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Comment by BiggsHoson | Hacker News Reader

And that may not be all that's needed. I recently went through the TSA Precheck line (my ticket had the little Pre heck logo on it) but the check-in dude did not give me the laminated poster board that said "Precheck" on it. I don't fly often enough to have noticed, so when I got to the security apparatus 15 feet further I was treated as non-Precheck. It did not matter that I could show my ticket had the appropriate logo on it. No card, no Precheck. One more slap in the face from the Security Theater.

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What is the precheck card?

From my anecdotal experience, your boarding pass may have TSA precheck mark. This has been sufficient for me to go into the TSA precheck line (vs regular default line).

Also, I usually see a person at the precheck line entrance screening people for boarding passes with the precheck mark. Otherwise they will direct you to the regular line.

For some airports with low amounts of traffic, there isn't a separate precheck line, so you're just given some sort of marker that tells the workers to treat you as a precheck member in the standard line.

Some of the smaller airports that I've been through give you a laminated PreCheck card after they've checked your ID and ticket. You hold onto that for a few seconds until you're called up for the next stage of the process. The officer takes the card, places a PreCheck indicator on the belt alongside your luggage, then un-ropes the metal detector and waves you through. Large airports have dedicated lines for PreCheck and don't require all this.

What is most ridiculous about all the rules of security theater is that its toothless. I have seen multiple people jump the security line, just walk up around it and throw their stuff on the conveyer ahead of people, then they walk immediately into the scanner cutting off whoever was about to get in next. Some people in line say something out loud but most people just stand there stunned. TSA agents didn't even flinch. I think they are trained not to confront people who line jump, and the line jumpers are taking advantage of that big time, at least at the big busy airports.

I was that person once, but it was because my BP wouldn’t scan. (Bad print). Dude told me where to reprint and when I got back a few minutes later and barged my way to the front, he had already vanished. Ugh, but nobody really questioned.

Then again, they probably wouldn’t remember who it was.

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