The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal
frommers.com384 points by donohoe 10 hours ago
384 points by donohoe 10 hours ago
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 laptops.
> 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 metal detector, swab my hands, and I'm done. I usually make it through before my bags.
Sometimes, a TSA moron asks "why not?" and I simply say "are you asking me to share my personal healthcare information out loud in front of a bunch of strangers? Are you a medical professional?" and they back down.
Other times, they've asked "can you raise them at least this high?" and kind of motion. I ask "are you asking me to potentially injure myself for your curiosity? are you going to pay for any injuries or pain I suffer?"
The TSA was NEVER about security. It was designed as a jobs program and make it look like we were doing something for security.
> 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 somebody felt uncomfortable boarding a plane because they saw the screening agent asleep at the desk. Pro-tip, trying to explain security theater to the concerned passenger is not the right solution at this point ;-)
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.
We may be more cynical and look upon such things with disdain, but most people want the illusion of safety, even if deep down they know it's just an illusion.
> 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 measures shouldn’t be about stopping people being “uncomfortable” - they should be about minimising risk, or not at all. If you start imposing laws or other practices every time a group of people feel “uncomfortable”, the world will quickly grind to a halt.
It is mostly security, but not to residents of the country. Those can enforce their rights. In my country, I can argue with airport security, and win. Foreigners can’t, so they follow whatever rules. A few times when landing in the US, security was extremely rude, I think just looking for an excuse (things like throwing your laptop a few feet away, while staring at you, etc). You take it bc you’re not home, and the cost of ruining your vacation is not worth it.
What I’m trying to say is that , while a lot of it is theater, TSA may be more effective security against foreigners but you as a resident don’t notice because you can opt out. Try going to the UK and telling them you can’t raise your arms while being a US citizen.
I tried to opt out in the UK last time I was there a few years ago. The agent looked at me, confused, and said "so... you don't want to get on the plane?". She told me the the UK didn't allow opt-outs.
This was the only time I've gone through the machine since they were introduced.
Taxpayers haven’t agreed to fund theater they agreed to fund safer travel. The failed audits of TSA are totally unacceptable
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 disabilities, or children, would remove the random element from the system and undermine security. We simply cannot assume that all terrorists will fit a particular profile.
I used to have a Sikh manager who wore a turban. Whenever we traveled together, he would get "randomly" stopped. While they were patting him down, he would inevitably chuckle and say something like "So what are the odds of being 'randomly' selected 27 times in a row?"
I don't know the specifics of the process for selection, but I can confidently say that the process is bigoted.
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.
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)
The Rehat Maryada would suggest that is in no way whatsoever an unreasonable suspicion.
Sure, your manager likely didn't carry one on airplanes .. but that still falls short of being an unreasonable check.
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 Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.
I have nothing against Sikh's, I've known a few for decades.
> There's no reason to think that Sikhs are explicitly going out of their way to hide something.
... other than a small, curved sword or dagger that initiated (Amritdhari) Sikhs are required to wear at all times as one of the Five Ks (articles of faith) ordained by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 you mean?
It seems reasonable, and a number of actual Sikh's would actually agree, to guess that a Sikh who holds their faith to be a matter of importance would absolutely hide a symbolic dagger the size of a letter opener and capable of slitting a throat.
The question facing any border agent tasked with checking Sikh's, of course, is this specific Sikh one that will always try to carry a Kiran, or one that doesn't hold with all that articles of faith guff.
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 daily. Carrying a weapon is certainly a bit unusual as a pillar of faith, but there are plenty of others that could also be deemed antipathetic to the well functioning order of a modern society trying to move people safely from A to B. And the same way I would consider trained and licensed gun owners to be a relatively low threat and a rule-abiding group of citizens, that's how I would view Sikhs with their blades (or even more so). So if you're Amish, take a horse. If it's Shabbat, wait til Sunday. If you're the TSA and you want to be more efficient by discriminating, look at people who have no discrenable ideology, or those whose ideology actively conflicts with your mission of preventing attacks.
This is completely absurd and backwards. Violence on planes (at least, phsycial, weapon-assisted) is basically exclusively the purview of organized ideological groups, it's not like crime in the streets. While I'm not aware of any Sikh group who has ever attempted to hijack a plane, the extremely well established general pattern is exactly that extremist sincere believers in a religion or cause are the most dangerous people on a plain.
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 that I'm a fan, but in general Rules are Rules and making exceptions while fair in some senses will be unfair in others <shrug>.
Circling back to my initial comment- it is the case that there is an actual reason rather than a made up bit of bullshit, to reasonably suspect that a Sikh might be carrying a knife ... if they are they're almost certain to also have a comb .. so that's handy.
