Freedom To Travel – Papers, Please!

Apr 22 2025

REAL-ID FAQ: What will happen at US airports on May 7, 2025?

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that it will begin “implementation of its REAL ID enforcement measures at TSA checkpoints nationwide” on May 7, 2025.

What does this mean if you want to fly but don’t have any of the types of ID that the TSA deems compliant with the REAL-ID Act (including a US or foreign passport, a US passport card, a Canadian provincial driver’s license, or a US driver’s license or state ID with a REAL-ID gold star in the upper right corner or that is marked as an “Enhanced Drivers License”)?

The key thing to know is that — unless the TSA makes undisclosed changes to its procedures — air travelers with “noncompliant” ID on or after May 7, 2025, should be treated, and should be allowed to fly, the same way people with no ID fly today.

We can’t predict with certainty what the TSA will do on May 7th, because:

The TSA has been violating the law for years with its ID procedures at airports, including through illegal demands for ID, illegal demands for information, and illegal use of an unapproved ID verification form.
No laws or regulations prescribe the TSA’s checkpoint procedures, including ID checks. The law says only that airline passengers must “submit” to “screening”, without defining either of those terms. Courts have defined “screening” as “search”, with not indication that this includes questioning about, or evidence of, identity.
The TSA has claimed that its internal “Standard Operating Procedures” (SOPs) for ID checks, before or after May 7, 2025, aren’t binding on the TSA, create no legal rights for airline passengers, and can be secretly changed at any time.
The SOPs purport to grant discretion to TSA staff at each airport to decide who to allow, and who not to allow, to exercise their right to airline travel by common carrier, for any or no reason, regardless of what if any ID travelers show.
The TSA has purported to grant itself the authority to change even its published “rules” at any time, without notice, merely by posting new non-rules on its website. It hasn’t done so yet, nor has it published any of the other notices in the Federal Register that would be required by the Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act to establish a “graduated enforcement” scheme. The New York Times reported on April 9th that “a T.S.A. spokesperson said on Friday that the agency had decided that the phased approach was not necessary and that full enforcement would begin on May 7”, but that decision could be reversed at any time, before or after May 7th.
The Trump 2.0 Administration in general and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in particular have been changing and sometimes reversing their directives in many other areas, without warning and with little or no basis in law or overall policy, and could do the same with directives to the TSA.

With these uncertainties in mind, what can we say about what will be required and will happen at airports on May 7th?

Does the law require you to have ID to fly?

No.

The TSA itself has stated repeatedly in court, under oath, in litigation in which The Identity Project and individuals we support have been involved, that no Federal law or regulation requires airline passengers to have, carry, or show any ID.

See e.g. State of New Mexico v. Phillip Mocek, in which a TSA witness testified that, “It [flying without ID] happens all the time. We have a procedure for that”, and Gilmore v. Gonzales, in which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found, based on the TSA’s own submissions to the court, that, “Gilmore had a meaningful choice. He could have presented identification, submitted to a search, or left the airport. That he chose the latter does not detract from the fact that he could have boarded the airplane had he chosen one of the other two options.”

People fly without ID every day, openly and legally.

Years-delayed responses by the TSA to our Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests show that, as of 2016, almost 2,000 people a day were allowed through TSA checkpoints at airports nationwide with no ID or with ID that was deemed “unacceptable”. TSA incident logs released in response to our FOIA requests show that 98% of travelers who showed up at airports with no ID or with “unacceptable” ID were allowed to fly after undergoing additional questioning and/or more intrusive searches and groping (“screening”).

Will the REAL-ID Act require you to have ID to fly on or after May 7, 2025?

No.

The REAL-ID Act governs which IDs can be accepted by Federal agencies such as the TSA in circumstances where ID is required. It doesn’t create any new requirements to have, carry, or show any ID in circumstances — such as airline travel — where ID is not required by some other law.

According to the latest TSA statement on April 11, 2025:

Passengers who present a state-issued identification that is not REAL ID compliant and who do not have another acceptable alternative (e.g., passport) can expect to face delays, additional screening and the possibility of not being permitted into the security checkpoint…. TSA … will continue with additional screening measures for those without a REAL ID until it is no longer considered a security vulnerability.

