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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.
#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.
Sorry MM, you’re mind does seem gone. All terminals at Newark, at least A,B, and C (which is the one I am talking of) had 3 levels, even for vehicles. The very bottom level was the parking garage and drive through, which, while shrunken in size by the 90′s was still accessible with the airport issued ID. Then up 1 floor to the Arrivals level, where the baggage claims were and the driver waiting area..where you would stand and wait for your passengers..holding up your sign as the came (wait for it..)..yes..down the escalators from the gate areas..which were up yet another story on the Departures level, which in the terminal under discussion held a small area in the front where the check-in and ticket counters were..and led directly to the 2 long runways, with people movers..to the gates..and which also contained the shops and food. Yes..this did turn out to be a bad design as security tightened as the only place to put up the security checkpoints was before all the shops..but as I say..for a long while at least…even then you could pass through them as long as the metal detector didn’t sound…which was always a chancy thing if you had a big set of keys in your pocket. I would often wait down by the gates there for incoming..especially if it was a known client and I would not likely miss them in the deplaning crush. That way I could have a bite to eat and still keep an eye on the gate…and..in the best case..a seat right where I could watch the plane pull up to the gate. Much easier than watching the board and hope it was updating correctly…and easily enough time to beat an unknown customer down to the waiting area to get my sign ready..^_^
#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?
Well, since somebody brought up Socialist Security, I thought I would just add to it some
History of Social Security
Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe it. Be sure and Show it to your kids. They need a little history lesson on what’s what. And it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican . . . facts are Facts!!!
Our Social Security
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program.
He promised:
1.) That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary,
2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program,
3.) That the money the participants elected to put Into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,
4.) That the money the participants put into the Independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would Only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and,
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.
Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are Now receiving a Social Security check every month — And then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of The money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put Away’ — you may be interested in the following:
————————————————————-
Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the Independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically Controlled House and Senate.
——————————————————————–
Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax Deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
A: The Democratic Party.
———————————————————————–
Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US
——————————————————————-
Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving Annuity payments to immigrants?
AND MY FAVORITE:
A: That’s right!
Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.
Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!
#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.