The federal government has ‘no fly’ and ‘enhanced screening’ lists, where they check the names of passengers and decide under what conditions someone is allowed to travel, if at all. It’s a form of pre-crime profiling where people have been added to the list by mistake, for revenge, or for any number of reasons that you aren’t allowed to know. The government claims it’s exempt from judicial review.
After the explosion of TWA flight 800, the requirement of an ID to fly became a policy. The National Security Council team was told to come up with some new airline security measures by the president.
The process is meaningless if people can change their names. In 2005 Congress made it harder to fake IDs. Rules requiring people to have a REAL ID have been thrown out. I said at the start of the Covid-19 epidemic that it would be a good excuse to delay it again because no one wanted to be hassled or refused entry during a presidential election. They decided to push it out to March 3, 2023.
I roll my eyes whenever I see signs at the airport that say the deadline is close, because why should I believe it now? It was pushed out again on May 7, 2025. Is it possible that they're blaming Covid?
The extension is necessary, in part, to address the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ability to obtain a REAL ID driver’s license or identification card. REAL ID progress over the past two years has been significantly hindered by state driver’s licensing agencies having to work through the backlogs created by the pandemic. Many of these agencies took various steps in response to the pandemic including automatically extending the expiration dates of driver’s licenses and identification cards and shifting operations to appointment only.
A license must have a person's full legal name, signature, date of birth, gender, unique identifying number, home address, and front-facing photo.
A real ID compliant license has to be issued by a state.
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