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TSA's Precheck Registration Program Causing Longer Security Lines (usatoday.com)
McGruber writes: The Associated Press is reporting that TSA's PreCheck program is causing maddening long security lines at U.S. airports. TSA's PreCheck security lanes can screen 300 passengers an hour, twice that of its standard security lanes. Based on that and other increased efficiencies, the TSA's front-line screeners were cut from 47,147 three years ago to 42,525 currently. At the same time, the number of annual fliers passing through checkpoints has grown from 643 million to more than 700 million. The TSA told Congress its goal was to have 25 million fliers enrolled in the PreCheck registration program, but as of March 1, only 9.3 million people had registered for PreCheck. TSA first tried to make up for that shortfall by randomly placing passengers into the express Precheck lanes, but scaled back that effort for fear dangerous passengers were being let through. That's when the regular security lines started growing -- up to 90 minutes in some cases. The TSA is now shifting some resources to tackle lines at the nation's biggest airports, but it claims there is no easy solution to the problem with a record number of fliers expected this summer. To enroll in TSA's Precheck registration program, travelers must pay $85 to $100 every five years, then submit to a background check, in-person interview at an airport, and to being fingerprinted. Unsurprisingly, getting once-a-year fliers to spend the time or the money to register has been a challenge. While 250,000 to 300,000 people are registering for Precheck every month, it will take more than four years at that pace to reach the TSA's target enrollment.
Painless and unnecessary
Airport security does suck everywhere. Australia's is pretty bad. Germany's is pretty terrible too, but the worst, by far, out of any country I have every flow through, is Americas. I have never had more confrontations with security than in the US. Most other countries don't require ID for flying domestically (and fun fact: America doesn't either. Next time, refuse. It takes a little longer, but it's worth it. The US government has no right to restrict transit if you don't have papers. In most EU countries you are required to have ID on you at all time. Not in the US).
Airport security is a joke. It's not security, it's security theatre. They've never stopped a single damn person intending harm ever in the history of their existence. Fuck them, fuck airports and fuck the TSA.
Not to mention, the TSA searches are totally and completely illegal and unconstitutional. Back when airport security was private, it was the airlines getting together to set the standards and searches were part of their terms of service. When the federal government starts doing it, it now becomes a 4th amendment violation. Texas tried to return airports to private security and was bullied by the federal government and gave up the fight. The new mm-wave body scanners have a massive false positive rate and are effectively useless.
This is a misleading report. Attributing long lines to TSA pre-check is false; attributing long lines to mismanagement would be more accurate. Problem with TSA precheck enrollment? Drop the price. Recently; in 75% of the airports I've traveled - the TSA Precheck line was closed. This article is completely bogus; and everyone should do their own due diligence than blindly believing these reports and redistributing these articles. Please - due your own diligence; mainstream media has a long track record of misleading people.
I'll never get fingerprinted like a criminal for anything. The fact that people willingly so do is a testament to the fact that the typical American is a fool.
It's bad enough that we are forced to endure 4th Amendment violations to travel freely so I will not add insult to injury by submitting to this egregious precheck program.
>> if you travel regularly it is more than worth it
The point is, it shouldn't NEED to be 'worth it'.
It's willful, deliberate incompetence to implement a program, assume it will achieve targets when the agency in question has a known history of failure, and then cut staffing based on that assumption AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT - fail to appropriately mitigate the failure when it becomes obvious. It's as though GWB appointees were still running it.
All bureaucracy is unnecessary, most is not painless though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
No point in bombing the airplanes anymore, just bomb the TSA checkpoint.
No, their policy of making people take off their shoes is causing long lines.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
If you travel overseas, go for Global Entry. It costs the same ($100), and it includes PreCheck as a perk. As an added bonus, you get to use kiosks for passport control (never a wait) and the crew line for customs.
I routinely take 8-10 minutes total from deplaning at LAX (Bradley Terminal) to the terminal exit. A bit longer if I have to wait for checked luggage. Worth every cent.
