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Americans who prefer to fly without showing ID will be turned away by airport security beginning June 21, unless they can convince screeners that their driver’s license or passport has been lost, according to a Transportation Security Administration policy change.
The TSA describes the identification rule change as the “latest in a series designed to facilitate travel for legitimate passengers while enhancing the agency’s risk-based focus — on people, not things.”
Under the current regulations, travelers who don’t wish to show identification can opt for extra-screening instead, under secret rules made public in a case brought by civil libertarian John Gilmore. Gilmore sought to overturn the requirement on constitutional grounds, but lost when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Americans have a right to travel, just not necessarily by plane.
The new policy is about authority and beginning of the end of privacy while traveling. It has nothing to do with security.
>>I wasn’t asked for ID at the boarding gate.
I’m not asked for ID at the boarding gate even today. At the check-in counter to get my boarding pass, yes. At the security checkpoint, yes. But I have never been asked for an ID at the boarding gate (maybe once or twice at the end of September ’01, but virtually never).
The checkin counter usually is the boarding gate. I’ve flown at Ohare, and I didn’t need a ticket to get to the gate. Your memory really is failing you.
>>The checkin counter usually is the boarding
>>gate. I’ve flown at Ohare, and I didn’t need
>>a ticket to get to the gate. Your memory
>>really is failing you.
Lyin’ Mike, have you ever been on an airplane?
The check-in counter is where you check your bags (if any), get your boarding pass, etc.
The boarding gate is on the other side of security, where you give up your boarding pass, walk down the jetway, and board the plane.
I think you’re the first person I’ve encountered since about 1970 who’s never actually been on an airplane!
No wonder you’re the way you are.
MikeN
Social Security reform wouldn’t be quite so necessary if starting around the Raygun regime they hadn’t started stealing from the SS fund to pay for Ronnie’s tax cuts for the rich, and even then, much like Dumbya now, even that was not enough to prevent the largest budget deficits up to that time..only to be surpassed by the current spaceman….
Yes..they had the complicity of a certain number of Democrats in their raiding of our money. Being a Democrat doesn’t mean you are smart or good or moral. It does though, at least mean you’re not a Republican..which means at least you have a shot at one or two of the aforementioned traits…^_^
MM…
Even at Newark, your memory serves you ill. The Continental terminal had an open system for a long time..and even well into the 90’s and likely right up to 01 you could get to the gates without ID or ticket after passing through metal detectors. This was because of the design of that terminal. All the shops and amenities were down by the gates, not in the main section. The other 2 terminals were harder to deal with by the 90’s..and usually required a ticket/boarding pass to get through security..although not an ID, except maybe employee ID. An ID may have been required to buy your ticket or pick up your pass..I don’t know. I was driving, not flying then. I know I was annoyed enough when they put up metal detectors at the Continental terminal in order to get to the shops and restaurants and I had to start remembering to leave my Swiss Army Knife in the car. You know how dangerous those are after all…
>>I don’t know. I was driving, not flying then.
That explains it, then. I used to go to the Continental terminal at Newark quite frequently in the late 80’s/ early 90’s to pick people up, and you could NOT get to the boarding/ deplaning gate without a ticket. You had to meet them in the “meeters and greeters” area where the limo drivers hung out, or at baggage claim.
Sorry..maybe you didn’t know you could just go upstairs and walk through the detectors and down to the gates…but that was the main area of the terminal, with McDonalds and Nathan’s and all the usual newsstands and shops. They did later move some vendor carts down to the waiting area as it became more of a pain to get through the detector lines. By that point though..even drivers had an airport issued ID badge, that allowed parking in the short term area closest to the terminal, and got you through the detector checkpoint in that terminal. For parking..both you and the vehicle needed ID, and your employer had to match with the vehicle owner. Don’t have any idea what it’s like now. I assume you park just outside of the 20 mile radius surrounding the airport and walk in…^_^
Mustard, yes there’s a check-in counter where you present your luggage, but based on your wrong memories, I thought you were confusing the boarding gate and where the agents are. For example, sometimes the agents will be several gates away, handling multiple flights at once.
I suppose it’s possible you are talking about internationalflights.
In the 80’s there was no “upstairs” in the Continental terminal. Just straight through the security checkpoint, where you had to show your boarding pass to gain entrance. And if you didn’t have a boarding pass, you didn’t get through.
Perhaps you were never aware that you could just show up at the boarding gate, and they would print your boarding pass for you. It’s true. I’ve done it many times, back when you could show up at the airport 10 minutes before departure time and still have a chance to squeeze thru.
Boy, you seem to have a foggy memory, or maybe you just have a funny face, and the security guys liked to harass you all the time.
#34 SS the ‘raiding’ didn’t change Social Security’s problems one bit, except for bringing the problem forward by a few decades. Even while raiding the fund, they kept the accounting intact. The trust fund goes into deficit in 2017, and is drained in 2042.