This doesn’t say that individuals without REAL-ID, or without any ID, will be prevented from flying. All it says is that these individuals will be subjected to “additional screening” (which of course may occasion delay) and the “possibility” of not being permitted into the checkpoint (i.e. if they don’t agree to submit to additional searches).

What will happen if you show up at the airport on or after May 7, 2025, with “noncompliant” state-issued ID?

So far as we can tell, airline passengers who show up at TSA checkpoints on or after May 7, 2025, with noncompliant ID or no ID will be treated the same way travelers with “unacceptable” ID (expired IDs, student IDs, IDs issued by private employers, etc.) or no ID at all (lost or stolen or forgotten or just don’t have ID) are treated now.

What is the TSA’s standard procedure for people with no ID or “unacceptable” ID?

We don’t have up-to-date, unredacted versions of the TSA’s instructions to checkpoint staff at airports. But based on previously-released versions of the TSA’s Standard Operating Procedures(SOPs) for Travel Document and ID Checks and for the TSA’s ID Verification Call Center (IVCC), TSA testimony and pleading in court cases, TSA ID verification logs and incident reports released in response to our FOIA requests, reports we’ve received from travelers without ID, and our own experiences, here’s what happens when a ticketed airline passenger shows up at a TSA checkpoint with no ID or “unacceptable” ID:

Apr 18 2025

No, the REAL-ID Act won’t stop “illegal aliens” from flying

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have planted a story with Fox News falsely claiming that enforcement of the REAL-ID Act of 2005 at airports will prevent “illegal aliens” from boarding domestic airline flights within the US:

In a memo exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, the [DHS] said part of the reason REAL ID will be enforced is to prevent those in the country illegally from flying – unless they are looking to self-deport on an international flight.

“Under Biden, illegal aliens used non-compliant IDs from sanctuary cities to board flights, but REAL ID’s higher security standards make it nearly impossible to forge legitimate documents, ensuring only verified travelers can fly,” the memo states….

“DHS and TSA are clear… illegal aliens will be barred from domestic flights, with one exception: illegal aliens self-deporting on international flights will be allowed to board without a REAL ID, encouraging their exit from the U.S.,” it states.

These DHS and TSA claims amplified by Fox News are false, in at least four respects:

First, as we reminded Maine state legislators at a hearing in Augusta earlier this week, the REAL-ID Act does not impose an ID requirement for air travel or authorize the TSA to prevent anyone from flying or traveling by any other common carrier on the basis of whether they have ID or “compliant” ID — regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. The TSA has said only that as of May 7th, 2025, as has been the case for years, airline passengers with no ID or ID the TSA deems “unacceptable” will be subject to delay for “additional screening” (more intrusive searches). If the TSA were to start refusing passage to airline ticket holders without ID, it would be acting illegally.

Second, city-issued IDs such as those discussed in the DHS memo are treated by the TSA as “unacceptable” ID. You can fly with a city ID, just like you can fly with no ID, after going through additional screening. Nothing in the REAL-ID Act will change that.

Third, the non-US citizens delayed and subjected to more intrusive searches because they don’t have ID documents compliant with the REAL-ID Act will consist disproportionately of asylum seekers lawfully entitled to remain in the US, not “illegal aliens”. Any passport issued by any foreign government is considered compliant with the REAL-ID Act. Most foreigners in the US, regardless of their immigration status, have foreign passports. The exceptions are stateless people, people who have been denied passports by their countries of citizenship (strong evidence in support of an asylum claim), and people whose passports have been stolen or confiscated in the course of travel to the US. All of these foreigners without foreign passports are more likely to be (lawful) asylum seekers than are other categories of non-US citizens present in the US with foreign passports.

Fourth, because foreigners in the US are far more likely to have passports than are US citizens, most of the burden of delay, extra searches of luggage, and extra groping of airline passengers without REAL-ID compliant documents will fall on US citizens without passports (which are not required for US citizens, especially within the US) or other documents the TSA deems “compliant” — not on any class of “aliens”.

