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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

#691

Post by dudeinhawaii »

expedition32 wrote: post #555
pjc50 wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with allowing "feels unsafe" to drive policy is that you get this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866201 ; a lot of Americans (and other nationalities) get that "feels unsafe" feeling when they see a visible minority. Or a Muslim. Or someone who isn't a Muslim but (like a Sikh!) is from the same hemisphere as the Middle East. You get one set of people's rights compromised to salve the feelings of…

[flagged]

> Nah I disagree. A charter plane with 200 Dutch tourists is lower risk than a flight coming out of Bolivia.

What a weird and random thing to say. There's literally no data that can support for or against and neither have a history of terrorism.

Ironically KLM ('dutch') has had more terrorism per flight than any Bolivian airline. Both minimal (Bolivia 1954, KLM 1973,1994). There's literally no other piece of data between these countries that I could find to support this "lower risk".

Further, the travel advisory for Denmark and Netherlands cite terror risk while Bolivia cites civil unrest.

While being woke is not helpful, neither is 'winging it' based on 'what feels white, ahem, right'. At least do a Google search.

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

#692

Post by poulsbohemian »

intermerda wrote: post #325
rayiner wrote: post #125

Saying that there is “no legal requirement to show an ID” is truthy but misleading. Federal law gives the TSA authority over “screening” passengers: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/44901 (“The Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration shall provide for the screening of all passengers and property, including United States mail, cargo, carry-on and checked baggage, and other articles, that…

You seem to be under the impression that the word "screening" means TSA can do whatever it wants. When in fact, if you click on the link under the word "Screening" in the own link you posted, there is a definition provided. > (4) Screening defined .— In this subsection the term “screening” means a physical examination or non-intrusive methods of assessing whether cargo poses a threat to transportation security. You s…

>You seem to be under the impression that the word "screening" means TSA can do whatever it wants.

I assure you TSA thinks it can do whatever it wants. I say this as a white male and have certainly heard even worse stories that my own of egregious violations from people with other demographics.

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

#693

Post by keeda »

alephnerd wrote: post #595
lazide wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airport security in India is particularly infuriating on this point. Everything gets scanned and fed through over and over again, and everyone gets wanded and patted down over and over again, with maximum ‘fuck you’ to any passenger that dares to question the sanity of restarting your entire screening - because you left your belt on. Meanwhile, I haven’t even had a western airports metal detector even fire on the sam…

Most western countries also haven't had multiple attempted [0][1][2] and committed [3][4] mass casualty terror attacks nor a direct conventional conflict that for all intents and purposes was a war [5] in the past 2 years. And airport security in Israel makes Indian airport security feel like a breeze and I found Turkish airport security to be similar to India's (I remember landing in IST a couple years ago post-COVI…

> And airport security in Israel makes Indian airport security feel like a breeze

Not just in Israel, but even at other airports for flights to Israel! I was surprised to find that flights to Israel from JFK and EWR actually have a secondary security screening at the gate. In fact, the entire waiting area is walled off with only 1 or 2 controlled entries and exits. If you have to leave the area to go to the bathroom, well, you're just going to get screened again when you come back.

And they are very thorough. They WILL rummage through your carry on and purse and shoes.

(I wasn't even traveling to Israel, I was at an adjacent gate but got in the wrong line by mistake, haha!)

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

#694

Post by danielschonfeld »

mlsu wrote: post #689
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…

> If you start imposing laws or other practices every time a group of people feel “uncomfortable”, the world will quickly grind to a halt. I mean, yes, quite an apt description of our reality. This has basically been the modus operandi of the whole of American society for the last 3 decades. Can't have your kids riding bikes in the neighborhood. Can't build something on your own property yourself without 3 rounds of…

This is it. It’s amazing how accepting people of this reality and how resigned they are about it.

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

#695

Post by keeda »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #533
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…

> Even Bruce Schneier, who coined the term "security theater" has moderated his stance to acknowledge that it can satisfy a real psychological need, even if it's irrational. What about the real psychological need of not wanting to be surveilled that also quite a lot of people have?

Personally I agree with that sentiment. But unfortunately, as the success of Facebook and Google have shown, most people really don't care about their privacy.

