March 24, 2006 | Ticket? Check. I.D.? Nope, but Not a Problem

It's now official.

You don't need identification to travel on an airplane.

Now, the signs in the airport still tell you that you must have identification.

The TSA's website itself states, "Each adult traveler needs to keep available his/her airline boarding pass and government-issued photo ID until exiting the security checkpoint."

Neither those signs nor the TSA's website are true.

Who says?

The TSA.

"Passengers are allowed to enter screening area without identification," TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told this humble reporter today.

I got an off-the-record reason for the untruthful statements in the nation's airports and on the website created with your tax dollars.

The on-the-record answer: "Customers should present government-issued I.D."

As far as I know, this is the first public acknowledgment that the government's official policy is to let people on planes without identification, that is attributed to a TSA employee (the fantastic Sarah Lai Stirland had an unattributed version here.)

The TSA has told the Ninth Circuit in two separate cases (John Gilmore & Daniel Kuualoha Aukai) that airport policy was to let people enter security areas without identification.

Gilmore's Identity Project has been asking for volunteers to see if that was true in ye olde meatspace.

Results, currently mixed. Dog-ate-my homework excuse with contrition gets you less hassle than a flat-out refusal seems to be the pattern, according to folks at the I.D. Project.

So, if you want to fly without identification without telling any white lies, I recommend taking a hearty amount of fortitude and a copy of at least one of the rulings from the Ninth Circuit.

You are likely in for a battle when the security personnel point to the sign and you try to tell them that your government is not actually telling the truth. And that it knows it isn't telling the truth. Good luck with that.

Technorati Tags: tsa, identity project, john gilmore, identification, privacy, i.d., airport security, homeland security

Posted by Ryan Singel at March 24, 2006 03:42 PM

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Tracked on March 26, 2006 06:14 PM