Story of flying without ID
Sherri Davidoff wrote about what it was like to go through airport security without identification. The TSA kept telling her, “you need to have identification to pass through security,” but they eventually let her get on the plane. Here's here analysis of the experience:
• Recall that to indicate that I required extra screening, staff wrote in red Sharpie on my boarding pass. If I had simply printed off a second boarding pass at home, I could have presented that instead of the marked one, and gone through the metal detector as usual. In other words, passengers without ID can travel without undergoing any extra screening other than “identity verification.” A lawyer friend of mine commented that “if TSA marked ‘SSSS’ on a person’s hand rather than a piece if paper…the airport’s security would at least be as good as a bar’s.”Flying Without a Wallet (philosecurity. Thanks, Lovro!)• Since the answers to the identification verification questions are so widely known, someone could easily have impersonated me and traveled under my name. Many people know that I lived in New Mexico, and the name of the street where I used to live. As a private citizen, I would much rather that the TSA allow anonymous travel than create a system where identity “verification” is required, but it is very easy to impersonate other people.
• Real attackers will just use fake IDs or identities and pass through unnoticed. Thanks to the age restrictions on alcohol, America has a flourishing ID forgery and resale industry, and faking federal identification is not difficult.
• It’s interesting to know that there’s an on-call system which TSA agents can use to do a quick background check on passengers. What information is in this system? If an attacker were to remember or record the numbers used by the TSA officer during the call, could they later gain access?
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They most likely use a service like EVS (http://www.everification.net/), which matches your information against your credit report and comes up with verification questions such as your old addresses. The point of their system is to ask questions that wouldn't be written down on a card in your wallet so that someone who's stolen your identity wouldn't necessarily know the answers.
I don't think it is some secret government database or anything, it's just the same system that companies use to verify identities.
I actually had to fly without ID a couple of months ago. It really was not that bad. I lost my ID while I was traveling. It went like this.
I told the lady at the ticket counter that I had lost my ID. She marked my boarding pass. When I got to the person who you normally hand an ID to at screening, she marked my boarding pass again. I went through the metal detectors. After I was through the metal detectors they did a quick feel up. My one piece of carry on got opened, they rummaged around, swab and bomb tested my stuff, found nothing exciting, and I moved on. It ate maybe an extra three minutes of my time for them to do all of the above.
I personally think that the airport security is psychotic these days, but truth be told, flying without ID domestically just means you budget a few more minutes to get through security.
Well, to play devil's (angel's?) advocate here . . .
Two months ago my 16 year old daughter flew out of Hartford for a visit to Utah. She called me in the middle of the night, frantic because she was only ten minutes from the airport and had left her wallet at home in Vermont. I told her that it was now possible to go through security without a photo ID (not to mention her passport, which she had used to visit China just a few weeks previous), but that it might be a long, awkward process. She had no choice, so she decided to bite the bullet.
Surprisingly enough, when she told the TSA personnel about her problem, she was simply taken aside, wanded and patted down, and let go after her carry-on was x-rayed. That was it.
It was far from the nightmare scenario that we hear about, but are cute, blond, green-eyed teenage girls now automatically beyond suspicion?
I wasn't allowed to buy a bottle of vodka once without ID, can I tell my harrowing story on BoingBoing?
But doesn't every TSA ID checker make *some* kind of mark on the boarding pass even if you have ID? Sometimes they use a highlighter, sometimes a sharpie, or a pen. And the marks they make are not consistent from one day to the next.
To get through with a pre-printed spare boarding pass, you'd have to emulate the marks your ID-holding fellow passengers have on their boarding cards. And keep a variety of possible markers and pens with you to do the marking.
Not that it would be difficult to do but still rather more burdensome than traveling with a fake ID.
do American citizens have a right to travel domestically anonymously? "Flying without ID" still means they demand your identity on pain of threats of punishment if you lie.
If you can no longer get on a plane in your own country with just proof you have paid your fare, what next? Train ID checkpoints? Iris scanners at the bus terminals? How about on public sidewalks?
As the item remarks, you are not cooperating in a security exercise, you are in fact surrendering your Right of Association.
Being a citizen of a free society means you automatically have the benefit of the doubt. No one is under suspicion until there is tangible proof it is warranted. "Presumed innocent" is the only way sane, free men can exist.
Setharian@4: She *was* allowed to fly, and she wrote an interesting story about the process of what happens when a person tried to get on a commercial flight without an ID.
