Testing the TSA: Flying Domestic without Identification

Is identification required when flying on a domestic flight? This post is a recap of my experience trying to answer this question.

Our story begins in late 2008 when Nick Semenkovich, then News Editor of MIT’s The Tech, told me that a government issued ID was not required to fly on domestic flights. A bit of research uncovered Gilmore v. Gonzales, a 2007 case involving EFF co-founder John Gilmore that questioned the constitutionality of ID requirements when boarding a domestic flight. The court held that neither the identification policy nor its application to Gilmore violated Gilmore’s constitutional rights since refusing to show identification merely triggered a more thorough “secondary screening.” However, this seemed to suggest that identification is never required for domestic flights as long as you submit to additional screening.