Back to Basics: Why You Have to Show ID AGAIN When You Go Through Security
November 19, 2008 by Mary Jo Manzanares
Filed under Air Travel, Back to Basics, Travel Tips
With the Thanksgiving Travel Season on the verge on launching, I thought it would be a good time to review some basic travel information.
One complaint that I hear is the people are forever having to show identification. When you check your bags, when you check in for your flight, when you’re queuing up in the security line, and then again after you pass through security.
Here’s what the TSA has to say about why all those ID checks are necessary:
I think it is annoying and a huge waste of time and money to have all these checks. When these absurd checks started even pilots could not have nail clippers on them. It is next to impossible to completely stop an intelligent, dedicated, suicidal terrorist. It is good that there are so few of them. I would rather not have all these stupid checks (shoes etc.) and just take my chances same as the rest of the time.
They still have not adequately answered why we have to show an ID. Who cares if the person next to me is Carrie Johnson as her ID says rather than Pixie Smith, her real name. The key is to ensure she is not carrying anything that she can use to blow up a plane. Forget highjacking–too many of us will fight her to make that worth it; she will have to blow up the plane. And I don’t think the TSA is able to check for exposives–they certainly don’t check much of the cargo that goes in the belly of your plane.