TSA threatens to stop accepting driver’s licenses from nine states as of Jan 10 by Cory Doctorow.
Cory reports that extensions to the 2005 Real ID act are due to expire on January 10, 2016. States/territories facing consequences include “Alaska, California, Illinoois, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Washington (as well as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.”
At issue is whether the TSA must accept your state driver’s license as legitimate identification.
Just checking the passenger traffic numbers for California’s two largest airports and one in Illinois, I found:
Los Angeles International – 68,491,451 passengers (Jan-Nov. 2015)
San Francisco International – 41,906,798 passengers (Jan-Oct. 2015)
Chicago O’Hare – 70,823,493 passengers (Jan-Nov. 2015)
I’m not an air travel analyst but 181,221,742 million customers must represent a substantial amount of airline revenue.
At these three airports alone, the TSA is conspiring to inconvenient, delay and harass that group of 181,221,742 million paying customers.
If I had that many customers, threatened by the Not-1-Terrorist-Caught TSA, I would be using face time with House/Senate members to head off this PR nightmare.
If I had a driver’s license from any of these states, that is all that I would take to the airport.
Remember the Stasi fell because people simply stopped obeying.
Maybe this overreaching by the TSA will be its downfall. Ending literally $Billions in lost productive time, groping of women and children, and passengers being humiliated in numerous ways.
It’s time to call the TSA to heel. Leave your passport at home.
It’s a “best practice” for citizens who want to live in a free country.