Re: Air travel security is retarded - why?
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Well if you think you can print a machine readable boarding pass that is ALSO going to get you past the gate reading machine, then sure. If not, what are you accomplishing by printing your own boarding pass?
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Ah, but that is just the thing. Those documents don't have to be one and the same.
Someone can book under an assumed name, show the initial screener a printed boarding pass that that person manipulated to match valid credentials, then throw away the fake boarding pass and hand the real one to the airline rep at the gate. Which is a pretty simple way to sidestep that manifest. And I agree with you that this manifest should be important - so why this loophole?
And that doesn't address my original question on why the TSA staffer operating the metal detector needs to see it. For that matter, the piece of paper handed to that person could be a third entirely different piece of paper. Because as far as I can tell, it's still laughable.
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