A Sikh is far more likely to be carrying a little sword than the average population.
I used to work with a Kevin and a Mohammed.
Whenever we travelled to offsite offices Mohammed 100% of the time was picked for bag check, while Kevin was not picked once.
Mohammed was white, and Kevin was black.
It was completely racist, and never random.
A person can get mistakenly (or not) flagged for special screening and get it over and over again - it happened to me many years ago.
I fixed it by filling out a form requesting a review, after which I received a “redress number” which could be entered into my booking information. It reliably stopped after that.
Not defending the practice but the Mohammed thing has a possible origin that isn't directly racist. The common names among Muslims and their propensity to appear on various watch lists lead to a lot of false alarms on those with those names.
It may be a racist result but there is a pretty reasonable and understandable reason it happens, ignoring the legality and morality of that kind of tracking as well.
I am a white male and have TSA pre-check and after walking through the metal detector, maybe one out of several times I get randomly selected for the body scanner. I've never gotten the dreaded SSSS though. I've very rarely traveled alone not on a work trip and never alone on a one way ticket so maybe that helps.
I get it not infrequently when travelling from europe. It's annoying that they pretend that "oh this is random" .. I'm even going up to the airport employees at hte gate and telling them "I'm told I'm here to make new friends today"
It's screwed up that skin color is a marker that would lead an ignorant provincial quasi-cop to assume someone is of a particular ethnicity, and even more so that that ethnicity would lead them to believe an individual adheres to a belief system that might lead them to blow up an aircraft. Very poor set of assumptions and flawed tooling, to say the least.
I had like a +7 random screening hit streak once. Old and comfortable and that melts away as you become the system.
I was so confused last time I traveled as I watched this brown skinned family getting shaken down for ID by TSA and they literally just waived me past and said didn't need ID. Mind you I've never not been asked to show ID to TSA before this.
Today was the second time in a year I went into one and my crotch got flagged because of my pants zipper. nothing in my pockets. no belt. nothing hidden. etc.
I was then subjected to full pat down and a shoe chemical test as a cherry on top.
Might need to try convincing them next time to let me do the metal detector instead.
What's the point of this higher fidelity scanner if it can't tell the difference between a fly and a restricted object?
This podcast episode might be of interest. https://www.searchengine.show/a-perfectly-average-anomaly/
Almost always my back sweat from wearing a backpack shows up on the body scanner. Then a TSA agent has to put their gloved hand on my sweaty back. What a shit job lol.
Whenever my backpack has been pulled aside for various reasons (large metal tools, too many loose wires, water bottle), I'll often get the bomb sniffer wipe.
Are you sure it was the zipper?
it's a guess from looking at the screen where the red square is placed right around that zone.
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."
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.
This is brilliant. I continue to opt out and get the pat down every single time. Which is annoying because they deliberately make it slow and anxiety inducing with your bags are out of sight for quite a while.
I used to "punish" the rude or particularly slow ones by insisting on a private screening (since that involves two officers, and Is A Whole Thing) but I haven't gotten a rude one in a few years. But that also just makes it take even longer.
I did this about a dozen times until I had too many TSA agents become extremely shitty and hostile towards me. The last two times they were making threats as I was walking away that they were going to "get me". I decided my protest opt out excuse wasn't worth dealing with attitude. They usually also made me stand there and wait sort of blocking everyone for 5-10 minutes until they even called someone over
> When they wave me to the scanner, I say "I can't raise my arms over my head."
IANAL but I would be very cautious about lying to a federal agent, or anyone acting in a capacity on behalf of a federal agent (this is all of TSA).
Yep. It's asking for FAFO with civil $$ or even criminal penalties.
From what I see, it's low risk, though the parent's smartass approach might get you some punishment. Not worth skipping the detector via lie.
Who said I'm lying?
They are only making bad assumptions if they said this.
Any chance one gets to regain freedom, by any method, take it.
In this situation proving someone is lying would be news worthy. You will win in this situation if you stand your ground.
It seemed implied by:
> Then I realized I could even skip that.
It would make sense that you weren’t injuring yourself prior to realizing this.
Again, implied. But agreed, you didn’t say it.
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.
"i can't raise my arms over my head" doesn't contain the word "medically". could be religious reasons, or simply personal superstition.
This is genius, thank you for sharing. I don't fly often, mostly because it became from glamorous to brutal experience.
The Republicans say you should dress up better, then it’s glamorous.
Make sure you bring a change of workout clothes too for the exercise room between flights.
Lots of society is like this. For example, red lights. I run them all the time and nothing happens. You just have to pay attention. It's why the police won't ticket you in SF. It doesn't matter. If anyone else complains you just yell "Am I being detained" a few times and then hit the accelerator. Teslas are fast. They can't catch you.
