Basically extortion to continue the absurd, ineffective security theater.
Is it that uncommon to have a passport in the US? That’s basically part of the common ID paper you’d have here.
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.
I mean EU citizens can also travel similar distances in the schengen zone without a passport and just an ID card.
Does it cost $3000-$5000 for a family of 4 to go anywhere you would need one and require the family to shell out an extra $700 when half the population is living hand to mouth?
No a passport is about 50 Euros if you have time to wait 6 weeks for it to be made. And you need ot as soon as you leave the EU, so Africa would be one area for example, should be aroubd 800-1000 Euros.
Now I wonder, don’t you need a passport for south and central america?
So is this just legal way to bribe the TSA
Showing this was not about security at all.
It never was
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.
One could argue surveillance and tracking is about security. They’d be wrong. But they could argue that.
That’s absolutely about security. Just not yours. There’s a lot of people whose financial security is at risk if they can’t sell that data.
without a REAL ID or passport
A passport is a really good thing to have, and lasts much longer than a Real ID state license. It ends up costing like $13/yr and it opens up the whole world to you. It blows my mind that on;y 50% of US citizens ever bother getting one.
My real ID is 8 years versus my passport’s 10. And cheaper, less hassle to renew, and more convenient to carry. But I do have both.
My state also hasn’t offered non-real IDs in several years.
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.
Upvoted purely for a-teaming
hahaha now there’s something I haven’t thought about in a minute. I honestly hate airports, airplanes, the TSA, and flying myself. But I do love seeing places and people and experiencing things that I never would have otherwise, whether that’s in my home town, across the state, or across the world, count me in :)
It costs 165 bucks per person or almost $700 for a family of 4. Then they need $3000-$5000 to travel round trip once to a destination in Europe.
Why is europe the only place you’re considering travel to? It’s a big world out there
Because it’s romantic.
It costs thousands of dollars to travel to another country from the US.
Not to Canada, Mexico, Bahamas, or Caribbean islands.
For some people in some cases, sure. Myself, I traveled in South America for 3 months last year and overall I saved money vs. expenses in the US, even with airfare included. Also, there’s probably 100 million Americans that live within a single tank of gas of getting to Mexico or Canada. There are plenty of lower-income Americans, Brits, Aussies, and Germans (to name the big groups) who manage to travel extensively for long periods at very low expense. I’ve met many of them, and they could make “thousands of dollars” (let’s say you’re talking about $3,000) last a good three months in many parts of the world. Look for deals, be willing to not get exactly what you want, and be patient, and travel can be (and had been for me) cheaper overall than paying US prices for housing food etc.
What about if you live in the real world? If I fell asleep for three months I’d wake up ten grand poorer. It’s great that you can completely uproot yourself for three months and then comeback and restart life and somehow save money, but that is so incredibly unrealistic. My bills don’t stop because I took a cheap trip to Brazil.
Yeah it’s a different lifestyle and not appealing or possible for everyone in every situation of course (not that I implied it was but for some reason I feel the need to defend my self on that point). I get that the systems we all live under have many of us completely captured by debt or bills and impoverished to the point where the major concerns in life are getting enough to eat each day and not freezing to death homeless out on the street. It’s conditions like that elsewhere in the world which cause people to emigrate in search of a better life in the USA, ironically.
Just did a quick search and just to fly to all the european countries and asia I tried were over $1000. South America was $500+. Also, most of us still have to pay rent while we’re traveling, we own shit we can’t just abandon so it’s literally impossible for it to be cheaper to travel and what do you do when you come back to no job?
I have flown to Ireland, Britain, and Italy for less than $1000 round trip; in some cases as low as $600.
There are other methods than direct flights
Not sure how I’m supposed to get anywhere besides mexico/canada without flying.
It does not cost thousands. Also, their are cruise ships that will take you to other countries without flying. Again, Bahamas and Caribbean islands.
Well over half of us live paycheck to paycheck and traveling is exorbitantly expensive. Especially international travel.
It sucks being broke.
Travel can be done cheap. Don’t go to the exorbitantly expensive shitty fake ass resort where you get food poisoning.
Go be real, in the real world.
Ding ding ding- the commenter your replying to must not be poor to think buying something you cannot use is a good idea 😂😭
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.
Don’t forget that transgender Americans can’t get passports with the correct gender, either.
I looked it up, my understanding is US passports are currently issued with your “assigned sex at birth”, i.e. not your gender or biological sex.
Basically, the passport isn’t showing your gender.
No, it’s showing what’s in my pants. Or was in my pants at birth if I’ve had an operation. And if my gender presentation doesn’t match someone’s expectations, it means I will potentially get detained or harassed. Or possibly even arrested depending on the country.
