passengers, and does not increase risk at all. It's pure win-win.
That’s fine and it is of course security theater / jobs program. I was put off by the feigning of disability to avoid a scanner and/or some inconvenience. This kind of behavior is okay, even great, but please come up with a more tasteful way. Otherwise I hope it’s a parody.
It may be many things, but I very much doubt the motivation is a <i>money grab</i>. A few people paying $45 isn't lining the pockets of some government official, or plugging a hole in any possible budget.<p>Dealing with the presence of travelers who haven't updated their driver's licenses requires a bunch of extra staff to perform the time-consuming additional verifications. The basic idea is for those staff to be paid by the people using them, rather than by taxpayers and air travelers more generally. As well as there being a small deterrent effect.
There is no legal requirement to show id or answer any questions to establish identification before flying. In other words there is no extra work required by law which the fee would cover.
The TSA is literally <i>doing</i> all this extra work though, whether or not you think it's required by law. They're not just pocketing the $45 and then blindly waving you ahead.
Let's be more precise. The TSA has created extra work for themselves, and are charging us for it, whether it's legally required or not (because they pretend that it is).
Sure. But it's not "pretend". It's genuine regulatory policy they've created because they believe it's necessary for security, and this has been a decades-long project. The article is arguing they don't ultimately have the legal authority to make that regulatory policy. Maybe that'll go to court and be tested, maybe they'll win and maybe they'll lose. If they lose, maybe Congress will pass explicit legislative authorization the next day, and maybe <i>that</i>'ll be brought to court, and the Supreme Court will have to decide if it violates the 14th amendment or not. But it's not "fake work", it's actually doing a thing.
No, it's not "regulatory policy". It's been done <i>entirely</i> with some combination of secret "Security Directives" and "rulemaking by press release". As the article and the linked references explain, the TSA never issued any regulations, published any of the required notices, or obtained any of the approvals that would have been required even if Congress had passed an (unconstitutional) authorizing statute (which it didn't).
No. Policy or regulation would have a basis in law. This administration has aptly demonstrated their contempt for the law. Nobody gives a shit about some grunt federal employee getting extra work.<p>This is just a way to compel compliance and to push the agenda for ID with higher documentary requirements, ultimately to deny the vote.
I mean I could hire someone to continuously dig and refill the a hole in the ground. That would certainly be them doing a thing, but it would also definitely be fake work. There's been plenty of rhetoric thrown around but no real evidence has been produced that suggests the TSA isn't engaging in a bit of circular digging at the taxpayer's expense with this.
As I mentioned[0] a few months ago after the TSA announced the $45 "fee":<p><pre><code> ...The courts have repeatedly struck down limits on domestic travel over the
past couple hundred years.
In fact, the $45 "fee" is an acknowledgment that you aren't required to have
special documents to travel within the US. Otherwise, they just wouldn't let
you travel.
So instead, they're making more security theater and punishing you if you
don't comply with their demands...
</code></pre>
And now the birds are coming home to roost. No real surprise there, IMHO.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46128346">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46128346</a>
It's security theatre, someone has to pay the performers
Flying without ID just gets you the full patdown treatment. It’s not like they’re tracking down people to vouch for you.
I don't know what you mean by "full patdown treatment", but they're absolutely tracking down your information in databases and interviewing you about it. See replies to:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46864182">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46864182</a><p>It's absolutely <i>not</i> just enhanced physical screening.
It's not just a patdown. They take you to a phone booth that has a direct line to some portion of the FBI IIRC, and they ask you a bunch of questions to confirm your identity. At least this is what happened to me about ten years ago when I lost my wallet in a different state and needed to fly home.
... and the law in most states requires only that you give your name and possibly your DOB to the authorities upon detainment. So as a purely academic exercise, what can they even do if you refuse to answer beyond that? Obviously in practice they will fuck with you or just straight up violate the constitution, but theoretically I'm unsure how they can continue to seize you after that.
...they don't let you fly.<p>They can't detain you (if you're not otherwise some kind of suspect, and you're not trying to assault them or sprint past security or anything), but they don't let you fly.
... if you aren't detained you are free to go. And if you are free to go, you are free to stay, unless the property owner has trespassed you. TSA doesn't own the airport, at least in my state. So how can they trespass you from the airport or otherwise continue to detain you from moving forward?<p>I mean, I know you're right, and I know you will always lose if you try, but I don't understand the legal basis.
I don't think it's a matter of whether or not you are free to go. It's a matter of whether they let you on the plane.
As far as I can tell, a person is free to go if they refuse screening: They won't be getting on a flight, but they can just leave. There's no detainment involved in this process.<p>Whether they can then elect to <i>stay</i> is a different matter, I think.<p>But so what? How long would a person have to stand in a screening area before someone who properly represents the ownership of that space shows up and authoritatively tells them to GTFO, do you suppose?
It's just federal law.<p>Cities don't own restaurants either but can fine them and close them if health inspections fail, because there's a law for that.<p>The legal basis is the federal laws written specifically around airport security.
at least, hold or delay you long enough to make you miss your flight.
Like someone who would deliberately show up to work in a speedo because "show me where in the employee handbook it says I must wear pants"
A better analogy would be a legally protected right to show up to work dressed in street clothes, your boss imposes an illegal requirement to wear a specific uniform, and then attempts to charge you if you show up without one.
Is this the case, I didn't see it in the article.<p>If they have to perform extra work then I'd say it's justified. If it's just a punishment for not getting a real ID I'm not sure if that's fair
$45 x millions of people (some multiple times) = an incredibly consequential amount of money
It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID. In the context of airport security budgets, it's not that much. And it's used for hiring the additional staff required and putting together the identity verification systems they use.
> It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID<p>Those that did had to pay $30-$60 plus fees (actual cost differs by state) to get one and will have to pay that again and again each renewal. This is certainly making money somewhere for somebody and not at all about security
What states do you have to pay for your Real ID every time? Yes, you have to pay to renew your license or photo ID, but the Real ID fee in my state (PA) is one-time. Renewal costs are the same whether it's a Real ID or not.
WA state it is an extra $56 every time you renew for Real ID
California would be one, because they issue Real IDs to non-citizens that are tied to their documentation, which needs to be reviewed each time.
