Slashdot Mirror
TSA Bans Flight If You Refuse To Show ID
mytrip notes a CNet blog entry on the recent TSA rule change banning flight to anyone who refuses to produce ID. It's OK if you claim to have lost or forgotten your ID — you undergo a pat-down and hand search of your carry-on bag and you're on your way. The new rule goes into effect June 21. "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."
I've always wondered about why people don't seem to get that fake IDs can be used for more than just getting into bars. And in that, far more serious things. I had my own experience with having to provide an ID in a case where it was not needed or useful to them. I bought an account with Hostgator once and they had a policy of not allowing you to use a shell account without providing a faxed copy of your driver's license. I argued with the system administrator there that it was a useless policy as it doesn't prove anything as IDs can be faked. And especially with the low quality of a fax, how could they tell. I could easily put in fake details using any simple image editor. He actually responded saying something like "If I can prevent one security breach, then the policy is worth it.". He didn't seem to get that it won't stop anything. Hackers see policies as obstacles to get over, not impassable walls. What's sad is that Hostgator isn't the only company with this very same policy. They probably don't realize how many malicious hackers they already have one their systems.
All that IDs provide is another hoop for everyone to jump through, including hackers and terrorists. They are useless as a security measure to anyone who doesn't have the authority to validate them.
After all, not one of the 9/11 hijackers had validly issued ID in their own names. Right?
Yeah. Maybe the next president will do something to fix the utterly idiotic "security" games the TSA insists on playing with airline travel. I'm not putting money on it, though.
What I find amusing is that you refer to the people creating these policies as "we". Like you've got any say in it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Fuck DHS and the TSA. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. They're far worse (if they aren't yet, they will be, just wait) than any terrorist ever could be.
Sad part is, I'd move to another country if I knew of any better ones out there. Anyone know of a mostly English-speaking country that doesn't walk all over its citizens' rights? I know the UK is right out, and I hear Australia is pretty bad too.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
pushing down people that irritate them.
As pointed out, since you can lie easily, this is really just about control and dominance.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Assuming all of those new laws and policies are for the "terrorists". That's why they don't make sense to you. NOW SHOW US YOUR PAPERS!
[emphasis mine]
So... refusing to identify yourself at the airport is equivalent to refusing to identify yourself when you're arrested.
Let's stop piddlefucking around and admit that planes are now airborne maximum security prisons. Because that's exactly how their "security" is treating passengers.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
When Conservatives constantly pule about government being the problem, they are close to right: conservatives in government is the problem.
Considering all their core principles are right out of Mein Kampf... developments like this are hardly surprising. Warrantless wiretaps, secret prisons, citizens being held in secret and without trials: brought to you by either Nazi Germany or Conservative America. Take your pick.
Only if you're an asshole and "refuse" to show your ID? Come on, how many people are really like that? If you're going to claim this policy for security reasons, don't allow an exception for "lost" or "forgotten" IDs. If it were for security reasons, ID would be required 100% of the time. Because it's for fascist reasons, they are willing to make a temporary exception to ease people into it. But, the 100% refusal to allow boarding without ID is coming. Mark my words. The time for action is now. I think I will somehow "forget" my ID every time I board a flight from now on.
bash: rtfm: command not found
There are thousands of people who get paid to make us safer from terrorists. I don't think they will be reducing the perceived risk any time soon. Announcements like this keep the terrorist threat in the news and make it look like they are doing something for their money.
that refuse to go along with the pack and surrender all of their rights when asked in a confident voice by an authority figure.
Bingo. They could not have made the intention any more transparent. It's not about security - otherwise why is pat-down good enough for people who just make up an excuse? It's about control and making the population submissive. We learn to bend over at the airport and it makes it easier to do it at the checkpoint, the federal building, the state border, or while jogging in a neighborhood in which they think you don't belong.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
...but it will catch the real enemy of this administration and of the tsa - folks willing to think for themselves and unwilling to be scared into submitting to big brother.
i already take off my shoes at the airport. and, because my job requires me to fly quite a bit and get where i'm going, i produce id (passport, usually). and every time i take the baggie with my toothpaste and travel-size deodorant out of my carry-on, i throw up in my mouth a little bit.
but i keep doing it.
because i have to pay the mortgage.
i can't remember who said this, but someone once said the 20th/21st century equivalent to the nazi war criminals' "i was just following orders" line will be "well, i had a mortgage to pay"...
