Especially when the government already setup a massive security agency called DHS/TSA and already had global entry/pre check programs in place.
Re: Disneyland allowing you to pay to avoid lines, I remember visiting Universal Studios (Orlando) after Hurricane Charley in 2004. The lines were non-existent, but the fun part wasn't skipping the lines so much as the feeling of having the whole park to yourself. If they could find a way to offer that experience, I'd pay for it. I suspect VR might be one of the only ways to do it (and perhaps a rollercoaster in VR is just as good as the real experience, I don't know myself as I haven't messed around with VR). I'd feel like an asshole paying to skip lines that actual, real human beings were waiting in, but I don't doubt that plenty of people would have zero qualms about this.
You can. Companies regularly rent out entire amusement parks for a day for company events. Tech companies have been doing it in the Bay Area at Great America for a long time: https://www.cagreatamerica.com/groups/corporate-events/park-...
Of course, I'm sure it costs an amount much higher than you're willing to pay.
Why are people who can afford to pay an additional tax (not even to the government) getting to skip to the front of the line in a public facility?
Building Clear with taxpayer dollars would have required outsourcing to a contractor anyway. And for what, to let rich people skip the line? Let them pay for their own system, and reduce the hiring burden for the TSA at the same time. Seems like a win-win.
... and in fact, CBP does have a biometric ID verification system, but it's for customs entry.
Letting rich people skip the line is a loss.
Letting rich people opt out of the system poorer people have to use, reducing political support for having a properly functioning system for poor people is a loss.
Letting a private company profit from allowing people to “buy” back their time due to an underfunded government department is a loss.
It is losses all the way around unless you have an explicit goal of creating a more tiered society. All disregarding the notion that TSA/DHS is security theater and a jobs program at best, and a way to control the masses at worst.
How that got approved is disgusting.