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 nasty
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
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
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
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
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.
Written by… unknown – just
remember Sec-Dec 96-5 - Paragraph 1, Section C and
you’ll be fine, not fined.