We’re now learning the meaning of a new policy that Americans can’t “willfully” refuse to show ID at airports. The Consumerist has a write-up of one man’s experience with IDless travel. It turns out they do a background check on you using, among other things, your political affiliation.
That’s a nice window onto what identity-based security is all about: giving the government deep access into all of our personal lives. Of course, this type of security is easy to evade, and the 9/11 plot was structured to evade it. Checking ID cannot catch someone who has no history of wrongdoing.
Identity checks at airports require law-abiding American citizens to give up their privacy, including their political affiliations, with essentially no security benefit.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.