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Comment by billev2k | Hacker News Reader

The Android Developer Blog called it "an ID check at the airport which confirms a traveler's identity but is separate from the security screening of their bags."

From the mouths of rubes, I guess. The ID check at the airport has zero to do with safety or security and everything to do with the airlines' business model (no secondary market for tickets), enforced by government.

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>The ID check at the airport has zero to do with safety or security and everything to do with the airlines' business model (no secondary market for tickets), enforced by government.

If it's really about protecting "airlines' business model", why did TSA recently start requiring REAL ID to board flights? Were airlines really losing substantial amounts of money through forged drivers licenses that they felt they needed to crack down?

> why did TSA recently start requiring REAL ID

Immigration politics

Source? The wikipedia article makes it pretty clear that it was in response to the 9/11 attacks. It got delayed several times so it ended up taking 2 decades to implement, but Trump had little to do with it. The May 7, 2025 deadline was set back in 2022, under Biden.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act#Legislative_histor...

To my knowledge the deciding factor between which state ids were considered compliant and which were not was whether the state required disclosing and documenting immigration status to get a drivers license. In theory there are other rules, but the rest of them were pretty universally followed already anyway.

In addition, the source you linked explicitly points out that the id standards were just one part of a bill that "would repeal the provisions regarding identification documents in IRTPA, replace them with a version that would set the federal standards directly rather than in negotiation with the states, and would make various changes to US immigration law regarding asylum, border security and deportation."

I think you still have the right to travel without ID. The TSA may demand it, and may tell you it's legally required, but that doesn't make that true. If you show up at the airport without an ID, you'll still be allowed to fly domestically. Of course, how easy that is probably depends on whether you frame it as a "woops!" or as a "fuck you guys!". They'll put you through extra "security" screening and try to confirm your ID other ways.

"In fact, the TSA does not require, and the law does not authorize the TSA to require, that would-be travelers show any identity documents. According to longstanding practice, people who do not show any identity documents travel by air every day – typically after being required to complete and sign the current version of TSA Form 415 and answer questions about what information is contained in the file about them obtained by the TSA from data broker Accurint…."

https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/05/19/tsa-tries-again-to-im...

https://papersplease.org/wp/2024/03/18/buses-trains-and-us-d...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...

This is nonsensical. The minute the government doesn’t check ID to get on a plane that coincides with your ticket, the airline will start doing ID checks before getting on domestic flights just like they do for international flights.

And some airports are now allowing non fliers inside the terminal.

Even hotels force you to verify your ID to check in even though the reservation I’d transferable - just add a guest to your room when you make the reservation.

Nope. Most of the world does the ID check, and it's recommended by the UN guidelines for security reasons.

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