Beginning Saturday, June 21, travelers like Kloiber who "willfully refuse" to show IDs won't be allowed through checkpoints or onto planes. Only passengers who show IDs, and "cooperative" passengers, who explain why their IDs are missing and help police confirm their identities, will get through.
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The right to free travel -- unencumbered by government officials demanding identity documents -- is "something that distinguishes ourselves from others not living in the free world," said Jim Harrison, an attorney who has fought document requirements.
"History will judge," Harrison said. "What's going on here is the TSA is incrementally chipping away at the freedoms that Americans have. And the freedoms that we're talking about are the fundamental right to travel, the freedom to be free of search without reasonable suspicion and your First Amendment freedoms to assemble and associate freely without government interference."
That's not the way TSA chief Hawley sees it. "To us, it's not a philosophical argument," he said. "There are people trying to do harm, take down planes, and we can't let them [exploit] a vulnerability."
