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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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Dude it was hard enough for my wife to get a new ID (not REAL) when we moved from RI to MA.

I do all the bills and handle all the finances. My credit was better (now we are about equal) and so all the utilities and most the credit cards are in my name. Not to mention most of them are paperless.

At the time, I think she was also still on a cell phone plan with her siblings.

So, like, absolutely no official-enough mail coming to our house to her name. And they need 2.

What, exactly, is the purpose of an ID, and why does it need my SSN and two pieces of mail? How does that identify me, as a person, any more than a supporting document like an existing US Passport? If I qualified for a US Passport, why the hell do I need so much more on top of that for just a state issued ID.

The whole thing is a scam to bully minorities and put an additional burden on traveling for low-income families. I wonder how many people are missing flights to some important and unexpected event (i.e. a funeral) because they never fly and never had a reason to get a REAL ID.

For that matter, I'd really like to know what TSA gets out of a REAL ID that they don't get out of a regular license, for domestic travel? They don't care about my proof of residence, they only care that the name matches the boarding pass and the face, and isn't Islamic or otherwise off-white.

My state didn't start offering them until 2018, and our IDs are good for 5 years. Also, our DVS was a complete shitshow at the time with regular licenses taking up to 6 months to arrive, and double that for a real id. People avoided them so they wouldn't have to renew a temporary license every 3 months.

Realistically, people in my state have had an average of one opportunity to get a real id on renewal.