Originally published at: Lost or forgot your ID on the day you have to fly? Watch this TSA staffer's video on what to do | Boing Boing
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Rule #1: Don’t lose your ID
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I remember back in the 80’s “papers please” was something said to mock the USSR’s lack of “freedoms”.
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Bring a urine sample. Just to prove it’s you.
“Take a whiff. See, that is my own unique urine scent. 23% Mt Dew by volume.”
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I’ve got ya beat on lost-ID stories. The night before a trip to Mexico, I couldn’t find my passport. I tore apart the house looking for it and was just about to give up and cancel the trip. Finally my spouse suggested calling the airport. Almost unbelievably, I had dropped my passport months earlier, at the same airport (MCI), on the return from a previous trip – and they were holding it for me. We had to go early to the airport and visit the lower part of the tower itself, but I got it and was on my way.
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Rule #2: If you lose your ID on your way to the airport, turn around and go home. you are hanging up the rest of us, and we have places to be.
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You will be taken aside and won’t slow anyone down except those in your party.
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just making a joke, chuck
You’ve actually tried that?
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Are you sure? Is there some test we can run to verify that?
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Tried Mt Dew or urine?
I used to be 52% Mt Dew by weight, but I am down to just one can a day.
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My sister-in-law’s purse was stolen while she and my sister were visiting me, the day before their flight home. She got the CA DMV to email her a printout of her driver’s license information and she took that and a copy of the police report to the airport. Everything else he suggests you bring was, of course, in the stolen purse.
We were all pretty anxious about it but she made it through security just fine.
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My husband somehow left his driver’s license at home on the day of our flight out a few years back. Not only was he able to process through via the posted procedure anyway, he beat me through security despite my going by the normal routine. We’ve considered forgetting our creds more often when flying.
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Going to get real when the realID requirements finally start getting enforced.
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I’ve known about this though thankfully i’ve never lost my ID prior to flying. Still it’s useful info to have handy
Is this only for domestic flights? I’d imagine it would be difficult to enter some countries without i.d. or a passport.
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This just shows the absolute stupidity of the TSA. A picture of your license on your phone with all the info there they can look up that includes your photo is useless, but a credit card that could be anyone’s with no photo ID is usable. It’s like the policy creators, can’t think as well as three year olds. And fraud is not a factor. Creating a fraudulent Drivers license that has real info that can be used to look up the database and taking a picture, is way harder than a fake credit card.
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Pre-9/11, airlines checked IDs on domestic flights solely to prevent a revenue-sapping secondary market for their tickets. It prevented you from dodging their change/cancellation fees by selling your ticket to someone else.
But to the general public, it looked like a security measure, so TSA doubled-down on it as a showy part of their post-9/11 security theater. And they’ll happily let you bypass it, if you’re “cooperative” and play along with their ritualized penance ceremony.
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this is absolutely correct.
i lost my wallet before a flight several years ago (although a few years after 9/11), and did some research on what i had to do to board… i stumbled upon a whole group of people who routinely fly without identification strictly as a form of civil disobedience. turns out the TSA really has no legal authority to prevent you from flying without identification – as the purchaser of a ticket we have a legal right to board. (but we as a society have more or less agreed to cede the TSA the power to throw us out of an airport, so most of us wouldn’t want to gamble on not getting to our destination.)
that said – i took a total of four flights without my ID (a round trip with one connecting flight each way), and i have to say: those four flights were the absolute easiest and quickest encounters with the TSA i’ve had in 20 years. granted, i did have to bring my birth certificate, but once i’d alerted a TSA staffer (before i even waited in line) that i didn’t have my license, they got on their walky-talky, had me bypass the security line altogether, and quickly gave me a patdown and looked in my carryon – and that was it. (altogether, i probably saved a good 20 minutes in line each way.) not sure i’d want to rely on that as my usual airport routine, but it’s not a terrible alternative.
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I vaguely remember a politician flying without ID out of solidarity through SFO probably a decade ago. A few years later TSA cracked down on flying without ID.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/19/flying.id/
This article talks about John Gilmore refusing to show ID in 2002. As of 2008, you cannot fly if you “willfully refuse” to show ID. I’m sure after RealID is required things will get locked down even more.
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