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.