At 04:48 PM 1/16/97 -0500, Brad Dolan wrote:

I was distracted a bit but I believe I heard on NPR news this morning that Colorado Guv. Roy Roemer showed up at an airport sans id and had a moment of difficulty getting on his flight. Roemer solved the problem by showing the Federal Permission-To-Fly checker a picture of himself in a recent newspaper.

I thought the ill-defined (or ill-described) rules required presentation of a _government_ picture I.D. Since when is a newspaper photo a government picture I.D.?

No, they don't, though the airlines like you to think that since it simplifies their life and it's something they can tell $5/hour bag checkers as well as higher-paid gate agents. There is no national rule that applies to everybody requiring it; each airline apparently has to negotiate with the FAA to make sure they're doing a "reasonable" job of identifying their passengers. The airline is free to make whatever rules they want. On United, I normally use my employee ID and the credit card I use to buy the electronic-ticket, which verifies reasonably well that I'm the person the ticket was bought for (by the people who told the airline they're my employer's travel agents.) If the _government_ required _you_ to have government ID, there'd be serious Constitutional problems with it; regulating interstate commerce and air traffic safety by forcing the airlines to do something they'd kind of like to do anyway doesn't have the same problems, even though it's almost _more_ offensive to a free society. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)