This space intentionally left blank
The government knows exactly how much I make. People can look me up on line and see where I live, and how much I paid for my house. Credit companies know if I am late paying my bills. My credit card company knows what kind of purchases I make, and calls me if I do something unusual. Amazon knows what kind of books I read. Netflix knows what kind of movies I watch. In my county, you can look up my name on line and see if I have an outstanding traffic ticket. So you think I am going to get excited about my "privacy" if I have to show an ID?
The whole purpose is for the TSA to make the traveller feel that they are being kept safe. Real safety has nothing to do with it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Isn't it weird? Conservatives don't have a problem with the government invading their personal lives, but they DO have a problem with the government invading the corporations' lives.
What a classic set of liberal distortions!
Conservatives, for the most part, do not want the government to enter our lives. However, we value the following rights as tantamount to freedom: a) free speech, b) freedom of commerce, c) the right to hold property and d) the right to get income from the investment of that property. That is why, as a rule, you will see conservatives balk at any sort of proposed rule about what kind of car, house, medicine, or anything else that a person might own or buy.
Conversely, the liberal would legislate the federal right to ALL property, and impose regulations on ANYTHING. Liberals always complain about "conservative fascism", but, then, their solutions always involve creating ever more regulation (and thus, devaluing property). Liberals might make you free in the Khmer Rouge sense of the word, but, ultimately, they make you poor.
In the free market state you Americans idolize, corporations and citizens should have the same treatment under the eye of the law. No more, no less.
Actually, we view corporations as distinctly less than the rights of citizens. However, corporations, via our shares, are our property, and therefor, we resist what the government would do with it. But, make no bones about it, in the eyes of a conservative, owning a stake in Exxon Mobil, or even the entire company, is no different than the legality of owning a pencil. It is my company, my pencil, and I can do with it what I will.
This is my sig.
This is an inane argument. There is not a bit of evidence that Al Qaeda or any of the Islamic terrorist groups are trying to undermine America by eroding our civil liberties. You may not have noticed it, but Islamic terrorists are not exactly big libertarians. Religious fundamentalists tend not to be. The idea that they recognize the power of Jeffersonian ideals and are therefore trying to move us away from them is farcical.
If you want to argue that such erosion of civil liberties is bad for the United States, such a case can be made. But to argue that this was the terrorists' intent is to project your own beliefs onto them.
When I was in school ( oh so long ago ), we were told that America was better than the Soviet Union because we were free.
... and here we are:
"The Soviets don't let you travel without paperwork - we would never do that because we are a free nation."
"The Soviets tell everyone that the restrictions are 'for their protection', but it is a lie."
"The Soviets distort the news which is reported to the people."
Fast forward 25 years
Being shaken down for "papers" and "inspected" by the powers that be when we travel (air, auto, borders) or sign up to do an honest day's work.
All while living under an administration which distorts information as a matter of policy, supporting war with lies.
Not only that but we are losing out economically to a nation which is officially Communist.
So what did we win in the "cold war", exactly ?
I'd move away, but that would be allowing them to win.
Lets make THEM move away and get on with the business of restoring our nation !
Lurking in the desert
that refuse to go along with the pack and surrender all of their rights when asked in a confident voice by an authority figure.
Bingo. They could not have made the intention any more transparent. It's not about security - otherwise why is pat-down good enough for people who just make up an excuse? It's about control and making the population submissive. We learn to bend over at the airport and it makes it easier to do it at the checkpoint, the federal building, the state border, or while jogging in a neighborhood in which they think you don't belong.
I don't get it. When someone says, "May I see your ID, sir" and I show it to them, am I suddenly under their control? Have I suddenly lost the right to... I don't know.. speak freely when I show ID? People all over the world have had to show ID (passport) to travel from country to country. How is this different?I'm sorry, I can't keep up that charade any more. If you lose all self control because someone asks you for ID, you are fucking idiot and you shouldn't be leaving your town anyway.