So the intent is to hurt the trans community. And being all, ‘well actually’ about it being sex assigned at birth feels like a bad faith take.
Which is why you’re getting downvoted.
You know what I mean and it’s meant to out and punish transgender Americans for daring to live their lives without being persecuted. At best, it’s going to cause a massive headache for those whose looks no longer match their AGAB.
It’s weird to live in a world where sex assigned at birth and gender are two vastly different things.
Not really, not even really a hard concept.
Gender is sociology. Essentially caste and class roles.
Sex is biology.
Folks that like to conflate the two want gender roles to be immutable.
I don’t think so. I think if someone wants to change their gender that’s their business. It’s not something I’d want to do but calling it weird seems kind of judgy.
Oh for sure, I’m not saying foreign travel or passport fees are an achievable goal for every single adult American. But we are talking here about the group of people who fly at the very least domestically. And for that, you need Real ID, which does require you to supply things like your SSN and birth certificate. So for that group specifically that we’re talking about here, the domestic flyers that already need or have Real ID, I think a passport is a logical thing to get as well if it’s in your budget.
Title leaves out “or passport.”
In a push to get you to think you must have a Real ID, I’ve noticed the media constantly leaves out or minimizes the fact that a passport is sufficient to get you through an airport or any other place a Real ID is required.
So no extra fee of you have a passport.
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.
Okay good, I used my passport last time I had flown so I was worried I’d have to cough up an extra fee the next time.
You know some dumb shit TSA is gonna not understand that part.
Both Real IDs and passports are the premium options, you pay extra to have them.
We still need to go through the process to make sure that we verify who you are
As long as I don’t have any weapons it shouldn’t matter.
but how else will we track where everyone is all the time
Unless you are using a fake ID and fake credit card then they already have that data?
They know John Smith who lives at 123 Main Street in Bumbfuck, WI and who paid with credit card 1234567890123456 is flying from MSN to LAX on December 1st, 2025 and returning via the same route on December 3rd, 2025.
The RealID requirements are to, theoretically, streamline the process of matching person to face with more standardized ID requirements. Like all ID related legislature there is good and bad there.
But if your focus is on The Man tracking you? This changes nothing unless you are already actively committing fraud at MANY levels.
have you ever heard of this neat concept, called freedom?
neat. there is no reason they even need an id. do you need one to gain access to the highways?
Most highways are publicly accessible (and still log you with a Flock™ camera anyway…). But if you want to use the priority lane in states like Colorado? Yeah, they need to scan your pass and they very much do.
The ID still matches the face/body to the Person. Its no different than checking if you are the person with a reservation at a hotel. That said, you can bet there is work in place to not actually need it through a mix of facial ID and profiling.
that’s my point. outside of a thin lane or three, which is probably considerable “private” - public infra should be accessible. Last I checked (abt six months ago) I did not need to show ID to hop on the brewster line into grand central.
it’s all just a cash grab and control theater / normalization at airports. there is nothing special about flying compared to trains, except of course: profit.
I did not need to show ID to hop on the brewster line into grand central.
Because those are public roads. Not high priority roads you pay for access to. Just like fully government funded buses and the like don’t care if you have a ticket or not. Whereas those that are only subsidized tend to still require a pass/ticket/payment.
Also I’ll just point out: Your car has a license plate. It is trivial to read those with an overhead camera. And, depending on the road/day, you can bet a cop will gladly run you down if they spot you have no license plate or decide they care about the polarized screen you put on top of it. At which point you can bet they’ll want to see your ID and won’t take “I am a sovereign citizen and this is a public road” as an answer.
there is nothing special about flying compared to trains
And you need to tie your body to your ticket when you get on a train. We tend to not care anywhere near as much about security with trains (because everyone knows bombs and box cutters only work if you are at least 100 feet above the ground!), but you can be damned sure the ticket machine where you inserted your cash took a picture of your face to go with it.
I genuinely don’t care about what kind of libertarian nonsense you are on about hating the concept of IDs at all. My point was simply that if you think the RealID requirement has ANY bearing on The Man knowing where you are and where you are going then… you don’t actually understand what your exposure is.
And the VIP lane on the highway is a private road?
Whats next, HOV Lane brought to you by Carl’s Jr.?
Stop normalizing the surveillance state. It’s not a good look.
i should have clarified: “access” meant physical meatspace access not allowance.
I suspect this is what the payment requirement is really about. Like, yes they’re getting money, but they’re also getting a credit card transaction at the gate at the date and time of travel.
