2005-11-28

IDs != Security

While travelling via airplanes during Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to show my ID 4 times, twice while checking baggage and twice while going through security. While a refusal to show ID in these cases would simply lead to me being denied boarding, one woman in Denver was arrested for failing to show her ID while travelling on a public bus through a federal complex.

Having to show your ID on demand to federal agents has nothing to do with security and everything to do with government control and interference. Airlines and the TSA have no right and no legitimate reasons for seeing our IDs, if their security does a good enough job they wouldn't be needed. Bombs do get through metal detectors and x-ray machines as many drills have shown. I'm sure that among the 19 hijackers on 9/11 at least one of them purchased a ticket using his own name and showed a valid ID matching that name at the check-in counter.

The government wants to know who is travelling and where they are, and are making greater attempts everyday to create a database of our movements; whether this is feasible is another matter. There are no mandatory roadside checkpoints at state borders yet but this is something that one can easily see being in store for us in the land of the free.

Is there anything you can do to stop this? Surely there is. If you are not going to be driving a car, do not carry ID on you. Refuse to show ID when asked if it will not hinder your activities too much (when travelling via airplane, there's no way to get around the requirement). Write your congressmen and tell them that you are concerned about your privacy, and that you do not wish your government to turn into this.