ID Checks are About Control, Not Security
If there was ever any doubt that ID checks at airports are about control and not security, the Transportation Security Administration is clearing that up. Starting June 21, it says, “passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint [sic] will be denied access to the secure area of airports.”
The claim is that this initiative is “the latest in a series designed to facilitate travel for legitimate passengers while enhancing the agency’s risk-based focus - on people, not things.” So let’s take a moment to look at how refusing airport access to the willful enhances security.
. . . OK! We’re done!
No terrorist or criminal would draw attention to him or herself by obstinately refusing an ID check. This is only done by the small coterie of civil libertarians and security experts who can’t stand the security pantomime that is airport identification checking. The rest of the people traveling without ID have lost theirs - and TSA officials at airports have no way of knowing which is which.
This new rule will do nothing to improve airport security, but watch for the incident when a TSA agent “doesn’t believe” someone who has truly lost his or her driver’s license and tries to strand a traveler in a faraway city.
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Per Amtrak's "PASSENGER IDENTIFICATION" FAQ Page:
(http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pag...)
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Random Ticket/ID Checks
Following federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) guidelines, we regularly conduct random ticket verification checks onboard trains to ensure that passengers are properly ticketed. Please be prepared to show valid photo identification to a member of the onboard crew upon request.
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Worse Yet...
Since Amtrak runs California's "Capitol Corridor" route for the State, they also require one to carry ID to ride that route. That opens up tha "slippery slope", where, the same requiremwnt could be adpoted by the Heavy-rail Caltrain SF Peninsula service, then BART, then other local transit agencies, like SF's Muni. One could eventually need an ID document to ride to bus to _apply_ for one! More absurd, would be one in the position of being "short" on documentation to get a REAL ID -- hope he doesn't have to travel to get a duplicate Birth Certificate!
I've scoured the TSA website for the "guidelines" that Amtrak mentions, and found nothing. Considering tha fact that Capitol Corridor tickets can be bought with cash, at a vending machine, the requirement to posess photo ID to ride one of those trains could make sense only to an Authoritarian bureaucrat.
Whoops! I'm wrong. Up in the Sierras, there's a snowball with a keen interest in this "slippery slope", as it offers him what the most expert-level ski runs up there can't. He'll shock us all, as we witness his lifelong dream of making it to Hell come true.
Too bad that we'll all be along for the ride. ID or no ID.
-NK
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It may comes as news to you, but 'Europe' is not a country. The law is not the same across the various countries that comprise 'Europe'. In fact it varies *considerably* from one country to another. Different countries, different laws. Fact.
In my own country - the U.K. - there is *no* requirement to carry ID (yet!) in day-to-day life. There is only a requirement to carry photo ID when travelling from one country to another (e.g. when boarding an international flight; or when entering the country). AFAIK - from my own experience travelling - similar restrictions apply in the U.S.A.
In the U.K., there is no requirement to show ID to an officer of the law, or even to give your name or address to such an officer, even if you are being searched under suspicion of having committing an offence.
I'm sure showing your valid train ticket to the train company officials is not an uncommon situation in the U.S.A. (At least, that has been my experience when travelling in various parts of the U.S.A.). They generally want some kind of assurance that you have paid your fare, and tickets are the vehicle for that assurance.
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