As of the imposition of start of this new fee/fine, about 200,000 people a day fly without ID or without REAL-ID: <a href="https://papersplease.org/wp/2025/05/28/200000-people-a-day-fly-without-real-id/" rel="nofollow">https://papersplease.org/wp/2025/05/28/200000-people-a-day-f...</a> - At $45 a pop, that would bring in >$3B a year. "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
That's a really disappointing source. The headline is '200,000 people a day fly without REAL-ID', which starts out quite interesting.<p>It then goes on to explain that the TSA has reported 93% of traveler's complied with REAL ID, citing a TSA blog from a week prior which in fact states the same.<p>They then take this and couple it with a single day, which they state was the busiest travel day of the Memorial Day weekend, and extrapolate that 7% of the travelers that day must've failed to provide a REAL ID.<p>For the sake of conversation, this is a reasonable statement. Going back and using it to suggest 200k fly without it on a typical day is not reasonable, nor is your suggestion that a 6 months later it's still at 7% (or even typical travel volume hasn't changed.<i>) There has to be better data available.<p></i>I was curious about this, so I looked up travel volume. YTD the daily average is 2,130,136 passengers. At 7%, this is 149,109.5 passengers or $2.449 B a year in fees. This ignores that you only pay the fee once very 10 days and assumes that all travelers pay the fee on every occurrence.
“Most” people can have it and there’d still be millions (tens of millions, even over 100mill) of people who don’t. Multiple states don’t even require it. That guarantees several million people right there.<p>I think New York is one, so well over 10mill people don’t require it. Do you seriously think most of those people are getting one anyway? Guarantee you there are millions of people without it if not tens of millions. I’d put money on it.<p>So back to the point, we’re talking likely 100’s of millions of dollars. That is nothing to sneeze at. The TSA is an $11bill operation based on a quick search. $500mill (~11mill people) would be 5% of their annual budget.
America only has 340 million people to begin with. Then, half the population doesn't even fly in a given year. Those that do are mostly aware of the RealID requirement and either got it whenever they last renewed their driver's license, or renewed early because their DMV kept mailing them warnings about needing to do so if they wanted to fly. Yes, most people who fly either have it, or are getting it before their next flight. Part of the $45 fee is also to incentivize people to get the RealID, as that will obviously be cheaper for them over the long run.<p>That's the point. It's not to make money. The primary purpose is to get people to use RealID, and to cover the costs of the extra screening for those who don't. For however much more money they take in, you need to subtract the cost of the additional staff they need to hire and pay to handle it, plus the tech systems.<p>Also, remember you can just use a passport instead. That hasn't changed.
There’s quite a bit of evidence to say there are still millions without one, especially depending on the state, this article is from 9 months ago:<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/real-id-deadline-weeks-away-most-states-not-fully-compliant-yet/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/real-id-deadline-weeks-away-mos...</a><p>I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one. I certainly do not believe there are increased costs associated with my existing ID, that would be alleviated with a Real ID. At no point have I ever heard Real ID exists to reduce costs (though if that’s true, I’d love to read how). IMHO it may not be a “cash grab,” but it’s certainly punitive. And, for what it’s worth, there have been no extra steps I’ve had to take or increased screening when using my existing ID for the past year. Same photo machine, same scanner, as everyone else.<p>I will personally just renew my passport to avoid the fee until I need to renew my drivers license.
> <i>I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.</i><p>I guess that's because you haven't renewed your driver's license yet?<p>I did last year, precisely because I had to fly, and had to bring a bunch of new documentation I never needed for my previous driver's licenses, including, yes, multiple proofs of both citizenship and residency, and then had to go through a whole additional process because of a slight name discrepancy between documents that they had to get a supervisor to make a judgment call on. It's a totally different verification process that is actually quite meaningfully different.
I thought that too, having seen the requirements, but it turns out it does not really do anything (at least as far as I can tell):<p><a href="https://reason.com/2025/12/31/dhs-says-real-id-which-dhs-certifies-is-too-unreliable-to-confirm-u-s-citizenship/" rel="nofollow">https://reason.com/2025/12/31/dhs-says-real-id-which-dhs-cer...</a>
Allow me to remind you of what you said:<p>> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.<p>You seem to have conveniently forgotten that residency was part of the discussion. DHS hasn't contested REAL ID as a means to verify your identity or your residency. They have contested it as a means to verify your citizenship and they are correct because it was never intended to be proof of citizenship or legal residency status.<p>You do need to show your residency paperwork or prove citizenship when applying as only lawfully present residents are eligible to receive a REAL ID, but only citizens and permanent residents have indefinite legal status and REAL ID doesn't track your status.<p>I would argue this is a silly gap, but Congress intentionally did not establish a National ID which you would expect to identify nationality. Instead, they created a system which makes it difficult to create ID in multiple states concurrently or under multiple names.<p>I would further argue that the database required to make REAL ID work ends up with all of the negatives of a national ID, without the most useful benefits. So really, we all lose.
I mean, that's one agency making a highly contested claim for obvious controversial political reasons.<p>It's absolutely a totally different and much stricter vetting process from before. Whether you or some <i>other</i> government agency thinks it <i>still</i> doesn't go far enough is a separate question.
You keep saying “most” which I agreed with for starters and still leaves a ton of people.<p>Also almost half the population flies annually, so we’re starting around 150mill.<p>You need numbers at this point. I am willing to bet millions flying don’t have it.<p>Here’s an article from April 2025: <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/real-id-deadline-may/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/real-id-deadline-may/</a>
Assuming 100M "classic" ID checks (being generous): congrats, you just paid for two days of running the military!
But everyone would have to take advantage of that benefit not having ID have with themselves.
The roughly 7.6 million CLEAR members paying $209/yr grosses them north of $1 billion/year. It's not hard to see why TSA wants to get in on it.
It's not a money grab, it's a tactic to encourage compliance. This isn't evidence of a change in security posture, you've always been able to travel without a Real ID. They've been pushing Real ID for more than a decade, 90% of people have one already anyway, the remaining stragglers simply don't care because there have never been any consequences.<p>Now TSA is offering an ultimatum. Pay $45 once to renew your ID or pay it every time you travel. For most people this is enough motivation to renew the ID and never think about it again.
s/tactic to encourage compliance/blatant coercion/<p>FTFY<p>They've been trying to push this BS for over a decade but some of the states haven't been adopting it the way they'd like. The threats to ban travel without one were ultimately toothless as there would have been far too much backlash (and that would presumably be unconstitutional). This is what they figure they can get away with.<p>> the remaining stragglers simply don't care because there have never been any consequences<p>The default ID that my state issues has historically not been RealID compliant and I think that's a good thing. I have no interest in actively participating in the latest authoritarian overreach attempt.
Exactly. I wish it was about money. It's about surveillance. The TSA even flatly says the quiet part out loud. "The fee is to make you _comply_."<p>That's madness.<p>For the $45 I should get a "TSA ID" that lets me fly for a year. That would be a cash grab. They don't even care enough to do that. They want to blur the line between state and federal and they're going to use your need to fly to accomplish that.
My wife, who was on a H1B visa and managed to fly without an ID a few years back. They took her to some side room, asked a bunch of questions and looked her up based on name, DOB, address etc.
