----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Gentry To:
Undisclosed-Recipient:; Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 2:55 AM Subject:
Fw: How To Fly Without ID
How To Fly Without ID
It's
Easy If You Know How! In the last two years, everyone flying on a commercial
airline has stepped up to an airline's ticket counter and heard the agent
recite a familiar litany. The monologue goes, "has your bag been unattended;
have you accepted gifts from a stranger; can I see your identification
please?" The traveler docilely murmurs answers, and produces a driver's
license or some equivalent.
As a die-hard Constitutionalist, I believe
that we still have an absolute, unfettered, God-given right to travel from
point A to point B without permission from the state -- in the air, as well
as on land. This Nazi procedure of "your papers, please" has never been
appropriate for our country. I have had occasion to travel a good deal in the
last several months, and on those trips I decided to research and test this
issue about the necessity for producing identification. I have talked with
agents, and their supervisors, of several major airlines in cities across
America, and have gradually pieced together a rather complete picture of the
real legal situation regarding our right to travel.
Next, I tested this
finding with several airlines. When asked for identification, I produced only
my Sam's Club card, or my travel agent's ID card, or a Costco card. These are
all picture ID's, but they are privately issued, and do not even have a
signature on them. The airline agents just freaked out, and demanded to see
some state-issued ID. They routinely told me that "it was federal law!" The
government absolutely required me to cough up an "official" ID card, without
which the agent couldn't even THINK of letting me on the plane.
I told
the agents that I could not find any federal regulation mandating that type
of identification, and then asked them to cure my ignorance and please
cite the regulation. Now, at this point, individual airline agents have
reacted differently. Some called in their supervisor. Alaska Air employees
were the most gracious; Northwest agents were the worst -- they were rude,
belligerent and hostile brats. But they all folded, every time. A
particularly nasty Northwest employee marched me all the way back to the
electronic detection equipment, made me pass through it a second time, and
had the guard thoroughly search my carry-on bag. The same airline
agent-from-hell actually made rude and demeaning remarks to me as we trudged
back to the counter -- and then she let me on the plane.
Alaska Air was
much more reasonable -- the agent just issued my seat pass, and commented
that some people seem tenaciously to hold the thought that they have the
right to travel without producing government ID -- to which I
responded, "yes, amazing, isn't it -- and I'm one of them." In Seattle, an
agent said AS HE HANDED ME MY TICKET, "you know, if you don't show me any
government-issued ID, I can't let you board the plane." I replied, Yes, I
understand. But I didn't, and you are. With a smile, he just said, "have a
nice trip." So I have flown several times using only my meager privately
issued picture ID cards.
Every time I used this strategy, I noticed that
the agent put an orange sticker on my checked bags, and also on my seat pass
on the ticket. Several agents divulged that this is the policy they are
supposed to follow when a person does not show government ID. The bags simply
wait in the baggage room until the person presents the matching seat pass as
he/she actually boards the plane; then the bags go on board.
On my
next trip, I decided to push the envelope even further. When the Alaska Air
agent made the usual perfunctory request for identification, I put on my best
face, smiled sweetly, and said, "Gee, I'm so sorry, but I just don't have any
ID I could show you." To my speechless astonishment, the agent just said, "no
problem -- just fill out this simple form, and present it to the counter
at the airplane gate." I watched as the familiar orange sticker again went on
my bag. I repeated the same scenario with Horizon Air on another trip. I have
now flown twice without producing any identification
whatsoever.
Northwest was actually instrumental in advancing my education
about this issue. I was so aggravated by the insolent and hostile treatment
that their employee gave me, (hopefully former employee, after the blistering
letter I sent to the company president), that I demanded to see a supervisor
on the spot. I then demanded that he produce the relevant federal regulations
RIGHT NOW, or face personal liability for authorizing an unreasonable search
and seizure, dereliction of duty, fraud, conspiracy, civil rights deprivation
and any other legal buzz words I could think of at that moment which would
justify a lawsuit against him personally, as well as his employer. Like
everyone else, he couldn't show me any statute or regulations. He even
admitted that there are none.
