I'm brown, very brown. A Native American, in fact.

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.

Derek Smalls?

Are you sure it was the zipper?

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?

The Republicans say you should dress up better, then it’s glamorous.

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!

"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?

What if the police department has Teslas?

Quite a modest proposal.

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 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?

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.

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?!

> 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.

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.

Like someone who would deliberately show up to work in a speedo because "show me where in the employee handbook it says I must wear pants"

It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID. In the context of airport security budgets, it's not that much. And it's used for hiring the additional staff required and putting together the identity verification systems they use.

Assuming 100M "classic" ID checks (being generous): congrats, you just paid for two days of running the military!

But everyone would have to take advantage of that benefit not having ID have with themselves.

The roughly 7.6 million CLEAR members paying $209/yr grosses them north of $1 billion/year. It's not hard to see why TSA wants to get in on it.

It's a database lookup that takes 5-15 minutes once you get to an available officer, but then depending on what it returns you may need additional screening, which will also need to wait for someone available.

That's why if you don't have an ID, you should get to the airport at least an hour earlier than otherwise (already accounting for long security lines), and more during peak travel times. If you get slowed down, you're going to miss your flight. They're not going to speed it up for you.

This happened to me once, they just brought out someone (supervisor?) who asked questions about what addresses I've lived at, other similar questions I'd probably only know the answer to.

It does take longer than regular screening (most of the time was just spent waiting for the supervisor -- I'm not sure they were spending time collecting some data first), if that causes you to miss your flight you miss your flight.

It seems plausible to me that $45 could be about a TSA employee's wage times how much longer this takes. In aggregate, this (in theory) lets them hire additional staff to make sure normal screening doesn't take longer due to existing staff being tied up in extra verifications.

Data brokers already know everything about every American so the TSA is just buying existing information from them. Then they can quickly quiz you on the information to verify that you are you. https://network.id.me/article/what-is-knowledge-based-verifi...

There are more criteria to get through security than "not carrying prohibited items". Several of those are dependent on identity, which is why they verify identity.

It's not that they'd pay individual employees more, it's that they'd hire more workers to account for the fact that their existing workers are tied up doing extra verification.

Though they might not do that either.

Do you not see how an organization discouraging the use of something inefficient benefits as a whole?

Thats why cashless businesses exist, why you pay more for things that involve human attention instead of automated online solutions etc.

I think the comparison to the propiska system is incorrect. This Soviet system heavily controlled internal migration and was what ultimately dictated where someone was permitted to live. You couldn't relocate without one, and having this permission was tied to all sorts of local services. This system anchored people to where they were, and usually barred them from moving unless they had a good reason to.

The US currently has freedom of movement. You don't need the government's permission to live somewhere or to move somewhere else. An ID with your address listed isn't propiska. At best, you could compare it to the 'internal passport' that the USSR and most post-Soviet countries had, which acted as a comprehensive identity document and was the ancestor to modern national ID cards that are used in many countries.

My passport card is RealID compliant and doesn’t have my address anywhere on it.

Real ID/Drivers License being a proof of address is laughable. In my state (NY) they accept the following as proof of address for getting a new Real ID:

- Bank statement

- Pay stub

- Utility bill

- Any other state ID with the same last name, which I can claim is my parent or spouse.

I can change my mailing address on any of them with a few clicks online, no actual verification needed.

What they do NOT accept as proof of address:

- My passport

How does that make any sense?

It's hardly proof of address. At best, I'd say it's proof of state residency.

I've moved several times since getting my Colorado driver's license (a REAL ID). Technically, you are supposed to submit a change-of-address form to the DMV online within 30 days of moving. They don't send you a new card when you do that; the official procedure is to stick a piece of paper with your new address written on it to your existing ID yourself, and then just wait until your next renewal to actually get a card with the new address on it. The change of address form does not require utility bills or any other proof of the new address-- that's only required when you initially get the driver's license.