If the $45 is meant to be temporary, it can reasonably be looked as a fine to encourage people to get their RealID.<p>I don’t think the existence of the fine itself is necessarily evidence of a cash grab.<p>If it isn’t temporary and extends beyond a year or two, then it probably is just meant to be a cash grab.
terrorists don’t have $45 each
Awwwww. I was going to hijack this plane and use it as a weapon in a divide attack, but $45?! You got me, TSA! That's just too rich for my blood!
> And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.<p>It wasn't just pay for play! TSA-PreCheck and Global Entry approval requires a thorough background check of your residential, work, and travel history, also in-person interview. Unfortunately, some Privacy activists prefer not doing that over occasional convenience.<p><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=tsa+precheck+eligibility" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=tsa+precheck+eligibility</a>
would love to know the revenue generated by bottled water pre and post 9/11
Real ID is/was needed because every state has different requirements to get one.<p>The whole debate is hilarious, you need one or two extra documents to get RealID. The exact same amount of time and trips to DMV.
The fact that Real ID was introduced when I was in college and has been pushed back every year since shows that we don't actually need it.
A general reminder that every extra obstacle to getting a valid ID (or voting) disproportionately impacts the poor. They often lack the paperwork, the free time, and the money to deal with the extra process involved.
Absolutely. With Real ID, the biggest pain for a lot of people is proof of residency.<p>Rich people just print out some combination of a bank statement, a pay stub, and a copy of their mortgage or lease or the electric bill, but poor people may not have much of that. Think of someone staying with family and getting paid by a gig economy job to a Cash App card or just working under the table/doing odd jobs.<p>Once you start with less common documents, there seem to be more arcane rules, and the documents poor people do have often don’t quite fit the rules that were basically written around what people middle class and up are likely to have.
You need two documents for proof. It's really not that hard. Poor that can't produce these documents probably can't afford a plane ticket either, so how is it a problem? Y'all have some weird ideas about how poor people are incapable of have two pieces of paper that have: 1) their name 2) their address
I had the option to get a "Real ID" the last time I renewed my driver's license, and did not. I forget which stupid bit of paper gave me trouble, but I had a valid passport (the Mother of All IDs), which was both insufficient to get a "Real ID" and sufficient to fly. It's a joke, a nuisance, and now a revenue source.
It is like the government loooed at Ryanair and thought "what if we were like that!"
$45 pays for the cost of a much more tedious identity verification process.
> Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.<p>Are these the same poor people that reputedly cannot get IDs to vote because of a government conspiracy to suppress their votes, yet can afford an airline ticket and commute to an airport?
The $45 pays for extra checks and scrutiny.
What are these checks and scrutiny and how are they applied in the time available? Given the time available is not great ("I'm on the next flight") and the amount of money is modest if humans are involved I'm intrigued to know what could be done that $45 would cover.
It's a database lookup that takes 5-15 minutes once you get to an available officer, but then depending on what it returns you may need additional screening, which will also need to wait for someone available.<p>That's why if you don't have an ID, you should get to the airport <i>at least</i> an hour earlier than otherwise (already accounting for long security lines), and more during peak travel times. If you get slowed down, you're going to miss your flight. They're not going to speed it up for you.
This happened to me once, they just brought out someone (supervisor?) who asked questions about what addresses I've lived at, other similar questions I'd probably only know the answer to.<p>It does take longer than regular screening (most of the time was just spent waiting for the supervisor -- I'm not sure they were spending time collecting some data first), if that causes you to miss your flight you miss your flight.<p>It seems plausible to me that $45 could be about a TSA employee's wage times how much longer this takes. In aggregate, this (in theory) lets them hire additional staff to make sure normal screening doesn't take longer due to existing staff being tied up in extra verifications.
Data brokers already know everything about every American so the TSA is just buying existing information from them. Then they can quickly quiz you on the information to verify that you are you. <a href="https://network.id.me/article/what-is-knowledge-based-verification-kbv/" rel="nofollow">https://network.id.me/article/what-is-knowledge-based-verifi...</a>
Bullshit. Also not legally required.
Got a bridge to sell you
what the fuck extra checks and scrutiny could they possibly need? They already go through an x-ray machine and get molested before we get on the plane, "real ID" or not.
I'm almost positive they get paid the same at the end of the day either way and the $45 just lines the pockets of someone on the top.
It's not that they'd pay individual employees more, it's that they'd hire more workers to account for the fact that their existing workers are tied up doing extra verification.<p>Though they might not do that either.
Do you not see how an organization discouraging the use of something inefficient benefits as a whole?<p>Thats why cashless businesses exist, why you pay more for things that involve human attention instead of automated online solutions etc.
I am only guessing but I'd be surprised if it was a money grab. My instinct is that it's a way of highlighting RealID citizenship verification.
RealID is unrelated to citizenship.<p>It's a proof of an address, akin to soviet-style "propiska", which was very important and hard to get without (it also affected ownership/inheritance).<p>What's more fun is that even though they accept different types of residence, they mostly trust utility bills -- but to set up utilities on your name even for your personal home utility company will ask a lot of documents, including credit score checks.<p>I personally felt that it's utility companies who do the heavy proof checking, not DMVs.
I think the comparison to the propiska system is incorrect. This Soviet system heavily controlled internal migration and was what ultimately dictated where someone was permitted to live. You couldn't relocate without one, and having this permission was tied to all sorts of local services. This system anchored people to where they were, and usually barred them from moving unless they had a good reason to.<p>The US currently has freedom of movement. You don't need the government's permission to live somewhere or to move somewhere else. An ID with your address listed isn't propiska. At best, you could compare it to the 'internal passport' that the USSR and most post-Soviet countries had, which acted as a comprehensive identity document and was the ancestor to modern national ID cards that are used in many countries.
My passport card is RealID compliant and doesn’t have my address anywhere on it.
Real ID/Drivers License being a proof of address is laughable. In my state (NY) they accept the following as proof of address for getting a new Real ID:<p>- Bank statement<p>- Pay stub<p>- Utility bill<p>- Any other state ID with the same last name, which I can claim is my parent or spouse.<p>I can change my mailing address on any of them with a few clicks online, no actual verification needed.<p>What they do NOT accept as proof of address:<p>- My passport<p>How does that make any sense?
> - Bank statement<p>> - Pay stub<p>> - Utility bill<p>It should be noted, and I don't understand why people aren't angry about this: Account numbers unredacted on the statements. The numbers are redacted the documentation gets rejected.
> What they do NOT accept as proof of address:
> - My passport
> How does that make any sense?<p>It makes sense because, if you look closely, you will see that your passport does not indicate your address.
> I can change my mailing address on any of them with a few clicks online, no actual verification needed.<p>Yes, but you’d have to be able to retrieve mail from that address?
