Back in March of 2014, I wrote about how the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) operates an extortion racket-style scheme via its PreCheck program that gives travelers who pay a fee and jump through a bunch of hoops including submitting to fingerprinting and a background check a chance, though no guarantee, that they can evade some harassment from the TSA itself. In the same vein, starting in February, TSA is planning to roll out a new tax and other demands, termed Confirm.ID, that will be required of individuals who do not have REAL ID compliant identification documentation in order for them to travel from point A or point B.
As reported Monday in an Associated Press article, a new 45 dollars fee (really a tax since it is charged by government) will be imposed by TSA on travelers who do not have REAL ID compliant identification documentation. The rollout of the United Sates government’s REAL ID mandate, authorized by congressional legislation 20 years ago, was delayed until last year due largely to opposition from people concerned about REAL ID’s threats to liberty. By paying the fee and complying with other TSA demands in its Confirm.ID process, the AP article relates, a person will be able to seek travel permission from TSA via an alternative method that may take up to half an hour to complete and, if successful, will result in approval for traveling for just 10 days. People have been concerned about the collection of biometric information coming with REAL ID. Confirm.ID may not provide a way around such requirements given that it has the collection of biometric information built into its process.
Americans already fund TSA with their tax dollars, including a “Passenger Fee” or “September 11 Security Fee” included in the total price of each airline flight ticket. But, the TSA, like many of its agents pilfering from travelers’ bags put in jeopardy by the TSA enforced “security” procedures, keeps gaining new means to separate Americans from their money.
The new tax and other demands on people traveling without REAL ID is adding insult to injury given that the push for people to obtain and use REAL ID was itself fueled by rejection of each individual’s right to travel. The new tax is also piled on top of already significant harassment that TSA routinely dispenses. I listed off some aspects of this harassment in a July article regarding Homeland Security Department Secretary Kristi Noem trying to gain some support from people fed up with TSA through announcing a minimal rollback of TSA bullying related to if people may keep their shoes on at checkpoints. I wrote:
Additionally, the TSA demanding passengers take off shoes has been just one small part of the harassment it metes out on travelers. Noem is leaving in place the rest — waits in line, demanded production of identification documentation in violation of the right to travel anonymously, zero privacy in regard to what is in bags or pockets, confiscation of nonthreatening though verboten items, subjection to potential harm from never properly safety tested “full-body scanners,” “pat downs” that are pretty much the same as friskings by police and that without special governmental protection would be regarded as assaults or sexual assaults, etc.
While the TSA’s new tax and demands on travelers who lack REAL ID compliant identification documentation is repugnant, so too is REAL ID, as was explained by then-United States House of Representatives Member Ron Paul (R-TX) on the House floor when REAL ID legislation passed twenty years ago. You can watch Paul’s speech here.
Neither REAL ID nor Confirm.ID is compatible with respect for liberty. They should be thrown away along with the TSA’s long list of harassment activities.
