This is great; I hope it passes, even with our dysfunctional Congress. I've kinda given up on opting out at the airport because it's a bit of a pain to get shunted to a different line. (Yes, clearly I care a lot about this /s)
The facial recognition doesn't actually seem to save much (if any) time; the TSA people still run my ID through their little scanner thing. I don't have to scan my boarding pass, but I'd usually do that while they were dealing with my ID, and be done before they were anyway.
Clearly this is just a surveillance play. Or they think the facial recognition is going to weed out people using someone else's ID. Or it's a "cute" way to funnel tax dollars to whoever manufactures this tech.
> I've kinda given up on opting out at the airport because it's a bit of a pain
Probably by design. One of my favorite memories is after defcon (can't remember which), I arrived at the airport at the same time as some several hundred other attendees not going to other security conferences that week, and the sheer volume of people rejecting going through the lemme-see-your-genitals machine, requesting pat-downs, or simply refusing to show ID (this is allowed for domestic flights), utterly overwhelmed TSA causing a many hours line that also trapped the hundreds of normies heading home after their vacations.
If I sound like I'm blaming the hackers I'm not - it's the fault of TSA for being unprepared to handle a situation where every traveler exercises their rights. Much like the justice system, which would utterly collapse if everyone exercised their right to a trial by a jury of their peers, the TSA would collapse if everyone exercised their rights to not be subjected to any more search than is necessary to determine they aren't a threat to the airplane (the mission statement upon which TSA's authority is derived). This worries me because it means our government agencies and branches are incentivized to convince people to not exercise their rights, or restrict people's rights.
I flew out of Boston last month and the TSA agent chewed me out for opting out of the photo scan. He seemed convinced that it would be required in the future and that I was in the wrong for attempting to resist the inevitable.
First of all, I love Boston, but this was probably the most stereotypically Boston experience I've ever had. Second of all, it's really gross that he felt ok with trying to intimidate me into giving up my rights because it posed a minor inconvenience to him.
It annoys me when they act annoyed with us for maintaining our rights. I offer them the bear minimum of respect by not ranting about how they're part of a system slowly restricting our rights into nothingness, the least they can do is not offer backhanded comments back about how I'm making their job harder. One time I refused to do the pointless facial surveillance thing next to a plane boarding gate, and the flight attendant loudly said to another, "ugh, why do they refuse," and the other loudly replied, "I don't know." Never been more tempted to play the part of the horrifyingly obnoxious sovereign citizen and educate my fed up comrades on the other side of the counter.
> refusing to show ID (this is allowed for domestic flights)
There's a procedure for people who don't have a valid ID with them--but I'm not sure it is legal to use it otherwise. Presumably it requires making some statement to the effect of "I don't have an ID with me," or "I forgot my license at home," etc. which could be subject to the incredibly broad 18 USC 1001 statute if they really wanted to try, or more likely, they would mail you a civil penalty notice or put you on a list for additional questions in the future.
Of course you could say you didn't realize the statement was false because the ID is so small that you can't even feel if its in your pocket, or you could conveniently put it in your checked bag by mistake, etc. But still, it's probably not a great look if they manage to find it somewhere when you said you forgot it.
The facial recognition doesn't actually seem to save much (if any) time; the TSA people still run my ID through their little scanner thing. I don't have to scan my boarding pass, but I'd usually do that while they were dealing with my ID, and be done before they were anyway.
Clearly this is just a surveillance play. Or they think the facial recognition is going to weed out people using someone else's ID. Or it's a "cute" way to funnel tax dollars to whoever manufactures this tech.