Citizenship or lawful status, sorry! And you’re right.<p>But it’s totemic when you dig into conspiracy theories about undocumented immigrants voting. RealID comes up a lot.
It's hardly proof of address. At best, I'd say it's proof of state residency.<p>I've moved several times since getting my Colorado driver's license (a REAL ID). Technically, you are supposed to submit a change-of-address form to the DMV online within 30 days of moving. They don't send you a new card when you do that; the official procedure is to stick a piece of paper with your new address written on it to your existing ID yourself, and then just wait until your next renewal to actually get a card with the new address on it. The change of address form does not require utility bills or any other proof of the new address-- that's only required when you initially get the driver's license.
Let me just for one second give them the benefit of the doubt.<p>Could the $45 be a way to pay for some extra manual screening? Maybe? Or do they not deserve any benefit of the doubt.
They do not.
From what I've heard, the no-ID process does indeed feature additional screening. I think the passenger would fill out a form and the TSA would cross-check it with their information. This was free prior to the new ID push, but since now people need a special ID to fly instead of using their normal one, I'm guessing they made the process cost extra to disincentivize people from sticking with their IDs and just doing the free manual process every time. I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm just saying that this is probably why they decided to try this.
Saying that there is “no legal requirement to show an ID” is truthy but misleading. Federal law gives the TSA authority over “screening” passengers: <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/44901" rel="nofollow">https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/44901</a> (“The Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration shall provide for the screening of all passengers and property, including United States mail, cargo, carry-on and checked baggage, and other articles, that will be carried aboard a passenger aircraft operated by an air carrier or foreign air carrier in air transportation or intrastate air transportation.”).<p>That means the TSA can do whatever it can get away with labeling “screening.” It doesn’t matter that Congress didn’t specifically require showing IDs. That’s just one possible way of doing “screening.” Under the statute, the TSA is not required to do screening any particular way.
From TFA:<p>> The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), which is set law, provides a “complete defense” against any penalty for failing to respond to any collection of information by a Federal agency that hasn’t been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), isn’t accompanied by a valid PRA notice, or doesn’t display a valid OMB Control Number.<p>As the article works through, as a Federal Agency the TSA cannot just label stuff "screening" and demand money, or at least, they can't do so and then make you pay it.
You seem to be under the impression that the word "screening" means TSA can do whatever it wants. When in fact, if you click on the link under the word "Screening" in the own link you posted, there is a definition provided.<p>> (4) Screening defined .— In this subsection the term “screening” means a physical examination or non-intrusive methods of assessing whether cargo poses a threat to transportation security.<p>You should consider reading what you posted.
The site is confusing since, if you click the link, you don't see the context. But that definition is for cargo screening only.<p>If you scroll down and look at it in context, that definition is under section (g): "Air Cargo on Passenger Aircraft".<p>And of course passengers aren't cargo.
> doesn't matter that Congress didn't specifically require...<p>Actually it does matter. Chevron deference is gone. If Congress didn't specifically approve this method, it's not legal
To be fair, that's not exactly what Loper Bright says. It holds that the courts should read the statute independently and not assume that Agency rules or procedures are prima facie controlling where the statute is ambiguous.
That's not what the end of Chevron deference means. It means that if Congress didn't specifically approve this method, a court may <i>find</i> it illegal much more easily than was previously the case. The deference in "Chevron deference" was from the courts towards administrative agencies.
How can it be legally considered screening if you can pay $45 to bypass it entirely?
You have the right to travel without ID in the U.S. The TSA may demand it, and may tell you it's legally required, but that doesn't make that true.<p>"In fact, the TSA does not require, and the law does not authorize the TSA to require, that would-be travelers show any identity documents. According to longstanding practice, people who do not show any identity documents travel by air every day – typically after being required to complete and sign the current version of TSA Form 415 and answer questions about what information is contained in the file about them obtained by the TSA from data broker Accurint…."<p><a href="https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/05/19/tsa-tries-again-to-impose-an-id-requirement-to-fly/" rel="nofollow">https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/05/19/tsa-tries-again-to-im...</a><p><a href="https://papersplease.org/wp/2024/03/18/buses-trains-and-us-domestic-travel-without-id/" rel="nofollow">https://papersplease.org/wp/2024/03/18/buses-trains-and-us-d...</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...</a>
TSA's searches without a warrant are illegal.<p>The fourth amendment:<p>>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.<p>And no, you cannot convince me that searching families flying to see grandma for Christmas is a "reasonable search".
Unfortunately almost every court that has considered the question has concluded otherwise. <a href="https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4344&context=mlr" rel="nofollow">https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...</a><p>Also, the question has been largely sidestepped by the fact that travelers consent to search by voluntarily proceeding into the secure (airside) area of the airport, and there are usually--if not always--signs at the TSA screening point that say so. It’s not like you’re being involuntarily searched at the check-in desk.
You are entering government property so they have a right to search you. Just like if you enter a sporting event they have a right to search you. You are free to not use either service.<p>Now we could argue that this isn’t a desirable way to do things but I don’t how it would violate the fourth amendment.
Explain to me how qualified immunity is better than any ill it is supposed to address? And how is it that if you sue the government and win, then the judgement doesn't automatically award reasonable legal fees?
The ill that it's supposed to address is people hassling government officials who are just doing their jobs. Their jobs require them to do things that people don't want them to do, like making you pay taxes or go to jail for committing crimes. They are prominent targets and can easily spend their entire career fighting off complaints.<p>Of course that promptly shifts the potential for abuse in the other direction. Supposedly, democracy is the control over that. If they are abusing their office, you vote them out. (Or you vote out the elected official supervising them, such as a mayor or sheriff.)<p>It actually does work out most of the time. The cases of abuse are really few and far between. But in a country of 300 million, "few and far between" is somebody every single day, and a decent chance that it's you at some point.<p>That said, it should be zero, and there's good reason to think that for every offender you see there are dozens or hundreds of people complicit in allowing it. The theory I outlined above can only handle so many decades of concerted abuses before they become entrenched as part of the system. At which point it may be impossible to restore it without resetting everything to zero and starting over.
> The ill that it's supposed to address is people hassling government officials who are just doing their jobs.<p>How? If they're doing their jobs, then they are in the right and would be defended by their agency. If they are doing something illegal, they'd be in trouble. But that's the point!
They might be defended by their agency (though being "in the right" doesn't appear to be a pre-requisite for that anyway). But they would/could still be subject to lawsuit after lawsuit, which hardly suits the intended goal of government, does it?
Working in the criminal justice system for awhile in some capacity will really give you perspective on what people have to deal with.
Especially when the implication in the article is the police tried to delete a video from evidence -- and still ended up getting to hide behind qualified immunity.<p>Ugh.
Two separate things. Qualified immunity is just immunity from individual liability afforded to government agents when conducting government business, as long as they are conducting it properly.