The REAL-ID Act has nothing to do with aliens, legal or illegal. It’s primarily a measure to track and control US citizens traveling and going about our lives in our own country.

The TSA has tried to opt itself out of notice requirements for its ID rules. But we’re continuing to watch for clues to the TSA’s plan, if it has one. We’ll post an updated FAQ closer to the TSA’s current self-imposed deadline on what to expect at airports on May 7th.

Mar 31 2025

Senators propose to abolish the TSA

[Excerpt from the Abolish TSA Act of 2025]

Late last week Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) announced that they are introducing the Abolish TSA Act in Congress.

If enacted, the Abolish TSA Act would abolish the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), in its entirely. Within three years of enactment of this bill, responsibility for securing airline flights, and for the cost of doing so, would be returned to the airlines and whatever private contractors they might hire. Responsibility for oversight over aviation security would be returned to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as was the case before the creation of the TSA in 2002.

It should go without saying that if the new Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is targeting wasteful programs and agencies, the TSA and its security theater should be near the top of the list. DOGE doesn’t have the authority to abolish the TSA, but Congress does.

In and of itself, privatizing aviation security won’t necessarily do anything to improve protection for travelers’ rights. As part of a largely stalled pilot program in privatization of searches of airline passengers, checkpoints at San Francisco International Airport and a few other smaller airports have been operated by private contractors almost since the creation of the TSA. The private contractors at SFO are trained to carry out the same searches of travelers as TSA agents at other airports, with the same intrusiveness.

Although we are unaware of any court ruling on the authority of TSA contractors at SFO or other airports, the TSA appears to think that these contractors have both police powers and the same “qualified immunity” that the agency has claimed for its own staff.

The Abolish TSA Act wouldn’t just privatize airline security, though. It would also provide, as part of the ground rules for a three-year transition plan for privatization, that:

The plan may not include… any agency requirement or regulation compelling private contractors conducting airport security screening services to conduct warrantless searches and seizures.

The main activity of the TSA is, of course, conducting warrantless searches. So this clause of the Abolish TSA Act would imply a major change in practices at airports.

We’d prefer that the word “compelling” in this sentence of the bill be replaced with “authorizing”. As introduced, the Abolish TSA Act might leave wiggle room for airlines or their contractors to claim that, even if they aren’t compelled by the government to perform warrantless searches as though they were police, they are still authorized to do so.

At a minimum, though, prohibiting the Federal government from compelling airlines to subject their passengers to warrantless searches would allow airlines to choose not to do so, deprive them of the defense that “the government made me do it”, and remove any basis for a claim of police-like qualified immunity against charges of battery or false arrest.

As of this writing, the Abolish TSA Act has not yet been docketed. We’ll update this article when the bill is assigned a number.

Mar 12 2025

State Department puts “X” passport applicants in limbo

The US State Department is withholding passports from some US citizens, effectively denying them the ability to leave or return to the US, without any basis in law or regulations.

Multiple news outlets have reported that the State Department has ordered its staff in the US and abroad to “suspend” processing of all pending applications for new or renewal US passports or passport cards with an “X” gender marker.

A new page of the State Department’s website suggests that each of these passport applicants will (eventually) be notified that their application has been “suspended” and will remain “suspended” (i.e. that they won’t be issued a passport) unless and until they provide “certain documents and records to help us establish your biological sex”.

Feb 25 2025

“TSA must go away”

Thanks to a mutual fan, we were invited to speak about the work of the Identity Project with Alex Newman on the latest edition of The Liberty Report on Patriot.tv and Rumble.

We talked about current and long-term concerns including digital ID, the REAL-ID Act, how demands for ID enable surveillance and control and are being increasingly integrated into a global system of surveillance and control of our movements, and the importance of anonymous cash payment for protection against financial surveillance.

What can be done? We talked about the need for popular vigilance and popular resistance, but also about what the government could do:

If the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is really concerned about identifying unnecessary and ineffective government programs to cut, they could start with the TSA.

Members of Congress could do their part by reintroducing the Freedom To Travel Act and working to abolish the TSA.

