Do you need ID to read the REAL-ID rules?

Well, they are the best at security theater, so it makes sense their headquarters is too.

Is that surprising? It’s a federal agency representing the security apparatus of the US. That’s a good target for terrorism.

Depending on your perspective on security theater, it might be appropriate to observe that a TSA building as exactly as much security as the TSA is capable providing itself.

I think it's reasonable. Not the exact details of this installation necessarily. The reality is that there are a bunch of people that want to lash out at the government for whatever reason, and the civil servants that just want to do their job shouldn't be put in a dangerous situation by allowing those people to walk into their offices unimpeded. If you believe that the agency shouldn't exist, lobby Congress. Don't take it out on people that just want to do their assigned administrative work for 8 hours a day.

Remember that someone was so mad at the IRS that they filled their airplane with gas cans and flew it into an IRS building, killing an employee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack

Some security precautions are understandable in my opinion. (I don't think the ID requirement is reasonable. Take and store a photograph, deleted after 3 months, and make people go through a metal detector. Also, put the ID requirement documents online. It's free.)

Work with your IT dept.

A company I previously worked for had a policy that if you had any company data on your phone, they had the right to force you to unlock it and look through it (not sure if they ever actually did but it was in the employee handbook). When IT tried introducing a system that required me to Auth with my phone I refused, citing the policy, and they helped me setup a workaround Yubikey.

Might not be possible everywhere but worth a shot. Also always helps to make friends in IT.

At my last workplace, I somehow managed to get away with only Microsoft Authenticator on my phone, with no actual remote management capabilities enabled. That's pretty much exactly where I draw the line: if I have to have a device to perform work functions, the workplace needs to supply it. I'm not going to put work data on my personal machines, and I'm definitely not letting a third party root my phone for me "for sekhurity", and apply work policies on my personal device. I'm okay with work 2FA on my phone, but only without MDM, as an exception for where otherwise there's no reason for me to have a work phone.

Ask for your corporation to give you a corporate phone.

I have one for that reason, and it lives in the office alongside my work issued laptop.

Most places can issue you with a physical token instead, like a Yubikey.

It's just unusual, so the first line in helpdesk don't always know about it. And people seldom want to start a battle with the bureaucracy on their first day on the job...

Think long-term. In 40 years, when the last paper IDs are discontinued, we'll all be tracked, but the time to complain was now.

Until they aren't.

> are simply for people who want the convenience

That's the technological ratchet at work, as it has been since the dawn of humanity. A solution that's convenient or useful enough to gain wide adoption has a way of becoming a soft necessity, and eventually a hard one. Some examples that meaningfully affected our lives[0], in many ways not for the better:

- An accurate clock / watch -- hard necessity. Good luck functioning in society without it. Opening hours, appointments, public transit schedules, are just few among many things synchronized in time, that expect you to have a clock so you can stay in sync too. And no, you can't get away with a rooster or a sundial, like you could 200 years ago - you need precision of at least a minute.

- A car -- somewhere between hard and soft necessity, depending on where you live. The society expects you to be able to commute long distances in short time, for things like work, medical services, or government appointments.

- Mobile phones, Internet, credit/debit cards -- soft necessities. You can sort of still live without them even in the big cities, but it's going to be a pain, as everything is optimized on the assumptions everyone owns a smartphone, has Internet access, bank account with a card, and increasingly often, means of contactless payments (think e.g. public transit). There's a reason even the poorest people without a roof over their heads still own iPhones, and it's not entertainment.

- Government ID app, electronic IDs, other means to do official errands fully on-line - convenience for now. I feel they'll transition into soft necessities within next 10 years, simply because interacting with government is always very annoying, and those tools simplify that process and save you some trips.

--

[0] - All in context of the developed/industrialized/western societies; of course this does not apply to societies that did not embrace a particular technology (yet).

>You can get a RealID compliant driver's license (plastic credit card sized item) or state ID (ditto) You don't need a smart phone.

For now.

You used to be able to pay for parking without downloading an app. You used to be able to buy dynamite without doxing yourself to the feds (something that you don't really think is all that important until you have to clear a lot of forested land and the reality of your options for dealing with stumps and boulders becomes clear).

> If there's any one lesson to draw from the last several years, it's that the executive branch can do anything they goddamn well please.

You can agree or disagree with the goals and priorities of the Biden administration, but surely their interactions with the legislative and judicial branches demonstrate that, despite the high concentration of power there, the executive branch definitely still cannot act unchecked unilaterally.

This is nothing new.

Every time I’ve flown for the past few years, my ID fails to scan at TSA. Don’t know why but every time it’s happened, the TSA agent will just call over another TSA rep, they will look at it, and then say I’m good to go ahead. Never knew these other methods existed, I’ve never been asked to confirm my identity a different way.

But that’s not what this is. None of this precludes regular REAL IDs so the class of people arguably is only people with REAL IDs who are interested in making them an mDL. (Well, and companies implementing the specification)

RealID seems to have added some verification requirements on US passports, but it doesn't look like it made US passports a form of "RealID".

I have a drivers license and a passport, but the combination is insufficient to get a real id drivers license.

IDs often are accepted after they expire. The TSA for instance will accept expired driver's licenses for up to a year after the expiration date.