If you have some time on your hands ... go to an airport and try to get on a plane without showing ID. They aren't supposed to arrest you for trying this ...

Well, as an aside, I can report that I recently traveled with an unlaminated, black-and-white laser-printed-on-ordinary-card-stock "temporary" ID (issued by the Registry of Motor Vehicles) and I had no trouble. No one looked at this ordinary piece of card stock and decided to go run it through a database.

Can you fly without ID? According to what the government told the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Gilmore case, you can – you need only submit to secondary screening in order to fly anonymously.

I seriously doubt this is true in practice. As I boarded a flight in February, I sat down across the aisle from a couple who were explaining that their traveling companions were unable to accompany them on that flight because one of them had forgotten his identification card at home that morning. While I was not an eyewitness to the negotiation with TSA, I can confidently conclude that the TSA agent in authority that day did not offer to subject him to a secondary screening in lieu of the ID requirement, because missing this first flight was going to cause him to miss an international connecting flight later that day. I don't know how emphatically the would-be traveler pleaded, "Isn't there something you can do?", but he was probably not aware of the 9th circuit's decision in the Gilmore case.

Decius wrote:

Can you fly without ID? According to what the government told the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Gilmore case, you can – you need only submit to secondary screening in order to fly anonymously.

Please try doing some or all of your travel by declining to show ID and report back about what happens to you.

If you have some time on your hands and some big ass balls in your pants there is a significant legal issue here you can contribute to. All you have to do is go to an airport and try to get on a plane without showing ID. They aren't supposed to arrest you for trying this...

You ought to be able to travel freely without identifying yourself to the government. Totalitarian regimes have used secret laws in the past to control the free association of people. I'm sure that these travel restrictions were limited to the necessary protection of the national security interests of their respective states. Subversive people associating with eachother is a national security issue. We presently have a secret list of subversive people who are prohibited from flying and an ID requirement for flight. Is this list being abused? Who is on the list? Why are people put on the list? Almost nobody knows.

The 9th circuit is saying that its really not a problem because there really is no ID requirement and you can just get on planes so long as you are willing to allow them to search you for weapons. I had no idea! I'll bet TSA's agents don't know this either.

TSA cannot sit in court and say you don't need an ID to fly, and then put signs all over airports saying that you do need ID to fly and refuse to let people fly without ID. They either need to defend their ID requirement in court or actually not have one.

If you can't get on a plane without showing ID, TSA is lying.

Anyone want to put some meat on this? Southwest flights are fairly cheap, and I've got an attorney friend or two who might be interested in coming along for a ride.