ABSTRACT
Throughout the ages, humans have needed to make long journeys in the company of others. Quite apart from its physical hardships, travel has often been socially awkward. Distinctions and especially hierarchies need to be maintained even while travelers huddle close to one another for companionship and security. Greater the number of secure or “trusted” travelers, the fewer individuals have to be actively watched and assessed by expensive security personnel or systems. In order to find a terrorist, one must first remove the vast majority of non-terrorists from view, using clear, orderly, and stratified systems. Stratification thus conceived is itself a form of security, because it tells security watchers what a person’s place is in the order of things. From the late nineteenth-century onwards, security measures capable of handling the masses, including standardized passports and technological identification, became the norm.