It’s always possible that someone else purchased your travel ticket for you (for instance I sometimes travel for work which my employer’s travel agency books for me). But if you have to pay at the moment when your ID would be checked, presumably that has to be your personal card that you have on you in the moment.
My understanding is that most airlines will still allow you to pay, in cash, at the customer service desk in the baggage area the day of. But they still require ID and you can be DAMNED sure that about forty different flags went off in a database if you do that.
But yeah. Credit cards are immensely useful. They also go a LONG way towards providing very trackable behaviors for people.
Plenty of people are flying on tickets purchased by a corporation.
A meme of jd vance is the most dangerous weapon of all
Oh shit I’m cooked
I never got one because my license expired during covid and i didn’t have a recent bill/bank statement (and I had no intention of walking into a DMV at that time) fortunately i do have a passport that i plan to renew as soon as it expires, but my passport is supposed to be for international travel, not domestic.
it wasn’t that long ago that you only needed a birth certificate to travel to the caribbean or a border country. this is getting out of hand.
I use my passport for domestic travel almost always. I come from a small state so it’s just easier than showing the TSA agent a type of license they see maybe a couple of a day and don’t know how to read. Never had an issue.
but my passport is supposed to be for international travel, not domestic.
You can get a passport card so that you don’t need to carry around the book
my understanding os those are only for border states.
Same, I’ve been renewing online for the past 12 years. This year I had to go in and they gave me a hard time over my points. Apparently you can’t have more than one letter from the same government agency. I had 2 from the DMV and was like, “This is literally you guys! Two separate forms. Two separate dates! You don’t trust yourselves enough to get it right more than once!? Like, trust me dude, nobody’s going to the DMV pretending to be me. No sane person would put themselves through that torture just to steal my identity… Nobody wants to be me, it doesn’t come with a whole lot of perks.”
Thankfully, I just had my passport renewed, so I said screw it and got my regular one.
Do you have a recent W2 or tax return with your current address on it? That + valid passport is good in my state.
I paid for a real id license when they were first available in my state, and I’ve paid for a renewal. I disagree with the surveillance society they enable but I’m also a realist who wants to travel conveniently.
But I’ve still never gotten one. When it comes down to it, actually getting a real id license requires taking a day off work and waiting in line at the Registry …… whereas I can renew a standard license online and have a few years left on my passport
One of the many ways RealID has been a fiasco is RMV/DMV’s not staffing up to support it
I’m in a backass hillbilly state but I just made an appointment at the DMV and then had to wait all of 5 minutes when I got there. But, then they tried to argue every single piece of paper I brought which involved calls to supervisors so it wound up being a 40 minute ordeal. I swear they don’t want you to actually get it.
when I was like “hey can I do my REAL ID real quick now too?” to the DMV agent I was renewing my registration with, he literally laughed at me 🤣. It’s like 90% the effort of getting a full-blown passport, at least with the documentation they make you give in my state…
oh so it was never about security.
The agency warns that even then, there is no guarantee that individuals will be cleared to cross through the security checkpoint.
Bummer, that’s another $45 to re-check until they get it right. I’m guessing this will happen a lot.
I mean that’s obvious. Otherwise you’re just paying $45 to ignore the security checkpoint if you’re guaranteed to get through with payment.
It’s far from obvious these days that the US wouldn’t apply a mandatory straight-up bribe to its government services. It’d just be a smaller-scale version of Trump’s “gold card” visa.
While this is ridiculous. The original requirement date for a real id was 2008. It has been 20 years since real id was passed. You have had 20 years to get one.
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.
How long until they require it to vote so it shuts out a majority of the voters from participating in elections?
Shhh… You’re saying the quiet parts out loud.
You know your wife could use a passport to fly, right?
And she did, last time we flew. Domestically. Which is absurd.
No other real reason to make a special trip to the RMV just to upgrade the license. Certainly not to pay a fee to get it and still keep the same expiration date on her license. So not even extending it.
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.
My state had extremely limited appointments for Real ID applications. Then they casually offered an “upgrade” when I went to add an endorsement in 2021 because they went to no-walk-in appointment system and suddenly had all the time in the world on their hands
Fucking ABC and their autoplay of videos
There’s really something wrong with people if they think the government can’t track you down with all the paper trail that comes with being a contributing member of society. People that want to live in a bubble thinking they are anonymous are delusional. Full stop, if you own property, you are no longer an anonymous citizen. The only way to be even close to anonymous in this world we live in today is to have a burner prepaid cellphone with zero online services logged in, be homeless (or live with family), have zero credit, no car, no credit cards, no bank account, and be jobless.
If you’re reading this and think that you’d be happy with that lifestyle, you need help.
I’d be happy with that lifestyle. Can you help me achieve it?