Seriously, WHAT CONSTITUTION RIGHT IS INFRINGED ON BY HAVING TO SHOW ID?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
See where I'm going with the this? If the Fourth applies to ID here, then it has to apply EVERYWHERE!
Now, I understand that we don't want federal police officers asking us for ID at every corner. (Not that they don't have better things to do) I think it has something to do with the fact that you wanting to travel makes it reasonable.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Absolutely not. By asking this question, you've demonstrated that you're ALREADY under their control.
And as far as what constitutional rights have been violated, you are ignorant and misunderstanding the bill of rights. The bill of rights is not an enumeration of what rights you have - it's merely a list of a few of your rights that the framers thought so important as to merit special mention.
In fact, some were against a bill of rights for the very reason that they felt that the ignorant would see them as your only rights. As a compromise, the ninth amendment was added to make sure people understood this fact:
Ninth Amendment - Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
As you have demonstrated, it didn't fucking work.
This space available.
Yes. After 9/11, nobody is going to sit back and wait while the hijackers "take this plane to Cuba". Anybody tries anything funny, like light their shoelaces, and if the passengers don't kill them, they'll get duct-taped to their seat for the remainder of the flight.
Meanwhile, the terrorists are looking for a weak spot. Someplace where law enforcement has overlooked. If we take some responsibility for our own security, there won't be any weak spots, regardless of TSA oversights.
Have gnu, will travel.
Oh, give me a break. This isn't that hard to understand; even you can handle it:
They won't let you fly if you say "I don't want to show ID". They will let you fly if you say, "I forgot my ID". That won't stop a single bad guy ever. It doesn't solve any problem at all even a little bit, except for people expressing opinions the TSA doesn't like.
Yes, you are free to turn around and walk away. Which means you are voluntarily accepting a more limited existence than other people, a more limited freedom of movement.
And when they require ID to get on trains, you'll be more limited still - but you'll be OK with that.
And not for safety - the 9/11 hijackers all had valid ID. No, you're willing to submit to demands of authority that increase safety and security not one bit... and in fact may decrease them, by instilling a false sense of security, by creating a bottleneck of massed passengers (a wonderful terrorist target), by diverting resources that could be better used...
You're willing to do that, to let authority tell you what to do just for show, to let authority make useless demands throughout your everyday routine... why?
Why? Maybe you just don't want to feel like one of those dirty hippies always talking about "rights" and "freedom" and such? Maybe you think authority is something to be admired and respected? Maybe you just want to be a good German?
This space available.
There's actually a good reason for asking that question. It's a knowledge-based verification, to try to catch someone who might pickpocket a passport off someone else in line. It's not a foolproof security measure, but if you happened to see someone who looks like you in line and swipe their passport it might be difficult to memorize their birthday and their prior itinerary in the few minutes you have before you're next in line (if you try to steal it earlier your theft is less likely to go unnoticed). On the other hand, you'll surely remember your own birthday, nationality, and whether or not you've been to a given country, so the questions cause minimal inconvenience to those going through immigration.
"TSA's new rules only protect us from a non-existent breed of terrorists who are unable to lie."
This is silly and misses the point. They protect us from something far more dangerous to the regime: People who refuse to have their rights flushed away.
Here is what makes "terrorism" interesting. Terrorism on its own is close to harmless. The Spain bombings, 9/11, the London bombings... all of those bombings didn't even dent those nations. Even 9/11 was just a drop in the bucket. 4000 or so people dying in the US? It won't even register as a blip on US death rates for a year. A couple of knocked over towers? Those are a little costly, but they pale in comparison to even a minor hurricane.
The terrorist attack itself was a pin prick against a giant. The problem is that the giant in response decided to saw off its own hand to keep from ever being pricked again.
While the attack itself did minimal economic damage and a barely noticeable effect on the number of people living and dying in the US (especially next to such terrors as cancer or heart disease), our response to it did horrible.