Most importantly, though, we the people can continue to resist these attacks on our freedom.

Thnaks to Alex Newman and his crew for giving us a chance to bring these issues to his listeners and viewers.

Jan 28 2025

Surveillance as a service (SAAS)

[Infographic from WCC.]

Does SAAS stand for “software as a service” or “surveillance as a service”?

As we’ve reported previously, the UN Security Council and ICAO have illegally ordered all UN and ICAO members to create national agencies for surveillance of airline passengers and global sharing of airline reservations (PNR) and passenger manifest (API) data.

Through bilateral and multilateral efforts and the UN Countering Terrorist Travel program, the US and Dutch governments have made available ready-made software for creating and managing travel watchlists, blocklists, and profiling algorithms and rulesets.

These aren’t the only options, though, for national governments wanting or feeling pressured by the US, UN, and/or ICAO to get on the traveler profiling bandwagon.

Caitlin Chandler of Wired, in conjunction with Andrew Couts, Crofton Black, Ariadne Papagapitos, and Daniel Howden of the European nonprofit newsroom Lighthouse Reports, has a ground-breaking report putting the spotlight on four commercial providers of outsourced and privatized air travel surveillance, profiling, and control systems: Swiss-based SITA (an established joint venture formed by airlines to provide shared IT services) and Travizory, French-based Idemia, and Dutch-based WCC.

These are the companies that make presentations, lurk on the sidelines and in the booths, and negotiate public-private partnership agreements at the annual FTE Global trade show, ICAO’s annual TRIP symposium in Montreal, and similar regional events.

Each of these companies offers a turn-key solution, either user-installed or cloud-based, to governments that want to jump-start their air travel surveillance and control programs and “push their borders offshore”, as one of these vendors describes their service.

Another vendor quoted by Wired says that with their system and its interconnections, “Participating governments are then able to respond to the carrier … in real-time, authorizing or denying the boarding of each and every passenger.” These systems are also designed to interface with electronic travel authorization (departure permission) systems.

[SITA brochure on the “Exported Border”.]

Each of these systems supports drag-and-drop importing of watchlists and blocklists from other countries, creation and addition of entries to new watchlists and blocklists, and creation of new profiling and travel blocking algorithms and alerts. Each also allows government customers to enable the vendor’s preconfigured pre-crime and artificial unintelligence profiles and algorithms as part of their surveillance, blocking, and alert ruleset.

In interviews reported in Wired, these companies disclaim responsibility for how these tools are used by government customers or what rules customers add to their algorithms — a claim that is at best disingenuous, especially when government customers turn on pre-crime and AI profiling and scoring algorithms provided by the vendor as part of a black box.

It would be a mistake to focus too much on these surveillance-as-a-service providers, to the exclusion of the governments that have contracted and paid for their services. That governments and their commercial partners are illegally interfering with the right to freedom of movment, the right to leave any country, the right to travel by common carrier, and the right to asylum is more significant than the specific systems they are using to do so. But the report in Wired outing these companies and their role in travel surveillance and control is an important step. These vendors and their surveillance-as-a-service products, as well as the government agencies they work with, deserve continuing scrutiny and oversight from human rights activists and international human rights bodies alike.

Jan 20 2025

UK “Electronic Travel Authorization” sets a bad example

Effective January 8, 2025, the United Kingdom began requiring citizens of the USA and most other countries who previously could enter the UK without visas for short visits for tourism and some other purposes to obtain a so-called Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) as a new precondition for admission to the UK for those purposes.

The UK ETA is significant both in its own right and as a case study in what’s wrong with similar requirements and systems already in effect in other countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, and in preparation in many more countries including all members of the European Union.

The requirement for an ETA is intended for a pupose fundamentally contrary to international treaties on aviation and the rights of refugees, and has been implemented in ways that facilitate surveillance of ETA applicants and arbitrary control by a few private companies of who can and who can’t travel to the UK.

We hope the EU and other countries will learn from and avoid, not emulate, this bad example set by the UK.

