It never was

One could argue surveillance and tracking is about security. They'd be wrong. But they could argue that.

Well, it's never been about security, it's about surveillance. But it is reasonable to assume that REAL ID is their most efficient way to track travelers, and if you make them use their less efficient methods of tracking, they'll offset the difference by charging you directly.

I've always just considered a passport to be a Real ID™.

From the U.S. Department of State website: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/passports/passports-realid.html

The U.S. passport book and passport card are both REAL ID compliant.

You know some dumb shit TSA is gonna not understand that part.

Both Real IDs and passports are the premium options, you pay extra to have them.

Okay good, I used my passport last time I had flown so I was worried I'd have to cough up an extra fee the next time.

Ok, so there are certainly going to be some administrative and maintenance costs associated with any system, and they are currently paid for by the tax payer. For arguments sake, lets just say that cost should instead be put solely onto people who choose not to take the steps necessary to get a REAL ID, ignoring the many legitimate reasons someone may not wish to or be able to do that.

The follow up question then, is how much does the fee need to be to offset that cost? Well, it will need to be based on the number of those who will not get a REAL ID even after the fee introduction, so it will likely be lower than it is now given the fee as a motivation. Currently 44% of issued id's in the US are without REAL ID status. Let's say that the vast majority of those people are motivated by this fee or other factors to finally get a REAL ID in the next year or two. Let's say a bit over 75% of those currently without it are motivated to get one now (a major over estimation, surely). So only 10% of all US citizens with state issued ids wouldn't have REAL ID.

Given an average of 2.9 million Americans fly every single day, that's 290,000 non REAL ID flyers a day. Times $45, that's $13 million per day, or $4.745 billion per year... to do administration and maintenance on an existing system.

If that is the true cost, that means that 40% of their current congressionally allocated budget of $11.3 billion is spent on maintaining this one system alone. That is simply absurd and anyone with half a lick of sense should know that. So either they are expecting well more than 90% of people to get a REAL ID soon or they are just massively overcharging people and pocketing the difference.

It doesn't cost a tenth of that to do anything they're allegedly doing now or have done ever. Fuck TSA sideways with a Midwestern wool sock after a week layover in Tulsa. 🤌🏼

To be fair, in CA it costs exactly $45 to get a renewal REAL ID drivers license. That is paid by the traveler, not the taxpayer. The difference is that is a one-time fee to get a card that works for either 5 or 10 years, versus a fee every time you fly.

It's hard to feel bad for this considering that "Replace your ID with Real ID has been posted in the airport for... 10 years? More? How long does it take to save $20 and get it or pivot to passport? Getting Real ID doesn't cost $45 in the first place.

but how else will we track where everyone is all the time

A meme of jd vance is the most dangerous weapon of all

I was under the impression real id was required to fly. This article is the first hint I've seen that it's not. I wonder if that changed recently?

I'm in a backass hillbilly state but I just made an appointment at the DMV and then had to wait all of 5 minutes when I got there. But, then they tried to argue every single piece of paper I brought which involved calls to supervisors so it wound up being a 40 minute ordeal. I swear they don't want you to actually get it.

Many citizens don't leave their state. Plenty of them are hand to mouth and can't afford groceries. Even local travel is a luxury to some, so I can understand why they might not have the desire to go through the process and pay for the passport, not to mention that many people don't know their SSN or have their birth certificates.

Well over half of us live paycheck to paycheck and traveling is exorbitantly expensive. Especially international travel.

It sucks being broke.

Man, some of us are annoyed every time we have to drive into town to shop for groceries or go to work. I'm surrounded by nature at home. I don't want to travel. You'd have to B. A. Baracas me to get me on an airplane or boat. I neither need nor want a passport.

It costs thousands of dollars to travel to another country from the US.

My real ID is 8 years versus my passport's 10. And cheaper, less hassle to renew, and more convenient to carry. But I do have both.

My state also hasn't offered non-real IDs in several years.

It costs 165 bucks per person or almost $700 for a family of 4. Then they need $3000-$5000 to travel round trip once to a destination in Europe.

As a passport holder myself, that was my plan. This article has me wondering if we'd still be charged the fee. TSA is notoriously stupidly incompetent, and I wouldn't put it past this system to be giving kickbacks to agents.

Yes. We can travel over 3000 miles and still be in the same country with about every climate. Meanwhile for a family of 4 it would cost almost $700 to get passports and involve waiting weeks. Then flying say Seattle to Paris for instance would cost about $3000 before actually doing anything there. This is in addition to the $300-$400 spent every 5-7 years on normal identity documents that you need for other purposes. This cost varies substantially state to state.

Meanwhile families here are facing drastically escalating costs especially housing and medical.

Compare that to a European who could travel 100 km on the train and be in another country.

Americans have both increased dis-incentives and less incentives to travel internationally compared to Europeans.

Same, I've been renewing online for the past 12 years. This year I had to go in and they gave me a hard time over my points. Apparently you can't have more than one letter from the same government agency. I had 2 from the DMV and was like, "This is literally you guys! Two separate forms. Two separate dates! You don't trust yourselves enough to get it right more than once!? Like, trust me dude, nobody's going to the DMV pretending to be me. No sane person would put themselves through that torture just to steal my identity... Nobody wants to be me, it doesn't come with a whole lot of perks."

Thankfully, I just had my passport renewed, so I said screw it and got my regular one.

but my passport is supposed to be for international travel, not domestic.

You can get a passport card so that you don't need to carry around the book

Do you have a recent W2 or tax return with your current address on it? That + valid passport is good in my state.

I use my passport for domestic travel almost always. I come from a small state so it's just easier than showing the TSA agent a type of license they see maybe a couple of a day and don't know how to read. Never had an issue.

I mean that's obvious. Otherwise you're just paying $45 to ignore the security checkpoint if you're guaranteed to get through with payment.

Makes me wonder why they don’t want people flying. All these different things being done to make it harder for the average person to fly. I suppose it could just be incompetence, but it really feels like there’s intent behind it.