> as long as they are conducting it properly.<p>I think ICE has clearly demonstrated that this is not true
Except the whole "as long as they are conducting it properly" part isn't actually true.
Have you ever looked at legal proceedings involving criminals? It’s 95% noise and 5% signal. Criminals are, in general, bad people with a lot of time on their hands, and without qualified immunity you’d totally swamp the legal system with frivolous lawsuits.
If true, unlikely to help the working poor flying (or attempting to fly) because recourse to courts here is in the realms of the rich or benificent.<p>So, Frommers should fund a test case.
It’s annoying we don’t offer passport cards for free to people as a national government credential. The cost is similar to this fee, and your app and photo could be taken by TSA right at the checkpoint. You head to your flight after identity proofed, and your passport card could then be mailed to you.<p><a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-passport/card.html" rel="nofollow">https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-pa...</a>
It is, but I think that's a separate issue. There's no authorization, let alone a mandate, to prove identity to move about. The mission, ostensibly, is to make air travel safe by ensuring that passengers don't bring dangerous items onto the plane. It's not to track who is going where.
> The mission, ostensibly, is to make air travel safe by ensuring that passengers don't bring dangerous items onto the plane.<p>No, it is to make it safe for any reason, which goes beyond whether or not they brought box cutters.
I didn't personally experience it (I was too young), but I think that was part of "the mission" since pre-9/11. The point of the ID check is to make sure the boarding ticket and ID match.<p>In effect that tracks who is going where.
You could even double them up as government issued voter-ID and save all that hassle every 4 years. Or the current round of random stop-and-search going on...
The people eligible for passports are not the same group of people eligible for voter id since there are a few jurisdictions where non-citizens can vote in certain elections. Voting is also a responsibility of the states (even at the federal level), so there isn't really such thing as a federal voter id since each state has different eligibility requirements for voters that don't necessarily align with passport eligibility. Additionally, passport cards aren't interchangeable with passports in most countries.<p>Also, every four years? Elections happen more or less constantly in this country at some level or another. Federal elections are every two years, BTW, and that's if we ignore special elections for federal candidates. You should learn more about the system you live in.<p>The current round of stop-and-search would be enabled by making passport cards or some form of universal id. The current legal reality is that you do not need to prove your citizenship on demand if you are already in the US as a citizen. The burden of proof - rightly in my opinion - lies with the government to prove that you are not a citizen. Frankly, I'm quite uncomfortable with "paper's please" entering the US law enforcement repertoire. The fourth amendment was pretty clear about this.<p>With the CBP using mere presence validated by facial id only at legally protected protests as reason to withdraw Global Entry enrollment, it seems more and more clear that we do not need to be giving more power to the people who do not understand the 4th and first amendments. Removing people from Global Entry for protected first speech is, afaict, directly in violation of the first amendment even if Global Entry is a "privilege"
FWIW, REAL-ID is not about U.S. citizenship: A passport issued by <i>any</i> country is considered "compliant" with the REAL-ID Act for air travel or any other purpose, <i>regardless</i> of the person's U.S. immigration status. Some politicians seem to have deluded themselves to think that requiring REAL-ID will stop "illegal aliens" from flying. But it won't. Many foreigners in the U.S. (regardless of U.S. immigration status) have an easier time getting REAL-ID (a passport from their country of citizenship) than some U.S. citizens.
And also provide an API for online services to use so we are not beholden to Alphabet and Apple.<p>And while they’re at it, provide an electronic money account that allows for free and instant transfers.<p>But then how would we waste so many societal resources letting investors profit from basic infrastructure?
> But then how would we waste so many societal resources letting investors profit from basic infrastructure?<p>That, and Millenarian Christians would object to its being a required "mark of the beast." That bit from Revelations has held us back for quite a while.
I'm sure some young guns from a techbro company would love to dive into the data lake and make a proposal. They might need to take a few reels of tape away for offsite analysis, but don't worry..
"government issued voter-ID"<p>Gasp! Checking for IDs while voting is fascist! It's like Germany 1937.
~~~While it's not a passport, I believe most states have free id cards that are "realid" compliant.~~~<p>Edit: I'm wrong.
> I believe most states have free id cards that are "realid" compliant.<p>None in the mid-Atlantic or SE that I've seen. Some states offer free gov docs under limited programs, eg:unaccompanied homeless youth.
I stand corrected, at least in Pennsylvania (1). I misremembering the issues surrounding requiring Id to vote. The law that was struck down did provide a free id that would have been suitable for voting; however, that isn't required and no longer exists, and there was no mention I could find of if it would have been realid compliant.(2)<p>(1) <a href="https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dmv/resources/payments-and-fees" rel="nofollow">https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dmv/resources/payments-and-fees</a><p>(2) Applewhite v. Commonwealth <a href="https://pubintlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Voter-ID-Final-Order.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://pubintlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Voter-ID-Fi...</a>
Exactly zero states give you real IDs for free.
How many of the “working poor” can afford to fly and don’t have a drivers license?<p>All 50 states and 5 US territories issue RealID compliant drivers license/ID
Flying domestically is usually cheaper than driving once you get past the range of a tank of gas or two. Also, RealID isn't fully permeated yet - my state won't fully phase out non-RealIDs until 2029.
"once you get past the range of a tank of gas or two."<p>This is like the folks who say flying is more carbon friendly than driving. It's wrong, you're comparing a vehicle running cost with one passenger vs a full vehicle normalized by its capacity.<p>No one flies 30 mi commutes.<p>Few drive 600+ mi empty or alone.
For a single person going between two major metro areas, for sure.<p>But a lot of the working poor have families and travel to/from places that aren't major metro areas, and this can change the math really fast.
RealID licenses cost extra where I live. Your job can buy you a plane ticket but they can't get you through TSA.
Are you saying our state offers both RealID and none RealID driver’s licenses?
All states do (for now). Not everyone qualified to drive is capable of proving their identity to the level RealID requires.
California offers both. I renewed my license last year. I opted for a non Real ID version because I could renew online rather than spend hours at the DMV.
I renewed mine in May and still have a non-Real ID license.
I know for a fact Kentucky offers both.
Some states, including mine, don't offer RealID at all, but instead an "enhanced driver license" that is accepted alongside RealID. I don't even have that, because I already have a passport card, so there's no reason to spend the extra money.
> RealID licenses cost extra where I live.<p>Where is that? I’m curious.<p>Around here, RealID is just what you’re issued when you renew various forms of ID. I don’t even recall an option to get a non-RealID version.
