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| Sunday, June 18, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: VIN SUPRYNOWICZ Do we have to show a government ID?
A number of folks have written in seeking more details on the FAA security directive I've mentioned, which instructs airline employees to ask to see a government-issued ID from each passenger boarding a commercial aircraft -- but which also instructs airline employees they may not refuse to let you board for lack of such ID, since America still has no "mandatory internal passport."
It was the fine folks at Sovereign Citizens Against Numbering, operating the "Fight the Fingerprint" web page at www.networkusa.org/fingerprint.shtml, who sent me the article "Flying Without Identification," reprinted from the May 1997 edition of Robert Kelly's "The American's Bulletin" (P.O. Box 3096, Central Point, OR 97502).
Writing under the pseudonym Betsy Ross, the author, an Alaska physician, reports that Northwest Airlines "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 ... that I demanded to see a supervisor on the spot.
"I then demanded that he produce the relevant federal regulations RIGHT NOW. ...
"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:
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 if it cannot be reconciled to match the ticket, the passenger becomes a "selectee." Clear all of their luggage as noted in Section 6 below. Clear selectee's checked and carry-on luggage, and suspicious articles discovered by the questions asked.
The directive then explains procedures by which luggage may be "cleared" -- most of which in practice seem to involve placing matching orange stickers on boarding pass and baggage -- including: "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."
Ms. Ross writes: "This document apparently goes on for 10 or 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 an 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 I could not agree more. ...
"I also hit paydirt 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! ...
"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-flier tickets. ...
"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 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."
Meantime, a reader from Okemos, Mich., writes in that: "The pertinent security directive is now 97-01. It is worded pretty much the same. ... However, some airlines -- including USAirways, Continental, and Delta -- have made amendments to their 'Conditions of Contract,' which are incorporated by reference on your airline paper tickets. (These allow them) to refuse service to anyone who 'refuses to show identification.' "
And so, as Buckaroo Banzai used to say: Wherever you go, there you are.
Papers, please?
Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal, is the author of "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998." His column appears Sunday.
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