#5
As long as you are driving State to State you do not need papers.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t you needed a passport to fly anywhere in Europe since the advent of the aircraft? If you fly from one part of the UK to another, haven’t you always had to show your passport to board the aircraft?
#30, #33
You need to lower your meds. Before 9/11, in most airports (including LAX and SFO), you could walk all the way to the gate without a ticket. Yes, you had to go through X-ray, but no identification or ticket was required. I accompanied many friends and family members onto flights where I would wait with them at the gate right up to the time of boarding. My folks met me many times at the gate when I got off the plane. Prior to Southwest’s electronic check-in, I would simply walk up to the gate to check-in as I never checked bags. Only after 9/11 were you not able to get to the gate without having a ticket. I could list a litany of airports I have been to in the past dozen years or so and only one required identification to get past security prior to 9/11: Heathrow.
#34
Look at Vegas. Most of the shops are on the wrong side of security, so only non-ticketed passengers can really shop there. In LAX, the opposite is true. All the shops are on the gate side of security so non-ticketed passengers cannot shop.
#41
“Bringing the problem forward a few decades” doesn’t change anything? Once again your definitions do not fail to amuse.
“Yes your Honor, I did shoot him..but in my defense, he’d have been dead in a few decades anyway..so no harm no foul, eh?”
Seems to me our current government, with the judicial opinions that have come out over the past several decades or so, have a pretty good lock on being able to do almost anything it wants with very few limits. Either it’s protecting National Security, or it’s some future, unknown act of commerce that might be affected and thus requires the “regulating.”
I’d say we’re pretty much fucked.
W is really screwing things for McCain I think. I see stuff like this and it makes me want to put the other party in to see if they would do differently.
This is total burocratic BS by an agency that is despiratly trying to prove it adds value. 🙁
If they nationalize the highway patrol next they could keep you from traveling with out id. WTF? This is the start of something bad.
I can see it now…”Just one more rule and you’ll be safe” from who???
Ok, now that I think about it. I’ll show them mine if they show me theirs. And after every flight I can write to the TSA blog and tell them how the search went. 🙂
Turn about fair play?
#23, anonymous,
You are correct. As long as you fly to/from uncontrolled airports, don’t squawk 1200, you’re fairly, er, anonymous. Like I said, it’s a great way to travel.
I can fly into Love Field, DFW in a King Air or a Stearman and have total access to the entire tarmac. If I wore a catering company uniform, I’d have total access to the terminal as well.
The TSA stuff is just a large, irritating show and does absolutely nothing for security.
#48 Well then there’s hope, right?
Kinda like the Post Office handling the draft? 🙂
#44, The fund is still going bankrupt at the same time. Let’s try to put some numbers and you’ll see why it makes no difference. Let’s suppose the surplus was 2 billion starting in 1958, and going up by 2B per year. So for 2007, it is 100B for the year, and after that drops by 10B per year. So by 2017, the fund just breaks even for the year, and you have accumulated a 3 trillion dollar surplus, but after that you lose 10B in 2018, 20B in 2019, 30B in 2020, and so forth. This drains the fund in about 24 years,after which you are running a deficit of $250 billion each year and rising.
Now if you raid the fund, the surpluses are the same every year, but instead of going to a bank account, you spend the money. All this means is that starting in 2007, you have ten billion less to spend every year, and you have to adjust your budget accordingly. If you aren’t raiding, then you have to adjust your regular budget a little sooner. So without raiding, you put 100 Billion in the bank, and then borrow 100 billion for your other expenses, or maybe you cut back. In the other example, you spend the 100 billion directly. Either way your budget picture gets worse every year.
#50
Quite likely all true. I don’t doubt you at all. I’m not fond of the Dems either really. I would only refer to them as usually the lesser of 2 evils party.
Still..one quick question. Which political party never bothered to overturn any of those reversals of promise? Which political party didn’t bother to right the wrongs, just so they could continue to point out that they were wrong? Which one decided to give tax breaks to the rich rather than rescind taxes on SS income? Which one continued to spend and spend the SS money when it was moved into the general funds category, all while bemoaning that it was done? As always, plenty of blame to go around.
I will give a mea culpa for blaming Ronnie Raygun. Force of habit. As an older person, I think of him like you younger guys think of Bill. Responsible for most of the evil in the world..^_^ I know it’s wrong..and I am getting over him..thanks to the arrival of someone even worse…^_^.
Your answer is the Republicans.
I’ve always said that there wasn’t a politician in Washington with a hair on his ass that will kill a social program.
Anonymity died the day they started carding anyone who looked under the age of 100 for alcohol and randomly asking for ID for every credit card purchase.
Of all the complaints about flying on airlines, having an ID is the bottom of the stack.
I don’t know of ANY name-brand hotel that lets you get a room without an ID and it’s been like that for at least several years.
Crying about this makes me laugh my ass off, have you goons been living in a hole or something?
Fricking morons.