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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

#541

Post by Ar-Curunir »

mlrtime wrote: post #530
sargun wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When all you see is color, everything different is racism. I'm the whitest white person you'll find, white bread and turkey sandwich. I get screened all the time. Most of the time the agents are not white, WTF would I blame the color of their skin?

Are you seriously pretending that state-sponsored racism is not a thing? In today’s environment?

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

#542

Post by mustyoshi »

caseysoftware wrote: post #160
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…

> 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…

It's hard to put into words, but you're eroding the social contract through your actions. People with conditions get accused of faking it all the time, and it sounds like you're actually faking it.

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

#543

Post by graemep »

kelnos wrote: post #499
scott_w wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think the point is that some people expect security even where it would be pointless.

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

#544

Post by sigmoid10 »

mustyoshi wrote: post #542
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…

It's hard to put into words, but you're eroding the social contract through your actions. People with conditions get accused of faking it all the time, and it sounds like you're actually faking it.

If he was doing that to get faster treatment at a hospital or even just a restaurant or something then I'd agree. But by doing it to get faster treatment at the TSA check he's literally doing everyone else a favour.

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

#545

Post by 542354234235 »

noduerme wrote: post #332
defrost wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In proper English usage it would only be a bigoted (obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group) check if it was unreasonable to suspect a Sikh of carrying a Kirpan. The Rehat Maryada would suggest that is in no way whatsoever an unreasonable suspicion. Sure, yo…

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…

Interesting that none of these comments seem to be questioning why we can’t just carry a small pocketknife on the plane. We used to be able to before 9/11. The 9/11 hijackings only worked because the policy was comply, land, and let the negotiators do their work. Suicide attacks using commercial airlines just wasn’t a thing. We now have armored locking cockpit doors and no airplane would give up control to hijackers anymore. United Flight 93 was already taken over and heard about the World Trade Center and they revolted.

Now, knives could only be used to commit a crime i.e. assaulting another passenger or crew. Banning liquids does more to prevent terrorists than banning knives. I can see banning them for the same reason concerts ban them, that it is a lot of people in a small space, but that is very different than “national security” or “preventing terrorism”.

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

#547

Post by ralferoo »

K0balt wrote: post #517
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…

Welcome to the club. I inadvertently traveled with not one, but two large box cutters in my carryon satchel for at least 20 flights before I discovered them while searching for some swag. I put them in there for a booth setup in Vegas years prior. Sent a completely calm, even sympathetic report to the powers that be, got put on the DNF list for my troubles. Still screened and detained 100 percent of the time, sometim…

> Sent a completely calm, even sympathetic report to the powers that be, got put on the DNF list for my troubles.

What were you hoping to achieve by sending that report?

Most people would have just thought "wow, lucky I wasn't caught with that", taken it out of the bag so it didn't happen again and carried on with their lives.

Deviating from that normal response makes it look like you're just trying to cause trouble.

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

#548

Post by Forgeties79 »

Fhch6HQ wrote: post #242
ehasbrouck wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of the imposition of start of this new fee/fine, about 200,000 people a day fly without ID or without REAL-ID: https://papersplease.org/wp/2025/05/28/200000-people-a-day-f... - At $45 a pop, that would bring in >$3B a year. "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."

That's a really disappointing source. The headline is '200,000 people a day fly without REAL-ID', which starts out quite interesting. It then goes on to explain that the TSA has reported 93% of traveler's complied with REAL ID, citing a TSA blog from a week prior which in fact states the same. They then take this and couple it with a single day, which they state was the busiest travel day of the Memorial Day weekend,…

This is such an odd point that some of you are arguing. You’re nitpicking numbers (some of you incorrectly) and sidestepping the main issue entirely. None of you are providing sources, you’re just handwaving away saying “this will barely impact anybody” basically. It’s such an odd argument and I don’t get the point.

The point is that lots of people will pay this fee and it will equal a large amount of money and it does nothing of value. It’s just a fee for the fee’s sake. It serves no practical purpose, it’s just punitive.

What is the actual legitimate purpose of this fee that millions will likely pay? Almost half the country flies annually and multiple states don’t require a RealID in the first place. So we’re talking millions of people, some of which will pay it multiple times, per year until full compliance. This is built to net a consequential amount of money and it doesn’t seem like it’s for any purpose other than to generate revenue at people’s expense.

It does not make flying safer. It doesn’t even pretend to make flying safer. It doesn’t cover some cost. You can fly without it.

It’s an arbitrary tax that will mostly be paid by people who can’t or won’t take the time to go to the DMV to get an ID that is not even required to replace the perfectly good one they already have. At the end of the day this is why nobody has gotten it! They keep saying you need to get it (years now) but you don’t actually need to. If it’s that important then they should say “you cannot get on an airplane without one.” But it isn’t, so they don’t, and now that’s just a revenue opportunity.

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

#549

Post by 542354234235 »

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.

You are free to leave. You aren't free to go wherever you want. You aren't free to go into the employee areas, or out onto the runway. If you don't clear security, you aren't allowed in the secure portion of the airport. Not allowing entry into an area is not "detaining you from moving forward".

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

#550

Post by ralferoo »

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…

The issue isn't really whether a Sikh might be carrying a knife (as Sikhs generally advocate non-violence and pacifism), but if an exemption is afforded to give Sikhs the right to carry weapons on a plane, whether a terrorist might then impersonate being a Sikh in order to get a weapon onboard.
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