It may be many things, but I very much doubt the motivation is a money grab. A few people paying $45 isn't lining the pockets of some government official, or plugging a hole in any possible budget.
Dealing with the presence of travelers who haven't updated their driver's licenses requires a bunch of extra staff to perform the time-consuming additional verifications. The basic idea is for those staff to be paid by the people using them, rather than by taxpayers and air travelers more generally. As well as there being a small deterrent effect.
There is no legal requirement to show id or answer any questions to establish identification before flying. In other words there is no extra work required by law which the fee would cover.
The TSA is literally doing all this extra work though, whether or not you think it's required by law. They're not just pocketing the $45 and then blindly waving you ahead.
Let's be more precise. The TSA has created extra work for themselves, and are charging us for it, whether it's legally required or not (because they pretend that it is).
Sure. But it's not "pretend". It's genuine regulatory policy they've created because they believe it's necessary for security, and this has been a decades-long project. The article is arguing they don't ultimately have the legal authority to make that regulatory policy. Maybe that'll go to court and be tested, maybe they'll win and maybe they'll lose. If they lose, maybe Congress will pass explicit legislative authorization the next day, and maybe that'll be brought to court, and the Supreme Court will have to decide if it violates the 14th amendment or not. But it's not "fake work", it's actually doing a thing.
No, it's not "regulatory policy". It's been done entirely with some combination of secret "Security Directives" and "rulemaking by press release". As the article and the linked references explain, the TSA never issued any regulations, published any of the required notices, or obtained any of the approvals that would have been required even if Congress had passed an (unconstitutional) authorizing statute (which it didn't).
No. Policy or regulation would have a basis in law. This administration has aptly demonstrated their contempt for the law. Nobody gives a shit about some grunt federal employee getting extra work.
This is just a way to compel compliance and to push the agenda for ID with higher documentary requirements, ultimately to deny the vote.
As I mentioned[0] a few months ago after the TSA announced the $45 "fee":
And now the birds are coming home to roost. No real surprise there, IMHO.[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46128346
I mean I could hire someone to continuously dig and refill the a hole in the ground. That would certainly be them doing a thing, but it would also definitely be fake work. There's been plenty of rhetoric thrown around but no real evidence has been produced that suggests the TSA isn't engaging in a bit of circular digging at the taxpayer's expense with this.
Ah, digging holes and refilling them - that'd be literally the NREGA program in India
It's security theatre, someone has to pay the performers
Flying without ID just gets you the full patdown treatment. It’s not like they’re tracking down people to vouch for you.
I don't know what you mean by "full patdown treatment", but they're absolutely tracking down your information in databases and interviewing you about it. See replies to:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46864182
It's absolutely not just enhanced physical screening.
It's not just a patdown. They take you to a phone booth that has a direct line to some portion of the FBI IIRC, and they ask you a bunch of questions to confirm your identity. At least this is what happened to me about ten years ago when I lost my wallet in a different state and needed to fly home.
... and the law in most states requires only that you give your name and possibly your DOB to the authorities upon detainment. So as a purely academic exercise, what can they even do if you refuse to answer beyond that? Obviously in practice they will fuck with you or just straight up violate the constitution, but theoretically I'm unsure how they can continue to seize you after that.
...they don't let you fly.
They can't detain you (if you're not otherwise some kind of suspect, and you're not trying to assault them or sprint past security or anything), but they don't let you fly.
... if you aren't detained you are free to go. And if you are free to go, you are free to stay, unless the property owner has trespassed you. TSA doesn't own the airport, at least in my state. So how can they trespass you from the airport or otherwise continue to detain you from moving forward?
I mean, I know you're right, and I know you will always lose if you try, but I don't understand the legal basis.
You are free to leave. You aren't free to go wherever you want. You aren't free to go into the employee areas, or out onto the runway. If you don't clear security, you aren't allowed in the secure portion of the airport. Not allowing entry into an area is not "detaining you from moving forward".