The UK ETA system is not the first of its kind, but it’s the first that most US citizens, except those who have traveled to Australia, will encounter. US citizens don’t generally see what foreign citizens have to go through to enter the US, even as tourists or in transit. And US and Canadian citizens visiting each other’s countries are exempt from the electronic travel authorization requirements that their governments apply to visitors from other countries.

But while it may be a new experience for US citizens, the UK ETA is similar to what’s already required for most tourists and short-term business visitors to the USA, Canada, or Australia. And the UK ETA is similar to the system that the EU plans to roll out for citizens of the US, Canada, UK, and many other countries.

Australia pioneered this concept with its ETA system, beginning in 1996 (and modified several times since them). The USA launched its ESTA system, modeled on the Australian ETA, in 2009. Canada followed with its eTA system in 2016. Now the UK is rolling out its similar ETA system in 2025.

The EU EES and ETIAS schemes were planned to go into operation several years ago, sooner than the UK ETA, but have been postponed repeatedly. The most recent announcement by EU authorities is that EES — a system for collecting mug shots and fingerprints of visitors to the EU, as the US already does with visitors — will be launched sometime in 2025, and ETIAS — an electonic travel authorization like the US ESTA and the UK ETA — will go into effect six months after the EES launch. (The EU is also considering a related system for a “travel permission app” with problematic implications.)

Acronym soup and national variations aside, what’s an ETA? How do ETA requirements violate international law? What’s wrong with the way the UK has implemented its ETA program? Read More →

Jan 06 2025

Human Rights and “Countering Terrorist Travel”

In late 2023 the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights released perhaps the most significant independent assessment to date of the human rights implications of travel surveillance and control.

The Special Rapporteur’s report was released without publicity on the next-to-last day of the Special Rapporteur’s term. Aside from an article by Statewatch, it got little notice.

A year later, an update from Privacy International reminds us of the Special Rapporteur’s report and calls attention to how little its recommendations have been heeded — and how urgently important they remain.

The Special Rapporteur’s report provides both a call to action and an analysis of travel surveillance and control as a human rights issue.

The report by Special Rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and her staff reviewed the U.N. Countering Terrorist (CT) Travel Programme and the goTravel software being provided by the U.N. to its member states for them to use in monitoring and controlling travel worldwide on the basis of airline passenger manifest (API) and reservation (PNR) data.

This wasn’t the first time that the Special Rapporteur has addressed the use of API and PNR data for travel surveillnace and control. But it was the most detailed assessment by to date any of the U.N. human rights bodies of the system of travel surveillance and control based on airline reservations against the norms of international human rights law. The Special Rapporteur’s report addressed privacy — the focus of the recent follow-up by Privacy International — but also other human rights including, perhaps most importantly, the right to freedom of movement.

In the considered judgement of the Special Rapporteur as the holder of the relevant human rights mandate within the U.N. framework, this system fails the test of human rights law. “The roll-out of the system must be paused and an urgent review initiated”:

This position paper carries out an in-depth analysis of human rights implications and concerns associated with the CT Travel Programme and its promulgation of goTravel. The position paper demonstrates how UNOCT and its UN implementing partners appear to be failing to adequately mainstream human rights in the development of the underlying system for collection, use, and sharing of API/PNR data, and how the system which is now being rolled out internationally at pace, risks squarely contravening international law, particularly international human rights law, in multiple respects….

The CT Travel Programme’s API and PNR collection and sharing system was never designed with human rights in mind. It is marked by ad hoc thinking and the absence of rigorous analysis of how the technology and the international framework for data sharing it facilitates could be designed and operated in a manner which complies with relevant legal obligations, particularly international human rights law. The absence of that analysis has led to a situation in which the UN is now directly implicated in an approach to API and PNR data collection and sharing being rolled out globally which risks placing immensely powerful tools in the hands of States which may misuse them, intentionally or inadvertently, to jeopardize human rights, without any evidence of sufficient prior vetting, and without any practical or legal recourse to prevent or sanction such misuse….

The current UN approach to API and PNR data collection and sharing which is facilitated by the UNOCT and UN implementing partners in the CT Travel Programme and go Travel software platform represents a profound human rights risk and a serious reputational risk for the UN itself.

