You know all those people at the airport who tell you that you’ve got to have ID to get on a flight? They’re wrong. “You don’t need identification to travel on an airplane,” Defense Tech pal Ryan Singel discovers.
“Who says? The TSA [Transportation Security Administration]. ‘Passengers are allowed to enter screening area without identification,’ TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told this humble reporter today.”
The TSA has told the [U.S.] Ninth Circuit [Court of Appeals] in two separate cases (John Gilmore & Daniel Kuualoha Aukai) that airport policy was to let people enter security areas without identification.
Gilmore’s Identity Project has been asking for volunteers to see if that was true… [if people really could get through airport security without ID.]
Results, currently mixed. Dog-ate-my homework excuse with contrition gets you less hassle than a flat-out refusal seems to be the pattern, according to folks at the I.D. Project.
So, if you want to fly without identification without telling any white lies, I recommend taking a hearty amount of fortitude and a copy of at least one of the rulings from the Ninth Circuit.
(Big ups: Bill)
In my experience, it’s not TSA asking for ID in the security lines, it’s private ‘security’ people. I’ve always assumed they were hired by either the airport or the airlines. Situation seemed identical in recent trips through PHL, ORF, SAN, HNL, and PVD.
“From personal experience I was allowed through TSA with no ID,” says RC…
Due to an emergency I ended up at the airport with an expired driver’s license(it was in the mail). They made me go back to the ticket window and stamped in big red letters “NO ID” on my ticket. With this ticket in hand I was allowed through the “special” line with the associated wanding and patdown.
On my return trip, still no “valid” ID, I went to the ticket window and had my ticket stamped “NO ID”. I went throught the “special” line once again no hassle.
Due to my looks I have ended up in the special line a majority of the time anyway so I may just use this in the future as a matter of course.
Soooo…what’s the deal with the “associated wanding and patdown?” What do they expect to find that the walk-through metal detector doesn’t? Isn’t this just a meaningless hassle intended to deter people from making an issue of the ID requirement? A personal humiliation that punishes you for being a libertarian smartass?
I wonder if they had enough wands and wandering hands to deal with the possibility of everyone refusing to show ID.
The TSA policy is that if you have either no or an expired ID you are still permitted to fly, however, you are automatically a target of special screening.
This has been the rule for at least the past year and presumably before that.
It seems reasonable enough in my opinion.
I’am gonna get flammed for this, but I think that wand-waving, pat-downs and other “hassles” are actually good. I worked as a supervisor for a military passenger/cargo air terminal from 2000 to 2003, and although a military terminal is far less likely to have anything go “boom”, we still took security seriously.
I think that by “changing up” search procedures, ID / NO-ID and other policies, it may keep bad guys off balance.
Besides, I still believe that out greatest threat to commerical aviation is via cargo (and US mail in cargo) with semtex or c-4.
The security checking peoples IDs at the airport are security officers that are not TSA hired, the airport hires these people to work with TSA. The IDs are not really needed but you will ALWAYS be screened more, with them going through your bags and wanding/patting you down. It will always be that way. It really isnt that bad and people shouldnt be giving hard times to these people, they are trying to keep everyone who goes on a plane safe so we dont have another 9/11. What they expect to find it something dangerous that isnt metal (thats why a metal detecter wont go off)! remember not all prohibited items are metal such as sheet explosives! thats the idea for that.
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