If your story about *not* being able to buy booze because you did not have an ID is interesting then by all means share it with us.
Boing Boing needs a 'bbTSA' button at the top of the page.
This is the 3rd time I've seen the SSSS code typed or scribbled onto a ticket. This confirms to me that it's some "secret" TSA code.
Super Special Security Screen - was what my wife and I were calling it after being felt up before our cross country trip.
So if you see SSSS printed or written on your boarding pass - get your 4th amendment undies out. :p - Kris
Oh shudder the thought. Reminds me of my recent trip abroad and forgetting my damn passport in the hotel safe!
If you'd like a good yarn, read here:
http://tinyurl.com/57jwkj
The story ends well. BTW, I am an American Airlines advocate -they saved by butt.
@Mark... I don't have an interesting story about trying to buy booze.
But, I have an interesting story about after how after probably 20-30 hardcore/punk concerts in LA and the SF Bay Area and having witnessed, at these shows, at least 2 riots and several gang beatings, that the only time I ever got personally got into a fight was during a They Might Be Giants show while John and John were stomping around playing an accordian and one of those big-round-marching-drums-you-hold-vertically.
Ok, maybe not so interesting... and not really much of a story. BUT OMG MY STORY IS ON BOING BOING! (even if self-published) ;)
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In terms of the piece at hand, I found it informative and, while I agree w/ the prior caller in terms of it still sucks you can't travel anonymously, at least I know if I lose my ID I will still be able to fly.
#11: Having also been a victim of the dreaded "SSSS" scribbled in red marker, I can just say: lol.
Apparently (at least based on my and other South Africans' experiences), travelling on a South African passport automatically qualifies you for the extra scrutiny. *sigh*
Those MFers at the TSA need to back off. This whole passenger screening thing has gone way too far.
I fondly remember the days when I could fly without having to take off my damn shoes.
Its ridiculous! and of course some people have turned it into an "industry" and are getting rich by making us "safe"
It's painfully obvious even to a blind man on a galloping horse that the founders viewed freedom of speech and movement as the lifeblood of a free society.Just look at the way they separated government into different branches with limited power designed to keep itself in check.They set down on paper a similar set of rights to insure that the populous have a biased set of rights insuring that they have the ability to keep government in check.The government should always be in fear of the governed.Sunshine is the best disinfectant and we need much more of it these days.
#5) I wasn't allowed to buy a bottle of vodka once without ID, can I tell my harrowing story on BoingBoing?
1/10 on trolling scale.
#13) at least I know if I lose my ID I will still be able to fly.
Er, no. Review the rule and the article. You fly if you can talk them into it. All the guy has to do is say "I think you are deliberately refusing to show ID" and you're off the plane.
SSSS stands for
Superficial Semblance of Security and Safety
or
Stupid Searching and Screening Sham
great. If I wasn't on the list before, I am now. for me, a lifetime of undoing my belt and turning out my carry on luggage every time I fly in the domestic U.S.
I went to fly from NYC to Minnesota with student id, which is credited as valid photo identification on the TSA website. I took a fifty dollar cab to get there and wasn't allowed to fly. I lost my three hundred dollar ticket. I went home and called the airline to get a refund on the ticket. The didn't give me one. Instead they offered me a three hundred dollar ticket. I said no because I saw on the internets I could buy the same ticket for two hundred dollars from the same greedy suspicious corporation. So I called the security agency to verify my identification options and had a birth certificate & social security card sent overnight. I barely got on. Every security officer always SSSS tagged me, unpacked everything I had, made me do Orwellian stripping and then scanned everything I carried with an Ion detector, which took forever by itself. All the TSA employees said "I'm being so good to you." or "You're so lucky" It was a hassle and I spent a thousand dollars to fly to Minnesota from New York round trip.
@6
That was my experience. On both the east and west coast I had the TSA ID person put something like "RB" on my pass. At first I thought it was their initials, but I think it may have been the same mark in both places. And both in pen. Also, at the places I was flying out of, the ID person is close enough to the security checkpoint that swapping passes would be difficult to do.
just imagine what they will turn the web into
SSSS? That's two S's better than SS.
"Real attackers will just use fake IDs or identities and pass through unnoticed. Thanks to the age restrictions on alcohol, America has a flourishing ID forgery and resale industry, and faking federal identification is not difficult."
Or we can point out that the 9/11 attackers had legitimate travel papers.
