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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

#491

Post by scott_w »

mft_ wrote: post #423
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…

> 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. I’d hazard that this may be true now , but this feeling was created by the same “security measures” we’re discussing. Anyway, such major population-wide measur…

> I’d hazard that this may be true now, but this feeling was created by the same “security measures” we’re discussing.

Slight tangent but I recall travelling within the Schengen Zone for the first time and just walking off the plane and straight into a taxi. When I explained what I did to someone she asked "but what about security? How do they know you've not got a bomb?" I don't think I had the words to explain that, if I did manage to sneak a bomb onto the plane into Madrid, I was probably not going to save it for the airport after I landed...

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

#492

Post by sokoloff »

mothballed wrote: post #146
crazygringo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...they don't let you fly. 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? 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.

Presumably the airport or airline has agreed to (or would agree if asked to) have TSA decide whether you are “free to go that way, towards the airplanes”.

You are already free to go that other way (towards the street), but not necessarily free to go the way you want.

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

#493

Post by noduerme »

defrost wrote: post #416
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…

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). They always had a pass here in Australia for many years until things tightened up. Not th…

okee yeah, and rules are rules, and there's a reason to think that. It would be nice if we lived in a world where rules could be bent in some cases for individuals if they actually posed no theeat, but we all have to deal with the lowest common denominator wanting to cause the most damage, so here we are.

I must say, one thing that this reminds me of is what happens if you board an El Al flight. They don't racially profile you, they just ask you some fairly innocuous questions and watch your responses. I assume they have some way of monitoring your blood pressure, heart rate, and pupil dilation at a distance... but this hasn't really changed since the 1980s, when those things had to be read or guessed in realtime by a trained human. They have a phenomenally safe record, for a country under constant terror attacks.

My takeaway from flying El Al is that there is a much better way to deal with security, that analyzes and addresses the potentially bad individual motives of anyone getting on a plane, and mostly lets everyone else pass. Which is to say that security in its best form should be almost transparent to people without malicious intentions. Having good intelligence coupled with treating each person as their own potential bomb threat is far superior to superficially treating everyone as a threat and having no real security, and far better than just creating security theater around certain people because they're of one race or ethnicity. But El Al's methods probably don't scale well to the size of US or European air travel, because you need highly trained people to stand there in the airport make those calls on the fly for every single passenger.

If I were to guess - I'd guess El Al would let a Sikh bring a blade if they looked him in the eye for 10 seconds and decided he was okay.

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

#494

Post by noduerme »

notamario wrote: post #428
noduerme wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 know I was trying to bring a knife onto a plane at a regional airport. There's no reason to think that Sikh…

A Sikh is far more likely to be carrying a little sword than the average population.

And far less likely to stab someone than the general population.

It's not a great analogy, but the same applies to registered concealed carry gun owners. They're not the people who shoot people.

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

#496

Post by noduerme »

chias wrote: post #435
caseysoftware wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that for a long time. My favorite part is when they say "Do you have any sore or sensitive areas?" I always say "my penis" and they say "uh.. well.. I'm not going to touch that" Me: "When you slide your hand up until you meet resistance? That resistance is my penis. You're going to touch my penis and it's a sensitive area."

oh my GOD I'm wheezing here :D I fly next week, I will have to decide whether having this conversation is worth not trying to get out of the opt-out procedure. The difficulty will be keeping a straight face.

Hate to say it, but I finally just sold my soul and got Global Entry, and no one's even tried to touch my balls since hah

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

#497

Post by arcticbull »

paxys wrote: post #23

It's hilarious how transparent a money grab this entire thing is. "You need to show a Real ID for security, otherwise how do we know you won't hijack the plane?" "Well I don't have a Real ID." "Ok then, give us $45 and you can go through." So it was never about security at all then, was it? And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and la…

> "Ok then, give us $45 and you can go through."

It's not pay $45 to go though, it's pay $45 for someone to take you around back and look you up based on secondary identification, and if they can't positively identify you based on that you still can't go through.

This is a system that has been in place for a long, long time. You could always say you don't have ID and they'll look you up. The change is they're now charging for it.

> And don't get me started with all the paid express security lanes. Because of course only poor people can weaponize shoes and laptops.

This is also not accurate. If you're talking about Clear, you just skip to the front of the normal line. If you're talking about Pre, those people are individually background-checked before hand, and it costs $19/yr, so it's not exactly a tophat and monocle only program. Especially since that's half the price of a one-way taxi ride to the airport, let alone the ticket. The airport self-selects for the fairly well off to begin with.

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

#498

Post by noduerme »

caseysoftware wrote: post #350
noduerme wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did that for a long time. My favorite part is when they say "Do you have any sore or sensitive areas?" I always say "my penis" and they say "uh.. well.. I'm not going to touch that" Me: "When you slide your hand up until you meet resistance? That resistance is my penis. You're going to touch my penis and it's a sensitive area."

hahah. I never really comprehended what "I'm going to slide my hand up until I meet resistance" meant. I guess it depends which way the camel's nose is facing, what kinda resistance they're gonna get.

I did meet a lot of older TSA agents who told me they tried to stand as far away from the scanners as possible all day, and they completely understood my position on not going through em. I'm from LA, and I remember when this happened [0] so my general view on letting anyone shoot any kind of imaging radiation through me is pretty dim, but more so if they can't count to ten or tie their own shoelaces.

[0] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-13-me-cedar...

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

#499

Post by kelnos »

scott_w wrote: post #491
mft_ wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I’d hazard that this may be true now , but this feeling was created by the same “security measures” we’re discussing. Anyway, such major population-wide measur…

> I’d hazard that this may be true now, but this feeling was created by the same “security measures” we’re discussing. Slight tangent but I recall travelling within the Schengen Zone for the first time and just walking off the plane and straight into a taxi. When I explained what I did to someone she asked "but what about security? How do they know you've not got a bomb?" I don't think I had the words to explain that…

Er, I don't get it. I do the same thing at every airport in the US: walk off the plane and straight into a taxi.
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