Security Expert Calls TSA’s Photo ID Rules “Useless”

Do the Transportation Security Agency’s (TSA) no-fly lists and photo ID rules really help protect air passengers from terrorists? According to one security expert, they don’t work at all.

In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, noted security expert Bruce Schneier says that even though the TSA is tightening its ID rules, the photo ID requirement is a “joke.”

“ Previously, people with expired IDs or who claimed to have lost their IDs were subjected to secondary screening. Then the Transportation Security Administration realized that meant someone on the government’s no-fly list — the list that is supposed to keep our planes safe from terrorists — could just fly with no ID,” he says. “Now, people without ID must also answer personal questions from their credit history to ascertain their identity. The TSA will keep records of who those ID-less people are, too, in case they’re trying to probe the system.”

But while those rules might seem like an improvement, Schneier says it’s really not. The rules mean anyone on the no-fly list can fly whenever they want, and the whole concept of matching passenger names against a list of bad guys has negligible security value.

Schneier even outlines exactly how a terrorist on the no-fly list can get around security by printing two separate boarding passes. “The problem is that it is unverified passenger names that get checked against the no-fly list,” he says. “At security checkpoints, the TSA just matches IDs to whatever is printed on the boarding passes. The airline checks boarding passes against tickets when people board the plane. But because no one checks ticketed names against IDs, the security breaks down.”

To read the full article, click here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-schneier28-2008aug28,0,3099808.story