Snarky TSA blogger answers all your stupid questions about the new ID requirement

Filed under: Activism, United States, Airports

Grant reported a couple weeks ago on the TSA's new ID requirement for airline passengers. In case you missed it, last week the snark-tastic security whiz named Christopher over at the TSA's Evolution of Security blog (sort of) answered your questions about the new rule. Here are some highlights from the Q&A:

Q: So it only took 48 hours before the first reported instance of a question about political affiliation being required [to verify identitiy after a passenger forget his ID]. I'll make two predictions: 1) The TSA employees who did this will never be reprimanded in any serious manner; the worst thing they will face will be some additional "training".

A. Nostranonymous, I think Kip [Hawley, TSA's head honcho] was pretty clear when he wrote, "It's unequivocally not our policy to use political, religious, or other sensitive personal topics as identity validation. If it happened, it was wrong and will not be repeated."

The person that did this made a mistake and has been corrected. Hope you never make a mistake at your job.

[The person has been corrected? If that's not accountability, what is? Also, "hope you never make a mistake at your job"? What the hell kind of a statement is that? If an employee in any other job responded in such a flippant way to a customer complaint, you can be sure he'd be "corrected" by his boss real quick.]

Q: If requiring ID is truly instrumental in keeping the flying public safe, why did it take the TSA until June of 2008 to institute that policy?

A: Good question. We've been increasing layers of security for years and now that TSA officers check documents at every airport in the country, we've effectively moved the issue and are trying to address this threat.

[Wait, what? What does that mean?]

Q: ONCE AGAIN, I CHALLENGE THE TSA TO PROVE THE TWO SECTIONS OF 1540 THAT THEY CITE (§ 1540.107 & § 1540.105 (a)(2) ) GIVE THEM ANY AUTHORITY OR RIGHT TO DEMAND AN ID AS A CONDITION OF ACCESS TO A STERILE AREA .

A. MY VOICE IS GETTING TIRED FROM SCREAMING. Our attorneys interpret ATSA as saying we can do this, we think it's important so we're doing this. I'm not an Internet-based attorney but I probably could play one on TV.

[Oh, your attorneys said it was ok? I'm sure it's fine then.]

The voluminous comments, as you might expect, are even more entertaining. More on that later.

 

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