If the government is requiring the property owner to submit to TSA, that's a public act and not a private one, which means it is bound by the bill of rights and most importantly the 4th 5th and maybe even 6th amendment. The government cannot punish you for exercising your rights by refusing you to move forward into the private place you could otherwise lawfully go. If you can't go to the employee area, that's because certain individuals are trespassed from going there from the private owner, not because the government is forcing it. If you can't go to the boarding area, because of the TSA by public act strong arming the property owner, that is not an act of the private owner, and if it's done because you refuse to answer questions it is a violation of your rights.
The ruse here is to pretend like the property owner is agreeing with TSA because TSA forced them to this agreement by government act. But that is just the government trying to have their cake and eat it by forcing someone to do something and then pretending it is a private act which isn't bound to the constitutional right to not have to answer additional questions.
What are you talking about?
The government can absolutely pass laws prohibiting you from entering a privately owned location. There is no constitutional right of access to private property.
And more specifically, the commerce clause of the constitution allows the government to regulate air travel, which means regulating airports. The fact that they're privately owned doesn't change anything. If a private airport owner allowed you to proceed through security, they'd be breaking the law.
There's no public access doctrine for airports the way there is for streets or parks.
You clear seem to wish it was otherwise. But it's easy to do the research to understand where the authority comes from and why it's entirely constitutional.
Constitutional right of access, which as you say doesn't exist, isn't the same as allowing access but conditioning it upon you relinquishing your bill of rights.
If the difference between access and not having access is relinquishing your civil rights, then the reason for denial is exercising your civil rights. Those are explicitly protected. So while you're right they could make a law that says 'no one on the plane' they cannot make a law that says "everyone on the plane except those who won't give up their 4th or 5th amendment rights not to answer additional questions."
There have been prior SCOTUS cases narrowly allowing asking name, DOB, addresses, as well as inspection of your items during certain inspections, but this is something entirely different beyond that asking further probing questions about your identity.
And that brings us back to the tagline of the article:
The TSA is violating the law, and the constitution, and making it up as they go.Just wait until you find out how the feds enacted the 55mph speed limit or are using the threat of revoking Medicare funding for hospitals that perform certain medical procedures that the feds would like to have not happen...
Presumably the airport or airline has agreed to (or would agree if asked to) have TSA decide whether you are “free to go that way, towards the airplanes”.
You are already free to go that other way (towards the street), but not necessarily free to go the way you want.
I don't think it's a matter of whether or not you are free to go. It's a matter of whether they let you on the plane.
It's just federal law.
Cities don't own restaurants either but can fine them and close them if health inspections fail, because there's a law for that.
The legal basis is the federal laws written specifically around airport security.
I think the question here is, which laws?
LMGTFY: Aviation and Transportation Security Act
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-107publ71/html/PLAW...
The confusion in this thread shows me that even here, no one understands even the question, let alone the answer.
As far as I can tell, a person is free to go if they refuse screening: They won't be getting on a flight, but they can just leave. There's no detainment involved in this process.
Whether they can then elect to stay is a different matter, I think.
But so what? How long would a person have to stand in a screening area before someone who properly represents the ownership of that space shows up and authoritatively tells them to GTFO, do you suppose?
at least, hold or delay you long enough to make you miss your flight.
Like someone who would deliberately show up to work in a speedo because "show me where in the employee handbook it says I must wear pants"
A better analogy would be a legally protected right to show up to work dressed in street clothes, your boss imposes an illegal requirement to wear a specific uniform, and then attempts to charge you if you show up without one.
Is this the case, I didn't see it in the article.
If they have to perform extra work then I'd say it's justified. If it's just a punishment for not getting a real ID I'm not sure if that's fair
$45 x millions of people (some multiple times) = an incredibly consequential amount of money
It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID. In the context of airport security budgets, it's not that much. And it's used for hiring the additional staff required and putting together the identity verification systems they use.
> It's not millions of people, most people get Real ID
Those that did had to pay $30-$60 plus fees (actual cost differs by state) to get one and will have to pay that again and again each renewal. This is certainly making money somewhere for somebody and not at all about security
What states do you have to pay for your Real ID every time? Yes, you have to pay to renew your license or photo ID, but the Real ID fee in my state (PA) is one-time. Renewal costs are the same whether it's a Real ID or not.