The Special Rapporteur’s report notes, with appropriately grave concern, that the U.N. itself has mandated — as we have reported — that the government of each U.N. member state must establish an airline passenger surveillance and control agency (“Passenger Information Unit”), compel airlines to provide the government with mirror copies of airline reservations (PNRs), and make that data available on request to all other U.N. members.

Dec 02 2024

DEA pays airline staff to target innocent travelers

In response to a scathing report by its Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the US Department of Justice has directed the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to suspend most of its suspicionless “consensual” questioning and searches of travelers at airports and in other transportation facilities, pending an internal review of these practices.

For years, DEA agents, sometimes in partnership with local law enforcement task forces, have been searching travelers in ways that make travelers think that they are being detained and are legally required to submit to searches and answer questions.

The OIG report stops short of calling for an end to these “consensual” searches and interrogations, but is pausing them indefinitely. According to the report, “the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) issued a memorandum directing the DEA to suspend the program until an assessment is completed, identified concerns addressed, and the DAG approves resumption of tbe program.”

Much of the OIG report concerns procedural and training issues. The DEA has failed to keep its previous promises (1) to train its agents on travelers’ rights before sending them into airports to stop, question, and interrogate travelers, without probable cause to suspect them of crimes, and (2) to keep records of these “consensual” encounters with travelers.

The lack of records makes it harder to tell whether DEA agents have been engaged in profiling on the basis of race or national origin.

The OIG also found that DEA agents didn’t wear body cameras. If you want a record of what happens, film the police yourself if you are stopped, questioned, or searched.

Even in the absence of demographic data about which travelers were stopped, searched, and questioned, or bodycam recording of these interactions, the OIG found evidence of continuing disregard for travelers’ rights:

[P]roceeding with such interdiction activities… creates substantial risks that DEA SAs [Special Agents] and TFOs [Task Force Officers] will conduct these activities improperly [and] impose unwarranted burdens on, and violate the legal rights of, innocent travelers.

The goal of these “consensual searches” is to find and seize cash, not drugs, from travelers. Rather than being based on suspicion of crimes, they are based on suspicion of carrying cash. Airline staff are given a cut of the seized cash to finger passengers to be stopped by DEA agents in the hope that they will “consent” to searches so that any cash that is found on their person or in their luggage can be seized: Read More →

Nov 04 2024

TSA launches smartphone-based digital ID scheme

Brushing off objections from the Identity Project and others, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has issued regulations creating the framework for an all-purpose smartphone-based national digital ID and tracking system.

The TSA’s new rules are piggybacked on the REAL-ID Act of 2005, and are ostensibly standards for what states will have to do to issue digital versions of driver’s licenses or ID cards that the TSA and other Federal agencies will accept for Federal purposes, in circumstances where ID is required by other Federal laws. This doesn’t include airline travel, for which no ID is legally required, although the TSA keeps lying about this.

The TSA’s new rules provide that acceptable digital IDs can only be issued to individuals who already have physical driver’s licenses or state-issued ID cards. And individuals are still required by standard state laws to “have their Physical Credential on their person while operating a motor vehicle”, even if they also have a digital ID on their smartphone. So this regulatory scheme isn’t really about driver’s licenses at all. It’s about pressuring states to move from uploading information about all their residents to a national ID database to putting a digital tracking app with a state-issued identifier on each resident’s smartphone.

We’ll have more to say in our next article about some of the ways this might be used for surveillance and control of individuals’ activities in the physical and online realms.

The TSA dismissed out of hand our suggestion that an individual could be provided with a digitally-signed file (signed by a government agency) containing the same information as is contained on a physical license or ID card. Such a file could be carried on any sort of device and presented over any sort of connection. Instead, the TSA’s new rules require that a digital ID must be “provisioned” through an app on a smartphone. The smartphone must be “bound” to an individual (how is this possible?) and must have bluetooth-low energy (BTE) radio connectivity enabled so that the app containing the digital ID can be remotely interrogated by the government (perhaps without the user’s knowledge).

How will this work? What else will these apps do? In what situations, and for what purposes, will these apps and digital IDs be required? We don’t really know.