TSA to charge $18 fee for travelers without Real ID or passport
Mood
informative
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negative
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news
Key topics
Travel
Security
Government
Regulation
Identification
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Nov 22, 2025 at 6:16 PM EST
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Nov 22, 2025 at 8:26 PM EST
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And go read the 4th amendment, with the understand that no one who signed it thought anything in the constitution authorizes any part of the federal government to ignore the absolutist language the bill of rights is written in. The assumption was that if there arose a need to justify the federal government searching people like this it needed a super majority to pass an amendment to fix it.
The majority of travelers are ID-compliant — around 94 percent, according to the TSA.
What are the annoying steps others have faced?
Added: I think Real ID may also require your license to show your residence address (mine only has my mailing address). California's DMV collects residence addresses but treats them as confidential, ever since actress Rebecca Schaefer got murdered by a stalker who got her address from the DMV. There is a separate space on the application form where you can write the address you want them to print on your license.
It's a rollout practically designed for noncompliance.
The good thing is I have many ids that can be used in lieu of REAL ID: - Passport card - Passport - Global entry card
So I will probably never get a REAL ID until California does away with non-REAL ID ids.
Getting a real id requires you to bring in paperwork that doesn't exist for me anymore. They want a utility bill? I do everything paperless. I am unable to get a real id because of their ridiculous "proof" requirements.
It's not about identifying people. I have a passport and can show that to them. I have a global entry card. Both qualify as a substitute for a real id. But I cannot use the global entry card as a form of proof of identity. No, please bring a landline telephone bill to us.
It's just another humiliation ritual.
They accept printed pdfs over even a pdf on your phone.
As a US citizen I "just" needed to present my birth certificate and Social Security card to the DMV along with my "normal" license, and a print-out of a paystub from my employer online (that they didn't even look at).
Of course, the second factor is "going to the DMV", which depending on area can either be an all-day hellscape, or if you're rural, five minutes in and out.
They told me bills needed to be physically postmarked, not printed, so what I brought didn't count. The problem was I had gone digital/paperless, so I hardly ever received physical bills in the mail.
I eventually had to switch two of them to paper billing, wait a month or two, get the bill, and then use that before switching back, then go back to the DMV. It was really annoying.
This totally makes sense.
The amount of effort it takes for a TSA agent (granted, this is mostly entirely fabricated effort, this seems like a more solved problem, but I digress) to verify my identity the few times this had happened is well worth $18.
It’s not a quick phone call to an external agency and you rattle off your social; it’s a whole shebang.
“Did you live at x? Who else lived at that address with you?” “What was your sisters last address before her current” “What was the second address you lived at in [city]”
To be entirely honest, the whole thing was super entertaining. I think part of it was just it made me feel like some super spy.
Anyway - good on them for charging a few bucks. Don’t forget your ID or get your ID updated.
(Sidenote: this line of questioning wasn’t this interesting every time. Sometimes it is more like a one and done question, but I am at my most impressed with TSA when it seems like they actually do give a fuck, and the times it’s been an in-depth line of questioning has stuck with me)
In Europe I don't need to show ID for flights inside the Schengen Area. You go through security, they check your luggage and it's done.
There is no legitimate reason for the government to identify you on a domestic flight
> In Europe I don't need to show ID for flights inside the Schengen Area.
What countries are you traveling between?
I've flown at least a dozen times between Portugal and Spain or France the past few years and they've checked my ID in both directions each time.
It's also required to at least carry ID (presumably because it may be checked): https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/eu-c...
"As an EU national, you have the right to travel freely in the 27 EU member countries as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland (non-EU countries but members of the Schengen area) carrying either a valid passport or a national identity card (ID card)."
Also, most of these countries demand that you have an ID with you at all times outside. Yeah I don't do it either, because where I live is full of pickpockets and a new ID card means travelling for hours to the capital and paying 180€. I'm from Holland and they don't support their citizens abroad well. They even closed all the consulates to save money. But if you're a business owner they still have a contact in every city. Stupid neoliberals.
But that was the Airline and not the Government I suppose.
The French illegally checked everyone passports on Arrival when I Flew to Corsica once, but I don't expect much from them with all their "Plan Vigipirate" Bullshit which is also just about reducing freedom under the guise of "Protection against Terrorism".
Also Germany isn't much better right now with their also illegal border controls.
Right-Wing-Populism destroys many nice things
>It's also required to at least carry ID (presumably because it may be checked)
That's true, but for Schengen Flights you don't have to go through a government passport control like you have to do for international flights
Really? I fly between Schengen countries multiple times a year. I don't remember one where I wasn't required to show my ID at both check-in and then gates. There are even ID scanners at the gates.
Driving licence doesn't count as ID either. It's either passport or official government ID card.
The only time they ask for ID at the Check-In-Counter, is when you have checked luggage.
They ask you to show it no matter if you have checked luggage or not. Your can online check-in but then you need to provide your ID info online.
The point is you're not getting a boarding pass without an ID and then you're not getting through security without a boarding pass and then most likely you're not getting on the plane without both.
>>but this is done on behalf of the company, not the government.
It's true. Is it an important distinction though? Government knows who is flying anyway as proved by multiple arrests on arrival in European airports.
See https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/panorama/fliegen-...
Maybe we're moving checkpoints instead of goalposts.
"The manifest is required by law"
"We can't just put your possibly-fake name on the manifest because then we'd be committing a crime"
Combinations of other rules probably effectively require it, even if nonsensical.
The federal government passed it along with the authoritarian wishlists various agencies had been salivating over for 40+ years and unable to get passed, until under the guise of saving us from the 'terrorists', who now 25 years later, turned out the actual terrorists were probably just domestic authoritarians. The guys living in caves weren't really a threat and could be dealt with, without passing a bunch of stuff to affect every single citizen of the country.
But asking people to show ID to vote is racist, right?
There's nothing about the process of obtaining a "real id" that makes sense.
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