I'm in Oregon, and that's the case - about $30 extra. More people than you think don't have access to supplemental documentation required to meet extra requirements – people who don't have current travel documents, people who've just moved into town, people who don't have current documentation of address (e.g. the homeless, people in the foster care system, etc.)<p>It's pragmatic to have: plenty of people don't or can't fly, and the cost of supporting this option is marginal.
for what its worth, my state made it unpleasant enough that it was easier to just got a non-real id and a renew the ol passport
In CA it was cheaper and (far) easier to get a normal license and a passport.
Washington State. $7/yr more for a Real ID license - $42 more the 6 year license and $60 more for the 10.<p><a href="https://dol.wa.gov/driver-licenses-and-permits/driver-licensing-fees" rel="nofollow">https://dol.wa.gov/driver-licenses-and-permits/driver-licens...</a>
If your job wants you to fly, it should buy you an id that lets you fly. Have you never applied for a visa to travel on a business trip?
yes, if there's one thing the working poor are known for, it's successfully extracting money from their employers. if uber wants you to rideshare, they should buy you a car, right?
> How many of the “working poor” can afford to fly and don’t have a drivers license?<p>What he really means is illegals who have fake ids who now can't get RealIDs.
Undocumented immigrants can have authentic, non-"RealID" ids, as things such as drivers licenses are the purview of the states, and infringement there upon is an attack on their constitutional sovereignty. California, for example, is perfectly happy to give out drivers licenses to anybody who can establish residency and pass the test, since there's no sense in creating a double jeopardy situation wherein because someone has committed one crime (illegally immigrating to California), they are forced to commit an additional crime (driving without a license). It's the same reason the IRS gives you a spot to declare your bribes and other illegal income.
> It's the same reason the IRS gives you a spot to declare your bribes and other illegal income.<p>The California example makes sense. They aren't asking a question that would lead to the admission of a crime. The IRS example doesn't make sense, since they are asking a question that would lead to the admission of a crime. Even if the answer was legally protected, a government who does not respect the law (or one that changes the law) could have nasty repercussions.
The IRS doesn’t ask for specifics so I don’t think it’s legally an admission of a crime. Saying “I took a bribe” doesn’t make you legally guilty of taking a bribe. You’d have to say when, from who, and for what.
What exactly makes RealID more secure than the drivers license my state has issued for the last 20 years?
> Requiring ID won’t make us safer, but it enables surveillance and potential control of our movements.
It's a real head-scratcher that the cohort that claims government ID is unattainable for some people hasn't taken up this issue. "Real ID" isn't something that is just delivered to you. Now we're going to charge money <i>not</i> to have it?
In my state Real ID is just delivered to you.<p>It used to cost $10 for a replacement ID printed in the DMV. Now I pay $25 for a third-party vendor to line their pockets and mail me a new ID weeks later!
Democrats usually complain that ID requirements suppress voters’ rights. Your right to travel isn’t as thoroughly suppressed by this as the right to vote is. It’s not a strong excuse, but it’s not totally inconsistent either. And, at least before this change, there were still ways to go through security screening without ID. If those are not allowed any more, maybe Dems will take up the issue.
Which cohort is that? In my experience, the left has been against requiring internal passports since day one.
Frankly, the entire agency is unconstitutional. From the fact that they basically exist under a general warrant issued by the supreme court (although they invented a new catagory, "administrative search", which doesn't fundamentally change what it is) to the restrictions on the right to assembly requires free travel as well, although the current legal underpinnings are "creative", the 10th admendment which grants all non enumerated powers to the states, to the restrictions on bearing arms on the plane and a half dozen other parts. About the only part they might be able to stand on is commerce again, but then so much travel in the larger states remains in the state (ex dallas/houston, san fran/LA) requiring seperate security zones.<p>Bush should have _NEVER_ nationalized them, at least as a private entity they existed in a sorta gray area. Now they are clearly violating the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 10th amendments.<p>And the solution isn't another bullshit supreme court amendment of the absolutist language in the bill of rights/etc but to actually have a national discussion about how much safety the are providing vs their cost, intrusiveness, etc and actually find enough common ground to amend the constitution. Until then they are unconstitutional and the court makes a mockery of itself and delgitimizes then entire apparatus in any ruling that doesn't tear it down as such.<p>And before anyone says "oh thats hard", i'm going to argue no its not, pretty much 100% of the country could agree to amend the 2nd to ban the private ownership of nuclear weapons, there isn't any reason that it shouldn't be possible to get 70% support behind some simple restrictions "aka no guns, detected via a metal detector on public airplanes" passed. But then the agency wouldn't be given free run to do whatever the political appointee of the week feels like. But there are "powers" that are more interested in tracking you, selling worthless scanners, and creating jobs programs for people who enjoy feeling people up and picking through their dirty underwear.
Inventing categories is what the court does. The Constitution is incredibly brief, and gives zero guidance on how to clarify conflicts. It has always been full of "common sense" exceptions, like criminalizing threats (despite the unqualified "freedom of speech" language) or probable cause (police can invade your house if they know you are committing a crime right now).<p>The sum total of these "common sense" exceptions, and the "legal reasoning" that extends them to the modern world, means that the document itself doesn't actually mean anything. Your rights, such as they are, consist of literally millions of pages of decisions, plus the oral tradition passed down in law schools.
The constitution doesn't provide a "common sense" loophole. Much of it is written in absolutist language because that was the actual intention. The amendment process is provided to open "common sense" loopholes if everyone agrees they are common sense, not for the courts to gradually erode the language until the federal goverment is doing things the founders explicitly fought the revolutionary war over.<p>Put another way, Writs of Assistance, were perfectly legal common sense way for the British government to assure their customs laws were being enforced, and it was one of the more significant drivers of the revolution.
It seems to me it is more of a penalty to encourage people to get Real ID while still allowing them to fly. I would imagine most air travelers have some kind of real id, passport, actual real id DL or global entry card. Very few people cannot get real id due to name inconsistency issues, but most are just lazy. Allowing them to fly for $45 seems reasonable to me, particularly if they cause delays at security.
There are 15 other forms of ID that TSA accepts, so Real ID isn’t necessary: <a href="https://www.cchfreedom.org/national-id/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cchfreedom.org/national-id/</a>
Here's the actual TSA list: <a href="https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification" rel="nofollow">https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification</a><p>But fun fact: even if an ID is on that list, if it's not one that their little scanner machines know how to read, then it's effectively not on that list. I've been hassled every single time I try to use my TWIC card at TSA, and they invariably demand to use my (non-REAL) driver's license, since their dumb scanners can manage to read that one. They often then have the gall to give me one of their "You need to have a REAL ID" pamphlets. I can't wait to see what happens next time I travel with this new fee in effect.
Lazy or worried about an encroaching government?
If Real ID is so good, why do we have CLEAR? Why can I not skip the line with RealID?<p>If we are forced RealID, why not just make all the TSA checkpoints like Global Entry (or in several countries with IDs), fully automate them, using Real ID. That would get rid of CLEAR, and a lot of TSA agents.
