US air travelers without REAL IDs will be charged a $45 fee

> What is it with America and laws being pushed off indefinitely? Do other countries have similar problems?

Well, it’s a big country that is really kind of like 50 different smaller countries that do a lot of important things in a common manner but also do a lot of other things in very different ways. It’s hard to get all 50 states to move in the same direction.

It helps that this one was entirely pointless except for generating more contracts to hand to pals, like a lot of the stuff around that time—say, when they created Homeland Security rather than just beefing up existing structures that served similar purposes (easier to direct contracts to friends and companies you own large stakes in when you’re setting up a totally new department with an excuse to get all-new everything!)

Like this doesn’t actually matter, at all, for security purposes. Which is why nobody’s cared enough to make it go faster.

> What is it with America and laws being pushed off indefinitely?

For this specific regulation, it's illegal to prevent someone who passes physical security screening and has paid their fare from boarding a plane.

So, if FedGov didn't provide a mechanism that they could point to that technically doesn't require passengers to present ID to board domestic fights, then they're still technically compliant with the law.

That's why TSA hasn't been able to just say "Fuck you, you don't get to fly if you don't have a federally-issued internal passport.".

We have categorically lost our ability to change or enforce laws, and so while congress may pass a law, the followthrough is usually nonexistent

In this case the problem is that the fed is the one who runs the TSA and created the Real ID rules, but the states are the ones that actually issue the IDs meeting those rules. The fed couldn't force the states to implement the rules and the states didn't want to spend money on something they didn't really care about.

Of course, they didn't really care about it because it's mostly just security theater and thus the fed was never going to start turning people away simply for not having a compliant ID (which is still true). If there were much more valid reasons for why everybody needs to have a Real ID then states would have put more effort into getting everybody to have one.

There's also the separate the issue that the Real ID rules are questionable and it's not always easy for someone to get a Real ID even if they want one.

There's 50 governments responsible for implementing this law. A few more I guess. Not 2 branches.

In this particular case, it's because Americans have somewhat unusual deep-seated distrust of our own government, which has lead to pretty well-organized opposition to any federally mandated form of identification. Officially, the only two real semi-universal lists of American citizens available to the federal government are A) Social Security numbers (which aren't ID, they're just a unique identifier, and aren't legally mandated, just incentivized), and B) The Selective Service Registry, which IS legally mandated, but only for fighting age men. (Fun fact: this is why American men still need to register for the draft, despite the US not having a draft since Vietnam. This registration does not suggest that the US is any closer to re-instating the draft than any other country that eliminated their draft, as it would still take an act of congress, just as most countries can reinstate their draft with an act of parliament. The reason we have to register is that officially, the federal government otherwise has no idea who is even eligible to be drafted).

The important thing is that, like the tariffs, this is not a tax on Americans.

They actually stopped that policy in summer this year.

TIL. I have always wondered how much pain you have to bear if you lose your ID on a (domestic) trip. Thought it was legitimately possible you might have to take a bus cross country.

I’ve gone through this process before and while it was more work it did not take 30 minutes.

I presented a student ID and was escorted through the security line. My baggage was selected for additional screening and I received a pat down search.

I went through an identical procedure on the return flight, right down to the exact words the TSA agent spoke to me while conducting the pat down.

I didn't have to have any biometrics taken, just answered a bunch of questions. Flew out of Las Vegas.

If it’s like the identity verification services the CRAs offer, I’ve managed to fail one of those enough times that they said I’m not me and stopped letting me try (to be fair, it was only two tries IIRC).

The last attempt I even had my report from the relevant CRA in front of me as a cheat-sheet, at their suggestion. They believed I’m me enough to hand me (a version of) my report and let me into my online account with them, but not enough to tell someone else that I’m me. Go figure.

(The trouble, I’m pretty sure, was that both times I encountered two “I have literally no idea what relevance any of the addresses you named have to me” answers and I think they only put one of those in each set. Even reading the sheet I never managed to figure out WTF they were talking about. One I got both times, which I suppose was the one I was supposed to know, didn’t even name a state I had lived or owned property in. But nothing about it on the report, so what do I dispute? Luckily I only needed it for a temporary rental and that ended up working out fine—it’s way easier to buy houses than rent one, I guess, which is pretty weird)

A few years ago i forgot my id, i boarded my departure flight with my costco card and the return flight with my sams club card. both had pictures and my full name. to top it off, I was escorted right past everyone in line by security. it was great!

My guess is that it harmonizes federal and state records for identifying individuals.

At least in California, it also requires one to present significantly more documentation. Last I checked, it also goes into a central Federal database, whereas ordinary State-issued IDs do not.

If I'm going to get a damn passport, I'm going to get a passport that lets me leave the country.

As far as I know this is correct. It’s similar to what’s required to get a passport.

If you already have a passport, no verification is required.

It's just an ID, like a driver's license can also be considered as "just an ID".

But previously: The individual States all issued IDs themselves. They each made up their own rules about who could and could not get one. They didn't necessarily share this information with the federal government, and citizenship wasn't necessarily a requirement at all to get a state ID such as a driver's license.

But Real ID is not that. It broadly requires proof of citizenship[1] or lawful status in order to obtain one.

So, for example: As a native-born US citizen, that's a new requirement for me -- nothing else I've ever done in life has required me to prove my citizenship. I've had a state-issued driver's license for decades. I've had mortgages, paid taxes, and lead a fairly productive life without citizenship status ever being a concern. But I don't presently have enough documentation to prove the citizenship that I've always had, so no flying for me (for now -- I'll have to get that sorted sooner or later).

[1]: There are some exceptions. https://www.tsa.gov/real-id/real-id-faqs

Because Canada and Mexico and the Caribbean Islands require them.

It was closer to being true (though I’d still not have characterized it as “approximate nobody”) when you didn’t need passports for travel to Canada, Mexico, and IIRC many Caribbean cruises. That change increased rates of passport-having a ton.

That is close. They hold a bit less info because it is for internal US use only. Its also about the required documentation to have one issued. Also, the reason many countries went biometric at the same time 2 decades ago is because the US absolutely insisted.

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

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

And, like, I want to mention here that the hijackers who successfully wrecked three airliners and murdered everyone on board (including themselves) passed all security screening. We knew who they were! If we had had internal passports in 2001, that would have changed nothing at all.

AIUI, these folks were armed with box cutters and a willingness to kill themselves, everyone on the plane, and everyone in the building they intended to crash into. Folks regularly get knives through TSA screening. There have been numerous official reports about the fact that TSA failed to find > 90% of the weapons and explosives federal red-team employees put into their luggage.

The only thing that has stopped another 9/11 is reinforced cockpit doors that lock from inside the cockpit. Had the cockpit doors been solid and locked, those hijackers would have gotten the shit beaten out of them by passengers and those planes would have made safe emergency landings.