However, he did produce a copy of Security
Directive 96-05, which the Federal Aviation Agency issued to all airlines in
August of 1996. Its wording is very instructive; it reads as
follows:
1. IDENTIFY THE PASSENGER -
A. ALL PASSENGERS WHO APPEAR
TO BE 18 YEARS OF AGE WILL PRESENT A GOVERNMENT ISSUED PICTURE ID, OR TWO
OTHER FORMS OF ID, AT LEAST ONE OF WHICH MUST BE ISSUED BY A GOVERNMENT
AUTHORITY.
B. THE AGENT MUST RECONCILE THE NAME ON THE ID AND THE NAME ON
THE TICKET -- EXCEPT AS NOTED BELOW.
C. IF THE PASSENGER CANNOT
PRODUCE IDENTIFICATION, OR IT CANNOT BE RECONCILED TO MATCH THE TICKET, THE
PASSENGER BECOMES A "SELECTEE." CLEAR ALL OF THEIR LUGGAGE AS NOTED IN
SECTION 6, BELOW.
6. CLEAR SELECTEE'S CHECKED AND CARRY-ON LUGGAGE, AND
SUSPICIOUS ARTICLES DISCOVERED BY THE QUESTIONS ASKED;
A. IF THE
SELECTEE IS ON A FLIGHT WITHIN THE 48 CONTINENTAL US STATES, OR TO MEXICO, OR
TO CANADA, ITEMS CAN BE CLEARED BY EITHER OF THE FOLLOWING METHODS:
1.
EMPTY THE LUGGAGE OR ITEM AND PHYSICALLY SEARCH ITS CONTENTS BY A
QUALIFIED SCREENER, OR;
2. BAG-MATCH -- ENSURE THE BAG IS NOT
TRANSPORTED ON THE AIRCRAFT IF THE PASSENGER DOES NOT BOARD.
B. IF THE
SELECTEE IS ON AN INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT -- CHECKED LUGGAGE, CARRY-ON LUGGAGE,
AND SUSPECT ITEMS CAN BE CLEARED ONLY BY THE FOLLOWING METHOD; EMPTY THE
LUGGAGE OR ITEM AND PHYSICALLY SEARCH ITS CONTENTS BY QUALIFIED
SCREENERS.
This document apparently goes on for ten more pages; the
Northwest supervisor gave me only the first page, which contains the
information printed above.
The next time I refused to produce ID and the
agent freaked, I told her, "just tap up Sec-Dec 96-5 on your computer, and go
to Paragraph 1, Section C. Designate me as a 'selectee,' and proceed
accordingly. She apparently thought I was an FAA undercover employee, because
she said that she was "tired of you federal guys coming around" and literally
spying on airline agents, "coercing us into lying to people, and essentially
being the 'bag man' for an activity which has no legal requirement." I told
her that I could not agree more.
Another airline employee later confirmed
that FAA agents often engage in such entrapment activities, to make sure that
airline agents parrot the government party line about state-issued ID. I also
hit pay dirt in a discussion with another, much nicer Northwest agent on the
East coast. In a candid conversation, he told me that FAA personnel had held
training sessions with all airline agents in the fall of 1996. Agents were
informed directly by the FAA that they absolutely could not bar an American
citizen from boarding a plane, even if a passenger refused to produce any
identification at all! I understand Delta Airline is facing two large
lawsuits because employees twice denied this reality, and actually twice kept
off a plane a passenger who had only private ID to show. Anyone want to own
an airline, courtesy of a judge? I have personally flown Delta with only a
private travel card, so I guess they already had their hand
slapped.
Yet another agent in the Midwest admitted that airline personnel
were deliberately and knowingly coercing people into showing government ID by
saying "it's the law." According to him the reality is that the companies are
simply tired of people selling their frequent-flyer tickets. The airlines
wanted to stem this practice by checking everyone's ID, but knew there would
be BIG problems if they instituted this procedure as a private corporate
policy. It was so much more convenient to say it was federal law and make the
government the scapegoat. So this policy meets the airlines' private
financial goals, and the government's goal of ever-increasing social
control.
If no one complains or asserts their rights regarding travel,
then another freedom is "poof" gone. Our children watch this happen, and grow
up thinking that the state has both the right to define our identity by
issuing documents saying who we are, and also the right to require us to
produce them on demand.