It's definitely just to get people to fly with a valid ID without ambushing the enormous number of people who have been living under a rock and don't realize they need a real ID. Otherwise they'll have a dozen or so people freaking out at the airport every single day for years.
Citizens Council for Health Freedom has a whole page about Real ID. [0] Senator Rand Paul has a bill to repeal it. Crucially, you can still fly without a Real ID - there are 15 other forms of acceptable ID.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.cchfreedom.org/national-id/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cchfreedom.org/national-id/</a>
TSA has been an elaborate ruse to create a recurring revenue service program called “clear” and tsa-pre. Of course they are also able to monetize the ruse itself.
You have the right to try and fly without an ID. The airlines also have the right to tell you to buzz off and get lost and the airport operator has the right to decide they don’t want you in the building and trespass you if you don’t scram.
You have an absolute "right to travel" (see the 14th amendment and other cases as recently as 1999), but you're also <i>absolutely</i> correct that "common carriers" can can refuse commercial service and you can be criminally trespassed from an airport, BUT TSA <i>can not</i> charge you a fee to attempt to fly.
Unlike other service providers, a common carrier <i>by definition</i> cannot refuse service to anyone willing to pay the fare in the tariff. Common carrier laws are some of the oldest consumer protection laws, enacted to protect travelers and shippers of goods against predatory and discriminatory pricing. Federal law recognizes the "public right of transit" by air, and requires boith airlines and Federal agencies to respect it.
But the airlines don't really give a crap, southwest started basically as an air bus, show up buy a ticket get on. No reservation, no id, nothing.<p>The airlines don't even check ID most of the time with these electronic boarding passes if your not checking luggage.
This isn’t like the 1st amendment.<p>Public carriers like airlines are not allowed to refuse service for the reason of refusing to show ID.<p>They can refuse for other reasons, but the are not “in the loop” when passengers currently get screened by the TSA, which is where RealID is “required”.
The airlines are not in charge of airport security. TSA, a government agency, handles that.
$45 for KBA is crazy. They call somewhere and ask you what addresses you recognize, companies you may have loans with etc. The old stuff.
I once told TSA this:
"I lost my Driver's License, and the state won't issue another for a month maybe. I understand there's an extra screening pat-down."<p>Before entering the porno scanners I put everything in my pockets on the scanner belt, and they didn't bother to pat me down. YMMV.
bankroll for president's private militia aka ice
This article seems oddly hung up on the legality of providing ID.<p>That’s all well and fine, but airlines have the discretion to refuse to board passengers, including for potential security risks.<p>So yeah, there are no laws saying you <i>have to provide ID</i>, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get to board the plane.
My procrastination is starting to turn into a political stance. This isn't the first time it's happened.
This is a really stupid situation. We shouldn't be obstructed from flying without ID as long as we pass the regular security checks, and those security checks shouldn't be unreasonable.<p>What can we do to get there? Is anybody organizing?<p>I want to open my wallet. Where can I donate?
In the USA it is possible to fly without an ID?
Yes, because the federal government can't assume that everyone has an ID, since they don't issue a universal ID. Any attempt to fix the fact that Americans don't have universal federal identification has met stiff resistance from a variety of angles, from privacy proponents to religious nuts who think universal identification is the mark of the beast.<p>It ties into why we still have to register for the draft (despite not having a draft since the 70s, and being no closer to instituting one than any other western country), and why our best form of universal identification (the Social Security card) is a scrap of cardstock with the words "not to be used for identification" written on it.<p>So, there's no universal ID, it's illegal to mandate people have ID, and freedom of movement within the United States has been routinely upheld as a core freedom. Thus, no ID required for domestic flights.
>Yes, because the federal government can't assume that everyone has an ID<p>But this does not have to be a federal ID. Could be just any ID.
It feels to me like the more into the future we get the more backwards these policies seem. Bring on the national ID, I say.
> Yes, because the federal government can't assume that everyone has an ID, since they don't issue a universal ID.<p>I'm from a 3rd world country and we have a national id, the usa is weird in the strangest things.
It's a deep-seated cultural paranoia that the federal government is out to get us. Initially, the US tried to be a confederation like the EU or Canada, but it turned out that we needed slightly more federal power than that to stay as a unified country. But the tension between "loose coalition of independent states" and "unified government that grants some powers to the states" is a pretty fundamental theme throughout US politics.
Among the man weird corners of US national ID politics, is the set of Americans who think a national ID is an unforgivable invasion of liberty but that an ID should be required to vote.
It is, but it’s difficult. I am down visiting New Zealand and 3 times I have flown domestically here and there no ID check. I buy a ticket online, check in online, and scan a barcode at the gate. Is New Zealand an exception, or do a lot of countries not require an ID for domestic flights, and the US is the exception?
A lot of people are making general statements, and I'm not sure how valid they are. For example, in my neck of the woods (Canada), I have flown without ID and without passing through security. I would be surprised if the same wasn't true in the US. What I left out: the flights weren't through an international airport and didn't connect to an international airport. Same airport, different flight (one that did connect to an international airport) and passing through security was a requirement. In that case, as well as domestic flights through international airports, ID checks were the domain of the airline.
We do have smaller regional airports in the US, but those smaller airports do still have TSA-staffed security if they serve commercial flights. The TSA considered eliminating security at those smaller domestic-only airports back in 2018, but after it hit the media, they reversed course on it.<p>The only exception would be airports solely for things other than commercial flights, like hobbyist pilots/flight schools where people are flying their own planes, or airports serving only government/medical/whatever "essential" traffic. Airports that don't have TSA-staffed security are still under TSA jurisdiction, and have to pass regular inspections by TSA to ensure their own security's at a sufficient level.
There are whole catagories of people without "ID" as such, like say underage children or people unable to drive. ID's in the USA have traditionally been either drivers licenses or passports. Many states have added non-drivers license IDs for handicapped, elderly, etc, but AFAIK they aren't particularly popular since those catagories of people don't tend to need them until they suddenly find themselves in a situation needing one.
EU technically doesn’t require government-issued ID to fly either. They often don’t check for ID at all, and in cases where they do, legally any card with your name and photo on it would work for this „identification“. EU generally doesn’t legally require you to carry ID - but they can and will hassle you more and more if you don’t.
I had a friend who flew out of SFO without an ID for many years without much issue. It was much more difficult for them to get back.
Yes.
If you lost your ID while traveling, what would another option be?
> As described by Clinton’s counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, this idea was conceived overnight as a way to show that the government was “doing something” in response to a plane crash that turned out to have been caused by a faulty fuel tank, not terrorism.<p>To be honest the worry about terrorists hijacking planes under Clinton proved to be quite prescient only a few years later.
