Your papers please: TSA bans ID-less flight
In a major change of policy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced that passengers refusing to show ID will no longer be able to fly. The policy change, announced on Thursday afternoon, will go into force on June 21, and will only affect passengers who refuse to produce ID. Passengers who claim to have lost or forgotten their proof of identity will still be able to fly.
As long as TSA has existed, passengers have been able to fly without showing ID to government agents. Doing so would result in a secondary search (a pat down and hand search of your carry-on bag), but passengers were still permitted to board their flights. In some cases, taking advantage of this right to refuse ID came with fringe benefits--being bumped to the front of the checkpoint queue.
For a few years after September 11, 2001, TSA's policies when it came to flying without ID were somewhat fuzzy. The agency, like many other parts of the Bush Administration, has hidden behind the shroud of classification--in TSA's case, labeling everything Sensitive Security Information.
Seeking to clarify the rules, activist John Gilmore took the U.S. government to court in 2004. Gilmore chose to take a particularly hard line, by refusing to show ID to TSA and also by refusing to undergo the more thorough "secondary screening" search. He eventually lost his case before the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
While the judges were not willing to let Gilmore avoid the secondary screening search, they did at least recognize the right to travel without showing ID--providing that passengers are willing to be subject to a pat down and a bit of probing:"The identification policy requires that airline passengers either present identification or be subjected to a more extensive search. The more extensive search is similar to searches that we have determined were reasonable and consistent with a full recognition of appellants constitutional right to travel."
Since then, in at least two letters to citizens, TSA has re-affirmed this right. In March 2008, a TSA official wrote that:
"If a traveler is unwilling or unable to produce a valid form of ID, the traveler is required to undergo additional screening at the checkpoint to gain access to the secured area of the airport."
A change in policy
In a press release issued on Thursday with little fanfare, TSA announced a major change in its rules.
"Beginning Saturday, June 21, 2008 passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint will be denied access to the secure area of airports. This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide any identification or assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity."
This new procedure will not affect passengers that may have misplaced, lost or otherwise do not have ID but are cooperative with officers. Cooperative passengers without ID may be subjected to additional screening protocols, including enhanced physical screening, enhanced carry-on and/or checked baggage screening, interviews with behavior detection or law enforcement officers and other measures."
To clarify: Passengers who refuse to show ID, citing a constitutional right to fly without ID will be refused passage beyond the checkpoints. Passengers who say they have left their ID at home, will be searched, and then permitted to board their flights.
While TSA's announcement stated that the goal of the change was to "increase safety," this blogger disagrees. The change of rules seems to be a pretty obvious case of security theater. Real terrorists do not refuse to show ID. They claim to have lost their ID, or they use a fake.
TSA's new rules only protect us from a non-existent breed of terrorists who are unable to lie.
Fixing flaws vs. security theater
In a research paper published in 2007, I outlined a number of glaring loopholes allowing the total circumvention of the much criticized no-fly lists. The two main flaws were that passengers can modify boarding passes, and that they can refuse to show ID.
In December 2007, TSA began testing out a secure, authenticated, tamper-proof boarding pass scheme. It has since been rolled out to a number of major airports around the country.
With hundreds of millions of dollars having already been spent on the various no-fly lists, it is at least interesting to see that someone at TSA is now spending time on fixing the loopholes in the system. The most glaring of this has long been the fact that passengers can refuse to show (or claim to have forgotten) their ID. Simply put, without being able to know who is walking through a checkpoint, there is no way to know that the "bad guys" have been caught by the no-fly list.
TSA's new rule, while perhaps motivated by a desire to beef up security, is significantly flawed. Terrorists will lie, and claim to have lost their ID--while law-abiding citizens wishing to assert their rights will be hassled, and refused flight.
Of course, all of this is premised on the idea that the no-fly list is actually a useful safety tool--something that I, and a number of other prominent security experts, strongly disagree with. Simply put, terrorists do not pre-register their intent.
As Bruce Schneier has noted before, the no-fly list is a collection of hundreds of thousands of people who are too dangerous to fly, but not guilty enough to be charged with a crime.
These are interesting times, indeed.
Thanks to Gary @ View from the Wing for spotting TSA's announcement.
Disclosure: I am supposed to be on a hiatus, but this topic was too important to leave alone. I am currently an intern at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. These opinions are my own, and do not reflect anyone that pays me.
Christopher Soghoian delves into the areas of security, privacy, technology policy and cyber-law. He is a student fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society , and is a PhD candidate at Indiana University's School of Informatics. His academic work and contact information can be found by visiting www.dubfire.net/chris/. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
I agree, in part, that this is sick. Next I'll need id to walk the streets!
