Why don't we allow anybody with a ticket to show up and buy a ticket to anywhere else if they can afford it? Freedom of movement is very important, as is privacy--it seems we've lost sight of this fact.

Could you elaborate on that? There are a lot of countries where no passport control at all is taking place if you're coming in from another EU country.

Granted, as a EU citizen I might have an easier time moving around overall, but in my experience the EU feels more like one big country than a patchwork of smaller ones - and I move around here a lot. Going on a cross-country flight within the US is usually significantly more hassle than hopping from Frankfurt to Oslo. Once you're in the EU you should be able to move freely.

What happened to you?

Remember, when we Americans want to make the point that we're different from Europe, we say "papers, please!" to make fun of it. The idea is supposed to be that we don't do "papers, please!" here. Unfortunately, we've lost a bit of that in the last 15 years, but we're still only approaching Europe.

You say that with a degree of certainty that deserves to be challenged.

You can travel through large swaths of the EU without showing your passport even once. This week I was in France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany all by car, all without needing my passport (except hotels, but they do that everywhere in the world).

Although it has gotten stricter in the last few years, flights from Germany to Norway, Sweden, or Denmark could routinely be boarded without showing any ID until recently. I live near the French border in Germany, but you wouldn't even know when you're crossing it. In "heartland" Europe, there are often no border stations at all. Sometimes you just notice you changed countries because the street signs look slightly different.

Compared to a lot of other countries, including the US, EU police are doing almost no traffic stops or other forms of public "papers, please" checks. The last time I was in a traffic stop was about 5 years ago, and I accrue about 50k kilometers a year.

Compare that to a random Asian country where police are sometimes lying in wait near ambiguous signage in order to catch expensive-looking rental cars passing through, or compare that to a rural sheriff in a southern US state who likes to capture (and throw in jail for a few hours with great fanfare) people passing by in out-of-state cars when they predictably go a little above the draconian speed limit on the completely empty and straight highway. In Cairo, you can't even drive downtown from the airport without being stopped for ID at least twice.

Maybe I'm missing a bit of the picture because I don't like to go by train, but overall movement in Europe seems a lot less restricted than pretty much everywhere else I've been to.

The closest I've ever come to a "random stop" was being pulled over at 3am and asked for ID because "a car similar to yours was recently stolen in the area, I just want to make sure this is your car".

When travelling by transit/train, you will never be asked for ID. When crossing provinces (aka "states" in the US), you will never be asked for ID.

You will always be asked for ID when you pre-paid for something under your name (hotel, flight within Canada, etc).

He's just ignorant. Never ever underestimate ignorance, dear pmorici.

Ignorance brought as war, death, mass murder and governments..whoops how did governments slip in here? ;)

Please, God, no. Don't do better.

The TSA agent was simply performing her bit role in Security Theater, I'd say that the "transaction" went pretty well. The interaction appears to have taken less than a minute. I fail to see how he "almost didn't make it through security".