And the US is actually pretty good about not requiring you to always have Federal ID on you, compared to European countries.
Plus not all European countries are part of Schengen.
Also had to show ID (passport, in my case, as a visitor from the US) to board planes in Europe.
While traveling on trains in Germany, I was also required to show ID.
Traveling on trains does not require an ID. You are not stopped randomly in Germany to show your ID. It never happened to me in the 40 years I am living in Estern Germany and Western Germany.
In Germany it is required that you own an ID (or Passport). But you are not required to have it on you.
That said, if police has a reason to identify you, because of suspicious behavior, police can have a hold of you until your identity is proven. That will happen when you are speeding for example.
Sometimes, suspicious behavior may be that your skin is not white enough.
1) "Have your passport on your person": Yes, unfortunately this country requires you to be able to provide some ID. No, you don't need to carry it with you. If you DON'T have one though, it might cause issues/trouble/cost money. [1] I assume the Germans were misinformed and scared, the anecdote was probably not true.
2) You have to show your ID or passport at the border (aka. the airport in this case). You don't need to do that if you move in the Schengen area: Travelling from Germany to the Netherlands won't require an ID. That said, maybe you talk about braindead boarding procedures only. Those exist. People like to make sure that you're the one that checked in and all and .. yeah.. Please provide your boarding pass and ID. Useless. Enforced randomly. Utterly insane. Consider it a nuisance if it happens, but .. it doesn't, most of the time.
3) You never need to show an ID in a train. Except: a) you cross a border and leave the Schengen area. Normal procedures, people will check your passport/ID b) you bought a ticket that says 'can be used in a train (as paper or digital), but requires an ID'. That's the DB (German Railway company) being insane, stupid, annoying, crap, (insert-more-expletives-here). You can buy a ticket at a counter and no one is ever going to ask you for your ID. And I guess no one knows why they consider it a reasonable thing to do for most online tickets/digital tickets.
So:
1) Wrong 2) Maybe 3) DB is run by idiots, is crap, sucks - and there is a workaround
1: Seems to be German only, Google translate? http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personalausweisgesetz
This occurred on 21 July 2014, aboard IC 147, Amsterdam Centraal - Berlin Hbf.
At this point I am simply more amused by the number of people who've insisted that what happened, doesn't and can't happen, than I am annoyed by it.
That said: This particular border was/is monitored a bit more. Even cars crossing that border might get pulled over. Why? Certain harmless substances were/are (not sure about the current legislation) easier to get in the NL and people living close to the border tended to do shopping trips..
If this was a Schengen (inter-europe flight), the only reason you would need it would be on checkin if your airline checks this for revenue protection. By law there shouldn't be any passport checks (at least only randomly).
Anecdote: Travelled by airplane within Europe multiple times, never had to show my passport
>While traveling on trains in Germany, I was also required to show ID.
Which is only required if you get a non-transferrable online ticket. If you buy your ticket at the station, there is no need to show an ID on the train (in contrast to Amtrak)
That creates a problem because, obviously, the police is performing racial profiling and I met Caucasian or Black Japanese citizens who have been harassed by the police because they were not carrying any ID.
For the flight: Usually you either check in with your ID/passport in one way or another. That's true, I guess. As far as I'm aware at least, there's no way around it. They don't "check" you, but you prove that you booked your flight by presenting the ID. Bah.
For the hotels: That's the real issue. Ignore the rest. Most countries here seem to require that you give up your identity if you check into a hotel. The ID isn't always required - actually that's rare for me so far - but you're supposed to give up your name, private address and contact information. For .. random idiotic reasons I assume.
It's not the hotels that care here, though. Can't blame them.
Online checkin? Did multiple flights with Lufthansa, never had to show ID. Maybe depends on the airline
"It's pretty good compared to..."
They are different government types, founded on different laws, containing different people, and so on. The United States was founded on the idea of "freedom" so, it seems strange to require anything on you, unless it impedes others freedoms.
Both the idea of "freedom" and the idea of impeding others' freedoms have been specified in US legislation and in the case history of the US court system. Without going through and clarifying what freedom and impeding freedom mean in different situations, the US economy could not exist at its present size.
Investors can be confident that life will go smoothly based on the US Government. That's what powers the US Treasury, which powers low interest rates, which powers our economy.
It's important to not hand waive away that evolution, because the US is not run on the most-free system of government that could have been imagined in 1776. We ratcheted that down almost immediately, and to argue otherwise is incorrect.
If you "own" property, I can't freely walk onto that property. Your "ownership" places a severe limitation on my ability to exercise the freedom to move about freely.
It seems specious to claim retroactively that the US somehow cares about freedom at all, when some of the most basic were stripped from us at its founding.
The hole in your logic is the notion that your freedom is impeded, when in fact it is not: that freedom properly does not exist where you're claiming it should. The same logic hole is commonly seen when people claim censorship on private forums: freedom of speech does not apply there, just as physical right to pass/movement does not apply to private physical space.
What's "private" space without the violence of the state to back it up? By what right can you exclude me from walking wherever I please, under some guise of "freedom"?
Constraining my movement with respect to your lawn is putting a constraint on my freedom. Beating me up neither constrains my freedom nor encourages it, it's just you being violent.
It's also silly to say the US is founded on "freedom" when that word is uselessly vague.
I'd argue that the United States was founded on particular freedoms, not the general idea of it. Like the original settlers just wanted the freedom to practice their religion in peace. They certainly didn't believe in any freedoms beyond their own interests.