I want to talk about Chevron deference. Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.<p>For those that don't know, Chevron deference was a legal doctrine established by the Supreme Court in the US in the 1980s that basically said that there is ambiguity in law, the courts need to defer to the agencies responsible for enforcing that law. Different agencies handled this differently. In some cases, they established their own courts. These aren't ARticle 3 courts in the Constitutional sense like Federal courts are but because of Chevron deference they had a lot of power.<p>There was a lot of good reason for this. Government is complex and Congress simply does not have the bandwidth to pass a law every time the EPA wants to, say, change the levels of allowed toxins in drinking water. Multiple that by the thousands of functions done by all these agencies. It simply doesn't work.<p>So for 40 years Congress under administrations of both parties continued to write law with Chevron deference in mind. Laws were passed where the EPA, for example, would be given a mandate to make the air or water "clean" or "safe" and that agency would then come up with standards for what that meant and enforce it.<p>Politically however, overturning Chevron has been a goal of the conservative movement for decades because, basically, it reduces profits. Companies want to be able to pollute into the rivers and the air without consequence. They don't like that some agency has the power to enforce things like this. The thinking went that if they overturned Chevron deference then it would give the power to any Federal court to issue a nationwide injunction against whatever agency action or rule they don't like. They standard for being to do that under Chevron was extremely high.<p>Defenders will argue that agencies are overstepping constitutional bounds and that vague statues aren't the answer. Congress must be clear. But they know that can't happen because of the complexity and that's the point. They don't want complexity. All those "legal" reasons are an excuse. Proftis are the reason.<p>Anyway, they succeeded and now agencies are governemend by what's called the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA") instead. Companies and the wealthy people who owned them celebrated this as a win but I don't think they understand what they've done.<p>You see, there are complex rules under the APA about the process by which an agency has to go through to make a rule or policy change and, from waht I can tell and what I've read online, most of them aren't doing it correctly or at all. They seem to operate under the belief that overturning Chevron means they can do whatever they want.<p>So the TSA is a government agency. If they want to add a fee like this well, you need to ask if that's a major rule change. If so, there are procedures for comment periods, review, etc. If these aren't strictly followed, you can simply go into court and say "the TSA didn't follwo procedure" and the courts can issue a nationwide injunction until the matter is resolved and if there was any technical violation of the APA policy change procedure, the entire thing can get thrown out.<p>So if anyone doesn't like what this administration is doing and wants to take legal action to block it, they should probably look to the APA and see if they can block it on technical grounds. I suspect this applies way more than people think and APA-based injunctions will only increase.
It's an interesting argument. Is there a highly-credible, authoritative source? Maybe someone like the EFF or ACLU? There are lots of ideas online about the law, of varying credibility, and I'd hesitate to risk a lawsuit over Internet advice.
The author has been qualified as an expert witness in several venues.
While I concur with your hesitation, my first reaction on hearing about the fee was "Didn't they say you couldn't fly without a realid? Why am I able to fly without one then?" The idea that they may not be able to bar you without one jives with how this is playing out. Another commenter in this post also mentioned flying without id, which I also thought wasn't possible.
"illegal"<p>At what point has that stopped literally anything this government has done?
Previously:<p><i>US air travelers without REAL IDs will be charged a $45 fee</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115731">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115731</a><p><i>TSA's New $45 Fee at U.S. Airports Unfairly Punishes Families in the Fine Print</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46138101">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46138101</a>
Not sure why the title was editorialized, but this is literally just one person's opinion. The title makes it sound like the legal community universally agrees, which is not true.
It’s also bad legal commentary . The TSA seems to have broad legal authority. The more vague a law is, the more authority the executive branch has , not less (assuming it’s constitutional, and our constitution is also deliberately limited)<p>There are two avenues for recourse: lobbying your congressman or suing the TSA . I’m guessing the ACLU / EFF and other groups haven’t yet sued because the TSA’s legal authority is broad.
I've flown without ID twice. Once because I lost my ID, once to prove to a friend that it could be done. This fee will fail for the same reason that flying without ID works at all - the law is quite clear on it.
Did you have to show the airline your ID when checking in?<p>As far as I can tell, the TSA is one thing, while airline policy is another.<p>The law says it’s not required for security, but airlines might be justified in carrying out their own policies? Honestly curious.
My brother did this once and if you print your boarding pass before arriving you don't have to check in (obviously this is for a domestic flight with no checked bags). The TSA will question you and swab everything in your suitcase though.
> <i>Did you have to show the airline your ID when checking in?</i><p>No.<p>Most airlines only start asking for ID if you want to check a bag. But not for check-in.
Airlines do not care. American was once, United another time. I had a boarding pass and they were happy with that
So when TSA asked for your ID, what did you do and what did they then do?
You just tell them "Don't have one". Then they (most likely a second TSA agent so you don't hold up the line) run a quick interview to try and establish who the heck you are, and if you can be trusted to be let onto a plane.
Do not have one. Asked for my name, if i had any proof of it (i had a few credit cards in my name) lots of other questions. very thorough pat down. disassembled by bag slowly. took 40 min.
of course none of this nonsense applies to those than can afford private travel
I hadn't heard about this, but this is blatantly against the explicit and implied "right to travel" that's baked into the 14th amendment and had over a 156 years of precedence since Paul vs. Virginia.
45 dollars? Form 415? Maybe I'm jumping at shadows but this smells like a Trump dogwhistle.
Where does the fee money go then? Into 45’s pocket?
I think I must be confused, but after reading many of the replies, I can't figure this out. Is the standard American perspective that one shouldn't have to show any form of identification to go through security, get on a plane, and travel anywhere within the United States? How does anyone associate your ticket to your identity?
My American perspective is unless I'm participating in an activity that definitely requires carrying and presenting ID, I don't need to.<p>Driving is such an activity. Transiting national borders as well. Maybe opening a bank account, but really it should be up to the bank if they want to see my ID.<p>If I'm travelling but not operating the vehicle, why should I need to carry and present ID? I'm pragmatic, and it's convenient to carry and present my papers to the nice officers, but I shouldn't need to.<p>Demanding ID when unnecessary is a hallmark of a police state.
Can't speak for the "standard American perspective," but no, you should not have to show identification. Why should someone need to be tracked to travel? Why does a ticket need to be associated to identity?
We do have to show ID. But the federal government said it's not enough to use a normal state driver's license or passport. You need a special "Real ID" that's somehow allegedly better. Your old driver's license that you can pay for booze with, open a bank account with, and you know, drive with, isn't proof enough of who you are to ride on a plane.<p>Edit: I should note that I have one. But lots of people don't, because most people never replace their driver's license card.
> How does anyone associate your ticket to your identity?<p>Why does anyone in this picture need to associate my ticket with my identity?
Why would there be a need to associate my ticket to my identity?