WA state it is an extra $56 every time you renew for Real ID
California would be one, because they issue Real IDs to non-citizens that are tied to their documentation, which needs to be reviewed each time.
to add, fee for Real ID marker on Limited Term license covers 5 years, so if one gets lets say a license for 2 years (& had to pay for 5 years), the next renewals/updates within those 5 years are free.
“Most” people can have it and there’d still be millions (tens of millions, even over 100mill) of people who don’t. Multiple states don’t even require it. That guarantees several million people right there.
I think New York is one, so well over 10mill people don’t require it. Do you seriously think most of those people are getting one anyway? Guarantee you there are millions of people without it if not tens of millions. I’d put money on it.
So back to the point, we’re talking likely 100’s of millions of dollars. That is nothing to sneeze at. The TSA is an $11bill operation based on a quick search. $500mill (~11mill people) would be 5% of their annual budget.
America only has 340 million people to begin with. Then, half the population doesn't even fly in a given year. Those that do are mostly aware of the RealID requirement and either got it whenever they last renewed their driver's license, or renewed early because their DMV kept mailing them warnings about needing to do so if they wanted to fly. Yes, most people who fly either have it, or are getting it before their next flight. Part of the $45 fee is also to incentivize people to get the RealID, as that will obviously be cheaper for them over the long run.
That's the point. It's not to make money. The primary purpose is to get people to use RealID, and to cover the costs of the extra screening for those who don't. For however much more money they take in, you need to subtract the cost of the additional staff they need to hire and pay to handle it, plus the tech systems.
Also, remember you can just use a passport instead. That hasn't changed.
There’s quite a bit of evidence to say there are still millions without one, especially depending on the state, this article is from 9 months ago:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/real-id-deadline-weeks-away-mos...
I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one. I certainly do not believe there are increased costs associated with my existing ID, that would be alleviated with a Real ID. At no point have I ever heard Real ID exists to reduce costs (though if that’s true, I’d love to read how). IMHO it may not be a “cash grab,” but it’s certainly punitive. And, for what it’s worth, there have been no extra steps I’ve had to take or increased screening when using my existing ID for the past year. Same photo machine, same scanner, as everyone else.
I will personally just renew my passport to avoid the fee until I need to renew my drivers license.
> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.
I guess that's because you haven't renewed your driver's license yet?
I did last year, precisely because I had to fly, and had to bring a bunch of new documentation I never needed for my previous driver's licenses, including, yes, multiple proofs of both citizenship and residency, and then had to go through a whole additional process because of a slight name discrepancy between documents that they had to get a supervisor to make a judgment call on. It's a totally different verification process that is actually quite meaningfully different.
I thought that too, having seen the requirements, but it turns out it does not really do anything (at least as far as I can tell):
https://reason.com/2025/12/31/dhs-says-real-id-which-dhs-cer...
Allow me to remind you of what you said:
> I personally have a hard time believing that a “Real” ID that does not verify citizenship or residency is meaningfully different from my current one.
You seem to have conveniently forgotten that residency was part of the discussion. DHS hasn't contested REAL ID as a means to verify your identity or your residency. They have contested it as a means to verify your citizenship and they are correct because it was never intended to be proof of citizenship or legal residency status.
You do need to show your residency paperwork or prove citizenship when applying as only lawfully present residents are eligible to receive a REAL ID, but only citizens and permanent residents have indefinite legal status and REAL ID doesn't track your status.
I would argue this is a silly gap, but Congress intentionally did not establish a National ID which you would expect to identify nationality. Instead, they created a system which makes it difficult to create ID in multiple states concurrently or under multiple names.
I would further argue that the database required to make REAL ID work ends up with all of the negatives of a national ID, without the most useful benefits. So really, we all lose.
I mean, that's one agency making a highly contested claim for obvious controversial political reasons.