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

#696

Post by edm0nd »

gradus_ad wrote: post #560
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…

So... You're lying about having a health condition in a loud and obnoxious way? Not sure what the point is. Just because you can get around TSA checkpoints doesn't mean it's not "about" security. There's only so much that can be done when we have to balance safety and convenience.

1) its okay to the lie to the TSA and troll them. the TSA is just low skilled jobs program.

2) those scanning machines have leaked their images before to the public so its okay not to want to go through them and have your.png on there forever.

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

#697

Post by calmbonsai »

ehasbrouck wrote: post #133
calmbonsai wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have an absolute "right to travel" (see the 14th amendment and other cases as recently as 1999), but you're also absolutely correct that "common carriers" can can refuse commercial service and you can be criminally trespassed from an airport, BUT TSA can not charge you a fee to attempt to fly.

Unlike other service providers, a common carrier by definition cannot refuse service to anyone willing to pay the fare in the tariff. Common carrier laws are some of the oldest consumer protection laws, enacted to protect travelers and shippers of goods against predatory and discriminatory pricing. Federal law recognizes the "public right of transit" by air, and requires boith airlines and Federal agencies to respect…

This is only true for the "ticket purchase" not for the service itself.

Outside of ERs in exigent circumstances, any commercial enterprise in the U.S. retains the right to "refuse service" though the nuances of enumerated reasons backed by jurisprudence differ by industry and locale.

An airline can not refuse the "service purchase" unless the customer has been "banned" (technically a trespass statute), but they can refuse to "execute service" for a whole host of reasons including unforeseeable "Acts of God", logistics, or simply if the customer is intoxicated.

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

#698

Post by crazygringo »

addaon wrote: post #175
crazygringo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misunderstanding. What's preventing me from finding someone on Facebook who looks kind of similar to me, finding out their address and phone number, and then claiming I'm them but forgot my ID? Or if I'm a serious criminal planning ahead, applying for a legitimate driver's license in that other person's name with easily-forgeable documentation that less strict DMV's accept when they aren't RealID? That's what…

How about we restrict airport and aircraft access based on individual's ability to do harm, rather than on the information in some trusted database? It sure seems like the major incidents in my lifetime would have been better prevented by keeping people with guns and bombs out than people with poor paperwork skills…

The most "major" incident in recent history was 9/11 which involved neither guns nor bombs. So I don't know what you're talking about.

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

#699

Post by crazygringo »

mothballed wrote: post #562
542354234235 wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

If the government is requiring the property owner to submit to TSA, that's a public act and not a private one, which means it is bound by the bill of rights and most importantly the 4th 5th and maybe even 6th amendment. The government cannot punish you for exercising your rights by refusing you to move forward into the private place you could otherwise lawfully go. If you can't go to the employee area, that's because…

What are you talking about?

The government can absolutely pass laws prohibiting you from entering a privately owned location. There is no constitutional right of access to private property.

And more specifically, the commerce clause of the constitution allows the government to regulate air travel, which means regulating airports. The fact that they're privately owned doesn't change anything. If a private airport owner allowed you to proceed through security, they'd be breaking the law.

There's no public access doctrine for airports the way there is for streets or parks.

You clear seem to wish it was otherwise. But it's easy to do the research to understand where the authority comes from and why it's entirely constitutional.

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

#700

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

jMyles wrote: post #676
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I haven't gotten a representative sample, but in 100% of the content I've seen from self-described "first amendment auditors", they're acting unpleasant and suspicious for absolutely no reason other than provoking a reaction. To me this seems like antisocial behavior that degrades rather than supports First Amendment protections. I consider myself a pretty strong First Amendment supporter, but if I routinely…

> I consider myself a pretty strong First Amendment supporter, but if I routinely found strange men filming me as I walked down the street, I would support basically any legal change required to make them stop. It strikes me that the first clause of this sentence and the last one are unambiguously contradictory.

I don't think so? The behavior of these auditors is not speech in any meaningful sense; they're not trying to communicate any message, they're just trying to make people around them uncomfortable. It's just hard to draw a clear line that would prohibit their behavior without chilling lawful speech.

Right now I don't think there are that many First Amendment auditors around, so there's not much point in passing new laws to deal with them. But if they became more common, it might be necessary to draw the line, as we did in the 90s with stalking.

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