I am not even pointing to the government response alone. The government did terrible damage to itself by implementing policies that make business harder, travel harder, and importing students and skilled laborers harder. Lets not even considered the more intangible damage done to civil liberties. Even worse, people's own reactions turned a minor disaster into a major disaster. Being terrified of airplanes despite the fact that you are vastly more likely to be struck dead in a car did terrible economic damage. Fear that lead to reduced spending did horrible economic damage.
My point is this. Terrorist are hardly worth mentioning for the acts that they commit. They rank far FAR below other dangers that are likely to kill you. McDonald's and swimming pools kill far more people than terrorist do in the US. Cars kill vastly more people, and yet we manage to soldier on in utter indifference. The only thing that hurts about a terrorist attack is our very own response. If we want to defend against terrorist attacks in the future, prevention isn't the answer. Snatching low hanging fruit, like reinforcing plane doors and telling passengers to kick the shit out of anyone trying to get into the cockpit is fine and relatively cheap. Where the REAL savings would come from is if policy makers could find a way to dampen their own and the publics responses to terrorism. The damage is done when we react by chopping our own limbs off. If we could find a way to not react so violently, terrorist attacks, while hardly a good thing, would be FAR less destructive.
Actually yes, there is.
As your post correctly says, it would be ridiculous to suggest they directly care about or are motivated by any issue of our civil liberties. However they do indeed consider it part of a means to an end.
From Sun Tzu's Art of War:
Bush (and his entire administration) has a simplistic cartoon image of the enemy. The administration has declared that any coverage of what bin Laden as been saying is giving him free airtime and is giving aid to terrorists, has even played any such coverage carring coded instructions for an attack. And thus the media has been cowed into self censoring any such coverage. No coverage of what he's actually saying and no media analysis of what he actually wants and no media analysis of the terrorist whys and hows.
This is why The War On Terror has been so badly botched. The administration has a cartoon image of the enemy, and the public has little-to-no understanding of the enemy. Bush blindly did exactly what bin Laden wanted him to do.
Why did bin Laden instigate the 9/11 attack? What was the logic behind it?
Most people can't answer that. Saying bin Laden is evil is a hollow cartoon explanation, that evil people do evil things is a useless insightless answer. Saying "They hate our freedom" is a total fiction, a convenient administration soundbite to rally the public.
There was a chain of logic behind 9/11. It was an evil and tortured logic, but an identifiable and comprehensible logic. One must understand that logic to properly understand and fight that enemy, to understand not to unwittingly do what the enemy is hoping you to do.
First, what do bin Laden his cohorts ultimately want? What is the ultimate intent? A pan-Arab Caliphate. To unite the entire Arab world under one Islamic theocracy. That is bin Laden's utopia, that is his perfect answer that will supposed solve all the problems he sees of the world. bin Laden fundamentally doesn't give a shit about the Western World, he's perfectly happy for the rest of us to (figuratively and literally) go to hell.
So bin Laden's notion is that with the aid of Allah all Muslims should and would rise up and overthrow all of the corrupt Arab governments (and yeah those governments are generally pretty corrupt) to institute one unified Islamic rule. Of course bin Laden has gotten nowhere with that, and he decides that the only reason this plan has fails is because the Evil Western Nations have been protecting and propping up those corrupt Arab governments. And yeah, we have been protecting and propping up the Saudi Royal Family. And yeah, Saddam Hussein was all ours, he was a brutal dictator but he was a completely secular ruler and we gave him HUGE material support as a counter point to Iran. And we have been propping up other such governments for oil stability and other strategic interests. He doesn't "hate our freedoms", he hates us for stabilizing the Mideast and for working to keep Arab governments from collapsing in chaos, because he has the notion that such collapses and chaos would lead to an Islamic Utopia.
bin Laden's tactical and strategic ideas are based on his Afghanistan fighting against Russia, and his view of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. His view on rallying fighters to the cause is to provoke the enemy to overreact, to provoke the enemy to brutality, so that the enemy loses support and so that the enemy creates bin Laden's army for him. What is the purpose of the terrorist attacks on Israel? To provoke Israel to strike against the terrorists, and to provoke
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.