Global Entry is definitely the way to go if you travel internationally. Flying into ATL or JFK is no longer a hassle at customs and immigration. At YVR when a cruise ship is dumping their passengers in the line is no big deal as well. GE is now $200, but many credit cards will refund the fee; even so I'd gladly pay the $200 to avoid a hour or more wait to get back in after a 10 plus hour flight. Pre-check is an added bonus, and I'm glad they are limiting the non - Preorder GE folks from using Pre. Nothing is more annoying to be in line behind someone who doesn't understand they don't need to disrobe and empty their luggage and hold up the line because they are clueless.; and then look all pissed because you toss your bag on the belt ahead of theirs and go through the metal detector.
GE also is expanding to some overseas airports as well for an extra fee. The U.K. Is one destination that would be worth the fee.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Although I travel often I am against the pre-check because it seems like a scam to have to pay $85 to be treated like a citizen again.
It's willful, deliberate incompetence to implement a program
It's almost like there are no performance metrics or expectations to meet!
Like no one cares if the program is implemented well.
Undercover teams smuggled banned items in 67 out of 70 cases during an internal test. It is a unique operation indeed. Where else is less-than-5% success rate is a perfectly acceptable performance?
These systems that require payment for favorable treatment and faster pass-through security checkpoints are akin to soft-corruption since they cost money to attain such elevated status. Their value is questionable and the procedure and process to pass-through is a bureaucratic joke without elevating security in any way. My in-person interview was getting a glace by a TSA employee and being asked my name. (Speaking as a Global Entry and TSA PreCheck holder.)
I'm going to suggest that healthcare was not a problem until recently because it wasn't very expensive. Not long ago, you didn't have to worry about hip replacements because they didn't exist. You didn't have to worry about expensive treatments for cancer, because you just died. Even surgery was rather primitive in the 50s. Healthcare wasn't very expensive, but as treatments have gotten better, care costs have increased.
Why it matters: if healthcare cost $100 a year for everyone, it wouldn't be a huge issue. Privately, you could pay for it, or publicly you could pay for it. If it were a government thing, then there would probably be some corruption, but not a big deal. But now as it's costing up around $12k a person, the cost becomes a major issue. Even in the last 15 years treatments have improved quite a bit, but also gotten more expensive.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
...Osama is laughing his ass off.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
All active duty military and civilian employees of DOD. I.e. Anybody who has a CAC. The equivalent PIV-II badges from other agencies don't get you precheck.
More like the terrorists were dissuaded because they already won the airplane battle. Now they're moving on to different targets.
>"To enroll in TSA's Precheck registration program, travelers must pay $85 to $100 every five years, then submit to a background check, in-person interview at an airport, and to being fingerprinted. "
Yeah, because I am really going to submit to being FINGERPRINTED so I can be searched without probable cause EVERY single time they run anybody's prints for ANY reason from ANY agency. I think not. Totally unacceptable.
Fingerprints should not be used for biometrics. Period. Once you give this data to the government (or big business), it will NEVER be erased or restricted, regardless of claims or laws- it will go into huge databases and shared between all agencies and used however they want for as long as they want.
If they really need a biometric for this "feature" of security, there is only one safer and practical biometric I know of- that is deep vein palm scan. That registration data cannot be readily abused. It can't be latently collected like DNA, fingerprints, and face recognition can. You have to know you are registering/enrolling when it happens. You don't leave evidence of it all over the place. When you go to use it, you know you are using it every time. And on top of all that, it is accurate, fast, reliable, unchanging, live-sensing, and cheap. If you must participate in a biometric, this is the one you should insist on using.
Example: http://www.m2sys.com/palm-vein...
But we also need to realize that IT IS NOT EVERYONE'S BUSINESS WHAT WE ALL DO. The first step in securing freedom is privacy. When you are tracked, you are losing your freedom, whether you realize it or not. And the whole TSA security theater is a scam on everyone.
one state, Arkansas, IIRC, having 90% of the population being served by only one (ONE!) health insurance company. Clearly that company was capable of ruining people by jacking up their rates, because they owned the market. Obamacare was going to bring diversity to the market with dozens of non-profit coops to save the people!!
At the time, I looked it up and that 90% insurer was a non-profit BCBS.