What is the history of ID requirements in air travel?
Before 1995, there was no requirement to identify yourself in order to board an airplane. (Somehow the world got along anyway.) In 1994, the FAA started a research and development project for a computerized passenger profiling system. On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded shortly after takeoff from Long Island, killing all 230 people on board. Eighteen months later, the FBI concluded that there was no evidence that a bomb or missile destroyed the plane. In 2000, the National Transportation Safety Board finally ruled that an explosion in the center fuel tank caused the crash, probably due to a spark igniting gasoline vapors in the near-empty tank. Despite the ultimate conclusion, the government jumped forward in 1996 with plans to build computerized air traveler profiling systems. The Washington Post reported on August 31, 1996: The FAA has supported research and development work on computerized profiling since February 1994, and is now funding a development project with Northwest A