It's absolutely a totally different and much stricter vetting process from before. Whether you or some other government agency thinks it still doesn't go far enough is a separate question.
You keep saying “most” which I agreed with for starters and still leaves a ton of people.
Also almost half the population flies annually, so we’re starting around 150mill.
You need numbers at this point. I am willing to bet millions flying don’t have it.
Here’s an article from April 2025: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/real-id-deadline-may/
As of the imposition of start of this new fee/fine, about 200,000 people a day fly without ID or without REAL-ID: https://papersplease.org/wp/2025/05/28/200000-people-a-day-f... - At $45 a pop, that would bring in >$3B a year. "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
That's a really disappointing source. The headline is '200,000 people a day fly without REAL-ID', which starts out quite interesting.
It then goes on to explain that the TSA has reported 93% of traveler's complied with REAL ID, citing a TSA blog from a week prior which in fact states the same.
They then take this and couple it with a single day, which they state was the busiest travel day of the Memorial Day weekend, and extrapolate that 7% of the travelers that day must've failed to provide a REAL ID.
For the sake of conversation, this is a reasonable statement. Going back and using it to suggest 200k fly without it on a typical day is not reasonable, nor is your suggestion that a 6 months later it's still at 7% (or even typical travel volume hasn't changed.) There has to be better data available.
I was curious about this, so I looked up travel volume. YTD the daily average is 2,130,136 passengers. At 7%, this is 149,109.5 passengers or $2.449 B a year in fees. This ignores that you only pay the fee once very 10 days and assumes that all travelers pay the fee on every occurrence.
The most recent press release from the TSA claims that it's now 6% of passengers not showing ID or not showing REAL ID: https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/12/01/tsa-intro... So down only slightly since May 2025 when they started "enforcing" a "requirement" to show REAL-ID.
So, 1 to 2 billion dollars, depending on how many round trips are above or below 10 days. You're right, I thought this was real money, like 3 billion. But 1 to 2 billion? You find that between the couch cushions every week. I'm so glad people like you are out there debunking these ridiculous claims.
The number you came up with is still in the same order of magnitude of the source...
This is such an odd point that some of you are arguing. You’re nitpicking numbers (some of you incorrectly) and sidestepping the main issue entirely. None of you are providing sources, you’re just handwaving away saying “this will barely impact anybody” basically. It’s such an odd argument and I don’t get the point.
The point is that lots of people will pay this fee and it will equal a large amount of money and it does nothing of value. It’s just a fee for the fee’s sake. It serves no practical purpose, it’s just punitive.
What is the actual legitimate purpose of this fee that millions will likely pay? Almost half the country flies annually and multiple states don’t require a RealID in the first place. So we’re talking millions of people, some of which will pay it multiple times, per year until full compliance. This is built to net a consequential amount of money and it doesn’t seem like it’s for any purpose other than to generate revenue at people’s expense.
It does not make flying safer. It doesn’t even pretend to make flying safer. It doesn’t cover some cost. You can fly without it.
It’s an arbitrary tax that will mostly be paid by people who can’t or won’t take the time to go to the DMV to get an ID that is not even required to replace the perfectly good one they already have. At the end of the day this is why nobody has gotten it! They keep saying you need to get it (years now) but you don’t actually need to. If it’s that important then they should say “you cannot get on an airplane without one.” But it isn’t, so they don’t, and now that’s just a revenue opportunity.
The roughly 7.6 million CLEAR members paying $209/yr grosses them north of $1 billion/year. It's not hard to see why TSA wants to get in on it.
CLEAR members are going out of their way to register their info in a biometric identification system. I don't think the people avoiding REAL IDs are the same demographic.
Laziness comes in many forms
Assuming 100M "classic" ID checks (being generous): congrats, you just paid for two days of running the military!
5% of TSA’s annual budget ain’t nothing to scoff at.
So trump can use this money to invade and finish taking over Greenland!
Right after he finishes the wall Mexico is paying for I’m sure
But everyone would have to take advantage of that benefit not having ID have with themselves.