Fair enough to show the holes in the security theatre, but don't back-up the bull that the reason we have this security theatre is to plug holes to stop another 9/11 when the original attack would not have been stopped by the current restrictions.
You'd think they'd reserve "SSSS" for the plane with the snakes on it.
Man...I remember Arthur Hailey's Airport. He wrote about a senior citizen stowaway who could board planes because she had a thick black grease pencil just like ones the airline staff used to mark up the little folders that the boarding passes came in. She got on board just by using a marked-up folder, which she obtained by going to the check-in counter and asking for one to replace the one she "lost." Then she just waved the marked-up folder at the jetway attendant after the final boarding call, right before they closed the doors, claiming she'd had to leave the plane for some reason or another. Sort of like getting into a movie using a ticket stub.
But that was 1968. Good to see we've advanced in security techniques to...uh...making marks on boarding passes.
With a Sharpie!
Don't forget checking said boarding passes at the start of the security line, the end of the line, then ten feet later at the other side of the metal detector. where my back was always searched because of all the wires associated with my electronics (you know, computer, phone, PSP, iPod...) never got nailed for special screening though. Guess Canadians aren't automatically on THAT list. Don't blame them about South Africans. Shifty bunch they are :)
#11 "So if you see SSSS printed or written on your boarding pass - get your 4th amendment undies out."
Hey, that's actually a really good idea. I am going to make myself a pair of those for the next time I travel in the USA.
Of course, I have fantasies of organizing an improv-everywhere style strip protest: a few hundred passengers show up simultaneously at security checkpoints around the country and start removing all their clothing and placing it in the bins. If questioned, they say "we heard it was the TSA's new policy".
#27: That would be fantastic, although I suspect the reaction would be similar to No Pants Day 2k6.
Actually, given that the TSA seems to recruit drop-out wannabe cops, and that happened with normal cops, just imagine what could go down...
#7 They already require ID to board greyhound buses, at least in the Northeast. They don't always check it, but if they decide to, they send you out of the line to talk to security staff...
#25 Yea, the other thing different about 1968 (or even 1998) is that you could get on a flight and be reasonably assured of there being an empty seat.
Funnily, I've actually suggested to friends running low on time that they use the "My wallet was stolen" routine to get through security faster at the airport. Of course, I didn't think about how much the security practices vary from aiport to airport - like removing my converse in Joplin, MO, but waived through at O'Hare with the same sneaks.
I actually did have my wallet go missing during a late dinner in San Francisco, and freaked out about not being able to fly home the next day. Then I called the airline and they said it was fine, just to explain to the boarding agent. Maybe they noted the lost wallet on my flight reservation, but the check-in agent in Oakland told me wallets go missing in San Fran all the time and just sent me to a special line for security. I was expecting it to be an ordeal, but it was easy. There were a total of 4 people in my line, as opposed to the hundreds waiting for the metal detectors. I was patted down and wanded, and then they looked thorough my carry-on after politely asking if they could do so and letting me watch what they did. Then I was on my way to the gate - it took about 5 minutes.
So I suggest that if you want to fly without ID, first call the airline with a plausible story about why you have no ID, then follow through at check-in.
Re: the easy-fly no-ID stories above..
Is there a bias toward women? It seems the ones who had no hassles were women, but I haven't re-read over the comments to make sure. Anyone?
I have actually started hiding my ID before I go to the airport just so that I can get through the line a little faster.
They usually whisk you aside give you the V.I.P. treatment. And by V.I.P. treatment I mean they touched me in my little boy places. Not complaing just sayin.
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They may be using a system called Verid from a company called RSS. I agree that someone who's done their research will get through easily, but there are times when people have a hell of time remembering their own info, since it draws on on 30 years of public records.
There are also problems with the questions sometimes, like asking, "In which of the following years did you live in this town?" and the correct answer is all of them, but you aren't given that choice.
See also: TSA Blog: "Furthering the Dialogue on IDs" (TSA's Chief Counsel Francine Kerner comments on airport ID policy as followup to TSA's answers to blog readers' top ten questions)
I'm certainly no fan of the TSA nor of unnecessary 'security' measures, but where I'm from you haven't been able to fly without ID since, well, the seventies.
Requiring ID to fly makes sense to me. The absurd ban on liquids, on the other hand, is just plain stupid.
I was able to fly through O'Hare without any identification or verification whatsoever just a few years ago.
I did have to go through a few extra screening routines (the worst was a pat-down, but I didn't feel as violated as I'd thought I would).