Another pro tip is to not pay at restaurants. If you can leave the restaurant fast enough before they give you the bill, they must have forgotten to charge you and sucks for them! The trick is not to bring bags so you can fake a trip to the toilet!
if you're not joking, actions like these are why we can't have nice things in society, it's cancerous behavior and just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
I think the two comments above yours are poking fun at the guy who is committing a felony by lying to federal agents. They're just making it obvious what he's doing is really shitty, anti-social behavior.
You are grossly misinformed and making an assumption.
You're thinking of being interviewed by a Federal agent. At no point are you being interviewed at a TSA checkpoint. Generally, they have two agents present for that so they can act as witnesses for each other. The FBI specifically uses the 302 for such an interview. Can you cite the relavant US Code here? I can.
Further, you're assuming I'm lying.
As someone who was present (in the room) as DHS was being formed and witnessed the negotiations around the TSA, the "really shitty, anti-social behavior" is sharing misinformation.
Lying to TSA and other government representatives is patriotic
Exactly. It gets you your freedom back, enables you to what you need to, and undercuts the illegitimate governments authority - all in one!
A major win for the people.
This is a scam that the GOP has convinced many of, that taking from the government commons is the right thing to do. But the GOP is the embodiment of a low trust society. I'd rather live in a high trust society.
"Obeying the law, no matter how pointless, wasteful, or destructive, is a virtue."
Does it make you feel good to participate in a meaningless charade of security theater? Or would you rather spend your time doing some of value?
> Does it make you feel good to participate in a meaningless charade of security theater? Or would you rather spend your time doing some of value?
I think there is a lot of value in being part of a democratic society that has structured dispute-resolution processes. Part of the cost of that is occasionally going along with something pointless (even if some things warrant civil disobedience, not everything does), and that's a vital democratic responsibility. So yes, I do feel good doing that - the same kind of good I feel when I pick up someone else's litter or give up my time for jury service. If anything, going along with a law you disagree with is harder, and more virtuous, than those.
Holy shit that's genius, but I do worry about the minor degradation of respect for actual disabled folks if it becomes 'weaponized' in a widespread way
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.
I should not need to show an anonymous TSA agent my genitals, even if they are in black and white on some monitor theyre viewing in some back room, to get on a plane.
> I should not need to show an anonymous TSA agent my genitals
Unless you want to!
At least currently the images are never seen by a person and are deleted after ATR.
You'll need to add a /s, else most here won't realize you're being sarcastic.
You are, right?
I could ask the same serious question, why should I have to? There is zero reason to suspect me of being a suicidal maniac. Should we have such scanners to walk into a busy store or bus or subway system? Why don't private pilots and passengers have such screenings?
Tangential: Here in India we have security guards with hand-held metal detectors in malls, railway stations, and urban transit rails (metro) stations.
The first time I visited a different country I was surprised to see my friend accompany me to the check-in counter and even further to drop me off. In India they wouldn't let you enter the airport if your flight doesn't depart soon enough.
I don't think anyone in the US really cares about metal detectors, humans don't naturally contain metal and it is done completely hands off with no extra visual or biometric information or saved data. Plenty of people in this thread who opted out of other security measures still walked through a metal detector without any special note. Court houses and police stations have often have metal detectors that even a Senator or President would have to walk through. The same cannot be said of direct imaging of your body though or facial recognition or anything. If you wouldn't put your children through the process to go into school each day then it seems completely bonkers to require it for any form of mass transit.
It used to be normal in the U.S. to walk people to the gate until 9/11.
Now you can escort someone to the check-in counter and up to the security checkpoint, and meet people at the luggage area to help with bags.
But in practice it seems rare to do so if there isn’t a particular reason, probably because you’d have to pay to park or ride transit and it’s usually a trek beyond that. Honestly if they allowed you to go through security with the passenger and wait at the gate, I’m not sure how many people would even do it here (or how many passengers would want their loved ones to do so).
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.
Then why do they routinely send kids through the (non-invasive) metal detectors, while adults get sent through the millimeter-wave scanners?
There are legit health reasons to opt out of the scanner. I know because I have one of those conditions and have never been through the scanner.
That's fine, but you don't need a health condition, legit or otherwise, to opt out. It's enough to say "I would like to opt out."
Millimeter wave scanners have a health exemption? Like because it would always detect something on your body?
What is an example of such a condition?
Pacemaker, pregnancy, probably others.
Studies have all come out clean on pacemakers and mmWave. No detectable interference in the hardware or on an EKG while in a mmWave scanner.
I could imagine other conditions potentially but pacemakers have been ruled a non issue for mmWave by academic studies (albeit I can understand still exercising caution despite that).
