🧠 BLUF
TSA has posted a notice to launch a “modernized alternative identity verification” program: if you show up without acceptable ID, you can submit biometrics and pay a user fee to try to clear security. The fee is $18 and covers a 10-day use window—access still isn’t guaranteed. This lowers near-term friction for would-be attackers and builds a long-term biometric spine that invites mission creep, abuse, and catastrophic data risk.
Keep reading below …
SDN GUARDIAN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE 50% UNTIL MIDNIGHT CYBER MONDAY
📡 CONTEXT
The Federal Register notice states TSA will replace its manual “no-ID” process with a tech-enabled alternative that uses biographic and/or biometric data to verify identity and route you to screening; participation is optional, but charged. Fee: $18 “per 10-day use.” This sits alongside ongoing TSA facial-comparison/“Touchless ID” deployments at select checkpoints. REAL ID enforcement remains federal policy, but this creates a fallback lane that normalizes biometrics.
⚠️ THREAT PROFILE
Near-term (terrorism window)
• Friction collapse: a paid, repeatable alternate lane attackers can rehearse.
• Identity assurance shift: from “something you have” to “something you are,” reducing adversary workload if watchlist hits are evaded via weak biographic anchors.
• Red-team magnet: a standardized kiosk process encourages probing at scale.
Long-term (civil-liberty risk)
• Biometric capture state: faces/fingerprints become a travel gate—hard to opt out once normalized.
• Mission creep: “temporary fallback” → permanent program → expansion beyond airports.
• Catastrophic breach risk: you can’t reissue a face; a central ID backbone is a prime target. Independent oversight bodies have already flagged TSA facial-recognition risks.
🧍♂️ FOR TRAVELERS — PRACTICAL STEPS
• Keep primary ID current (REAL ID, passport); don’t rely on the fallback lane.
• Decline facial capture where options exist; request manual verification.
• Document any biometric enrollment you’re asked to accept (photos of signage, note the lane, date/time).
🧑⚖️ CIVIL-LIBERTY GUARDRAILS (WHAT TO DEMAND)
• Physical ID remains the standard; fallback use must be rare, manual-authorized, audited—no subscription model.
• Strict retention limits; no sharing beyond screening mission without warrant/predicate.
• Independent red-team testing; publish breach plans and vendor roles before national roll-out.
🛰️ WHAT TO WATCH (GO-LIVE INDICATORS)
• Federal Register publication finalized; TSA announces public registration portal.
• Contract awards and rapid kiosk expansion at CAT-2 lanes.
• Quiet extensions of retention windows or expansion to rail/bus travel.
INFORMATION IS SURVIVAL…
Free subscribers get headlines. Guardians get the intel—private Signal channels, emergency alerts, and direct access. When the state starts trading freedom for “convenience,” which side are you on?
🧠 SDN ANALYSIS — JON WHEATON
This is the two-step slide every free nation regrets: first you lower the bar “just this once” for convenience, then you keep everyone’s face on file because it’s “efficient.” Short-term, a pay-to-verify lane widens the attack funnel. Long-term, it builds a centralized biometric backbone that bad actors and future bureaucrats can weaponize. Security without surrender means keeping ID standards high, biometric use narrow and voluntary, and oversight with actual teeth. A Christian people doesn’t outsource liberty to kiosks. We carry ID, we guard our data, and we refuse a future where our faces become the government’s permission slip.
GodSpeed
Jon Wheaton
