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The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

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Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#481

Post by lazide »

user3939382 wrote: post #413
keeda wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The TSA was NEVER about security. It was designed as a jobs program and make it look like we were doing something for security. To a great extent, it is security, even if it's mostly security theater, in the sense that it is security theater that people want . 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…

Taxpayers haven’t agreed to fund theater they agreed to fund safer travel. The failed audits of TSA are totally unacceptable

The purpose of the system is what it does.

If enough people actually cared about the failed audits, we’d invest in making sure they didn’t fail.

As it is, it’s settled in this funky middle ground that seems to maximize cost/incompetence/hassle which is generally the picture of America overall.

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#482

Post by lazide »

jackjeff wrote: post #432
diblasio wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..."

Besides being racist this is kind of dumb. If you’re going to bring down the plane you’re defo not going to look like someone who gets randomly selected 100% of the time. Even the 9/11 terrorists knew this and shaved their beard instead of looking like the fundamentalists scumbags they were.

Just because it’s dumb doesn’t mean people won’t do it.

I mean TSA, but it also applies to other groups too.

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#483

Post by lazide »

tsimionescu wrote: post #417
noduerme wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

[flagged]

Congrats for being one of today’s 10,000! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Airlines_Flight_423].

Notably in India, there have been a few times where Sikhs have been at the head of violent revolts - and a few times where they have been targeted by violent purges/genocides.

They’re generally pretty chill, but they aren’t pacifists.

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#484

Post by mpeg »

sargun wrote: post #263
caseysoftware wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it was never about security at all then, was it? Never was. 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. Then I realized I could even skip that. 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 m…

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: > 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 disa…

I once found myself in the "random extra screening" waiting room in LHR before boarding an El Al flight to Tel Aviv, everyone else in the room was Muslim. Random indeed...

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#485

Post by sokoloff »

caseysoftware wrote: post #288
runako wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Since the TSA cannot force you to prove it - after all, they're not medical personnel to evaluate it and not willing to risk your injury - whether someone lies becomes irrelevant.

If they decide to follow up to make an example of you, they can easily record a video of you until you raise your arms over your head somewhere later in the airport or on the flight. You won’t have a good time proving your case.

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#486

Post by noduerme »

tsimionescu wrote: post #417
noduerme wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

[flagged]

I think you misunderstood me. That's exactly what I'm saying. And I'm saying that Sikhs with or without ceremonial blades are no more of a threat than Mormons wearing special underwear.

[edit] To be more specific: An individual with an extreme belief about anything is as dangerous as an extremist member of a group with extreme beliefs. So the smart thing is to look at the beliefs and extramicy of each person. If you find someone trying to board an aircraft who doesn't care if they make it to the end of their flight, that is a security problem.

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#487

Post by KptMarchewa »

tdeck wrote: post #437
0x457 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because many Americans are against national ID at all cost for some reason. The very same Americans think that immigrants need to have their "I'm legal" folder with them at all times.

What are the practical benefits we're supposed to get from the RealID system? All I've ever heard is "national security" which is the excuse for every harmful thing.

For example, all those stupid voter debates becomes moot.

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#488

Post by sokoloff »

pigggg wrote: post #400
seg_lol wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can walk someone to the gate, you just have to have a ticket.

Post 9/11 you could get a waiver from the ticket counter to escort someone thru security all the way to the gate. Dunno if that's a thing anymore, but I had them print out a paper and showed it at security several times in the mid 2000s.

A gate pass is a thing to pick up or drop off people who will be flying as unaccompanied minors. I don’t what other circumstances allow their issue, but when I did it a couple years ago, everyone seemed to know the process, so it’s not that rare.

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#489

Post by KptMarchewa »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #121
Izikiel43 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, because the federal government can't assume that everyone has an ID, since they don't issue a universal ID. 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…

It's out to get you whether you have a credit card sized piece of plastic or not. Dying on that hill just creates so much wasted time and money for everyone.

Re: The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal

#490

Post by sokoloff »

kmoser wrote: post #425
ryanscio wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: why? 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.

Then why do they routinely send kids through the (non-invasive) metal detectors, while adults get sent through the millimeter-wave scanners?

I think it’s a mistake to assume these policy decisions all have peer-reviewed science behind them.
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