I swear our government is brain-dead or using this just to hassle out-spoken, loyal citizens.
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"This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide any identification or assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity."
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That "or assist" part makes quite a bit of difference. "Passengers who refuse to show ID, citing the rights" still will be accommodated if they "assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity."
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This is similar to the Fourth Amendment case law on ID, which is also widely misunderstood by the lay public. You have every right not to carry ID, but you do not have the right to withhold your identity from law enforcement if they have a legitimate reason for knowing it (e.g., because you've been lawfully arrested).
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The TSA is merely clarifying that, "you have no right to fly anonymously," not that "you no longer have the right to invoke your right to fly without ID." They're two different things.
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If you have a problem with the former (what TSA is saying) as well as the latter (what you think TSA is saying), then more power to you. But your "To clarify:" paragraph is just flat-out incorrect.
Frankly, when you have been hassled by the police just for walking through a public park and playing with the children there (as I have by the police) you might realize that most of these things are NOT done to protect us, but so that some people can lord their power over us.
So, this "change" only "applies" to "people" who "assert" their Constitutional rights and refuse to lie about it. I know how much safer I feel understanding that. I agree with another commenter that hitler is smiling in hell right now. Papers please.
...Welcome to Soviet America comrade, enjoy your stay.
The TSA being that they are federal police should not be allowed to search anyone, for any thing, at any time, without a court issued search warrant. If we want to search passengers for airlines then let Delta and TWA do it as part of your ticket agreement. If they do it then it is 100% constitutional.
When are the American people going to get off their ass and stop this? How bad will it get before people stand up?
They are STUPID that way, and I seriously feel like slapping them silly every time they say that, but that is the pretty much consensus view today.
If authentication was this bad on any computer network, it would be shut down and the administrators fired.
We need to realize that NONE OF THESE THINGS are a deterrent to terrorists, not even capital murder trials with the possibility of death.
The only thing that will get rid of terrorists is when we get rid of religion, stop allowing people to think that they have the right to dictate to other people what they do and when they do it, and start realizing that INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS triumph over all.
It's worse than that, the TSA has been tested by having people with good intentions try to slip things past security and they haven't even been catching THAT! You hit the nail on the head, this is nothing more than political theater so that repukes can claim to have made us safer, when in fact we're in more danger than at any other point in our rather short history. It's all nothing more than bushit.
In general, I have no problem with the security screening process. But when you're forced to deal with egotistical, insecure and generally miserable mother-effers, who believe that they have limitless power, it makes for an experience that exceeds annoying - especially when it doesn't work.
This whole "Freedom 2.0" thing is really not so much. Thanks, King W!
There's something bizarre about this whole issue. Hypothetical - suppose John Doe purchases an e-ticket using his own or stolen ID, then gives the ticket to Bob Doe who claims to TSA that he forgot his ID. TSA may not require photo ID that he (Bob) is the person noted on the e-ticket but will "require additional screening". Would they permit Bob's check-in of luggage without showing photo ID?
Hopefully, the "additional screening" would somehow require absolute proof that the bearer of the e-ticket is the person named on the e-ticket.
Perhaps it is a moot point given that we are nearing the end of consumer passenger class airplane tickets.
We are building our own "electronic bird cage", including the US DOT's ITS or Intelligent Transportation Structure.
The E-ZPass transponder (NY/NJ/PA) was chosen (little known fact) because it has R/W memory, not just read-only. And your transponder means that your car is now a "probe."
E-ZPass Transponder
What is the re-writeable memory good for? For having the driver identify themselves to the transponder. That will probably involve a swipe of your license to accomplish. This will first be rolled out in commercial vehicles.
Speaking of which, Homeland Security has begun rolling out a shutdown gizmo for buses in case they go terrorist.
RemoteShutdown
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Natural State Research
There are millions of dead Jews who would disagree.
Stop being a jerk. Our airport security is still far less secure than we'd like, but YOUR theatrics are just a distraction from those doing their job, however unempowered or insecure the end result is, you only make it worse.
You have our full support!!!
1) I can now print my boarding pass online (and modify it as I please)
2) I can say I "lost" my ID so I don't have to show it...
Wow, given #1 and #2, how the hell do you know who's on the plane? Worse, how do you know ANYTHING about them? Doesn't this render "no-fly" lists completely obsolete?
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by Sol999
June 10, 2008 10:37 PM PDT
- Congratulations Amerika, you are one step closer to totalitarianism! Tonight Hitler is smiling with pride in hell.
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