To me it's just a vote against the profiteers who make those machines.
Also I kinda like the process better; the pat-down is nothin', and you can a full table to yourself to recombobulate.
> First-Amendment-auditor thinking.
Uhhh, I like that kind of thinking. Is there something wrong with first amendment auditors now?!
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 found strange men filming me as I walked down the street, I would support basically any legal change required to make them stop.
First Amendment auditors have usually been attention seeking individuals making click bait YouTube videos. It's been interesting seeing the transformation from that to what we're seeing with people monitoring ICE.
I, too, dislike walking far. Here’s how I faked my way into a handicap parking tag.
> I, too, dislike walking far. Here’s how I faked my way into a handicap parking tag.
Cute analogy, but.
Handicap parking tags provide value to those who need them. Depriving them of parking makes their lives harder.
On the other hand, TSA is pure theater, as TFA makes clear. Avoiding this needless ritual saves time for the passenger, for the TSA officers, even for the other passengers, and does not increase risk at all. It's pure win-win.
That’s fine and it is of course security theater / jobs program. I was put off by the feigning of disability to avoid a scanner and/or some inconvenience. This kind of behavior is okay, even great, but please come up with a more tasteful way. Otherwise I hope it’s a parody.
It may be many things, but I very much doubt the motivation is a money grab. A few people paying $45 isn't lining the pockets of some government official, or plugging a hole in any possible budget.
Dealing with the presence of travelers who haven't updated their driver's licenses requires a bunch of extra staff to perform the time-consuming additional verifications. The basic idea is for those staff to be paid by the people using them, rather than by taxpayers and air travelers more generally. As well as there being a small deterrent effect.
There is no legal requirement to show id or answer any questions to establish identification before flying. In other words there is no extra work required by law which the fee would cover.
The TSA is literally doing all this extra work though, whether or not you think it's required by law. They're not just pocketing the $45 and then blindly waving you ahead.
Let's be more precise. The TSA has created extra work for themselves, and are charging us for it, whether it's legally required or not (because they pretend that it is).
Sure. But it's not "pretend". It's genuine regulatory policy they've created because they believe it's necessary for security, and this has been a decades-long project. The article is arguing they don't ultimately have the legal authority to make that regulatory policy. Maybe that'll go to court and be tested, maybe they'll win and maybe they'll lose. If they lose, maybe Congress will pass explicit legislative authorization the next day, and maybe that'll be brought to court, and the Supreme Court will have to decide if it violates the 14th amendment or not. But it's not "fake work", it's actually doing a thing.
No, it's not "regulatory policy". It's been done entirely with some combination of secret "Security Directives" and "rulemaking by press release". As the article and the linked references explain, the TSA never issued any regulations, published any of the required notices, or obtained any of the approvals that would have been required even if Congress had passed an (unconstitutional) authorizing statute (which it didn't).
No. Policy or regulation would have a basis in law. This administration has aptly demonstrated their contempt for the law. Nobody gives a shit about some grunt federal employee getting extra work.
This is just a way to compel compliance and to push the agenda for ID with higher documentary requirements, ultimately to deny the vote.
I mean I could hire someone to continuously dig and refill the a hole in the ground. That would certainly be them doing a thing, but it would also definitely be fake work. There's been plenty of rhetoric thrown around but no real evidence has been produced that suggests the TSA isn't engaging in a bit of circular digging at the taxpayer's expense with this.
Ah, digging holes and refilling them - that'd be literally the NREGA program in India
As I mentioned[0] a few months ago after the TSA announced the $45 "fee":
...The courts have repeatedly struck down limits on domestic travel over the
past couple hundred years.
In fact, the $45 "fee" is an acknowledgment that you aren't required to have
special documents to travel within the US. Otherwise, they just wouldn't let
you travel.
So instead, they're making more security theater and punishing you if you
don't comply with their demands...
Flying without ID just gets you the full patdown treatment. It’s not like they’re tracking down people to vouch for you.
I don't know what you mean by "full patdown treatment", but they're absolutely tracking down your information in databases and interviewing you about it. See replies to:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46864182
It's absolutely not just enhanced physical screening.
It's not just a patdown. They take you to a phone booth that has a direct line to some portion of the FBI IIRC, and they ask you a bunch of questions to confirm your identity. At least this is what happened to me about ten years ago when I lost my wallet in a different state and needed to fly home.
... and the law in most states requires only that you give your name and possibly your DOB to the authorities upon detainment. So as a purely academic exercise, what can they even do if you refuse to answer beyond that? Obviously in practice they will fuck with you or just straight up violate the constitution, but theoretically I'm unsure how they can continue to seize you after that.
...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.