CLEAR is a pox on America’s airports
slate.com
slate.com
The long lines at airports don't need to exist. It's security theater. They are selling a solution to a problem of their own making.
The fact that that problem is a gateway to a necessity (for many) like air travel, puts it clearly in the category of extortion. If I were in charge, Clear's business would be outright illegal.
https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-...
1. Create a new account every so often, so that in the event that I see a topic I’d like to comment on, I’m not precluded.
2. Just not post.
Were 2 to apply to a great many people I fear HN would be worse off. And anyway committed assholes would just take door number 1.
There’s no way security lines are slow so-and-only-so that Clear may exist; slow seems inevitable.
How may I help bring about this world of line-free travel for all?
With base TSA, every American can go through with no extra charge
Clear and PreCheck cost extra. Clear especially
There wouldn’t be PS5 shortages if every PS5 cost $1000
That said, I’ve noticed the lines at Global Entry are now often longer than regular ordinary passport control. Maybe put that management team on the pre-check situation.
I want this, too - I just want it for everyone!
The misery is unnecessary, because TSA screening is worthless.
Airport security is only a federal service provided by the TSA for the purpose of subsidizing the airline industry (by removing a source of liability.) This was part of a series of post-9/11 actions taken to stabilize the air travel industry.
That they have found the way to use the pain imposed to create federal partnerships to subsidize other private services is…unsurprising.
Shouldn’t I have the choice to trust them and get the improved service due to their being able to do the biometric check?
I’m not sure what you mean by privatizing access to federal services. You still have access to that service. If you mean privatizing the administration of the service, well TSA screeners are staffed by private contractors.
If you’re arguing that the federal government should even the playing field and provide the option to supply them with biometrics and get better service as a result (and get Clear out of the way), then I would certainly agree with that. But honestly I am not sure what you’re arguing for, other than denying people access to a service they are willing to make the privacy trade-off for because it bothers you they get through security faster than you do.
It's also worth noting that applies to health care as well, although the line cutting is likely to provoke more moral outrage.
With CLEAR, the biometrics are just the theater to enable the venue rev share and traveler benefit (cutting the line).
https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/credential-aut...
The ID check is currently an excuse to put that gatekeeper out front; they could do it as part of the inspection area and not impact a single thing. It could even be easily automated (it effectively is).
•Also in this case abolish the TSA. Useless make work security theater.
I want to see the President of the United States stand in a crappy TSA line like the rest of us each time he boards his VC25.
My favorite was when it was Rep Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who notably pushed hard for the sort of security theater he was then complaining about. I was already two drinks in when he stormed into the SkyClub all miffed. And then I got to sit next to him on the plane! I doubt the man could see the irony.
According to many reports, at least some do:
https://traveltips.usatoday.com/exempt-tsa-screening-109841....
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna40341995
And in cases where they don't get to skip it, they definitely get preferential treatment:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/congress-tsa-whitelist_n_5875...
Not to mention some who travel exclusively on private flights (military or otherwise).
Why? The point of TSA in theory is to prevent you from taking a weapon onto a plane. If you are flying on your own plane or one you lease what benefit is there in going through TSA?
The whole point was to stop people hijacking or destroying a plane. If you've got the money to fly private you could just rent the plane for a day and fly it yourself. Plus i don't think there's been a single case of people hijacking a private jet...
> Don't allow congresspeople to bypass the TSA
the only people in commercial airports who can skip TSA AFIAK is diplomats, and that would be based under international law exempting them from search by another nation
This is not accurate. Diplomatic pouches are exempt from search, but those require a bunch of accompanying paperwork. The diplomat or courier still has to go through security screening.
To make them experience the system that they're imposing on everyone else.
This depends on how you define "in commercial airports". Many commercial airports have a special VIP section, which I would call "in" that airport.
I certainly wouldn't judge anyone for using precheck; it's probably the practical choice. I have simply chosen to be (politely) obstinate about TSA procedures as a form of protest; a little bit of monkeywrenching by doing it all the hard way.
I totally appreciate what you're doing! I wish there were a way to make it painful for the TSA.
People fail to realize that TSA is just the nationalization and standardization of the system in place pre-9/11. It wasn't new or unprecedented. Instead of a Wackenhut (now G4S) contractor making $17k scanning bags it became a government employee making $21k.
You are remembering a past that never existed if you think things used to be better.
Things are better now, unless you are 90 years old remembering the 1960s. A spate of communist hijackings of airplanes led to bag and bodily inspections in the early 70s.
Here's security officers hand-inspecting every single carry-on (and frisking every single passenger) in 1973: https://imgur.com/a/n2HRbtE
Here's the film Airplane 2 lampooning airport security in 1982: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCkagYixpuc
I started flying internationally constantly for work after Lockerbie. For years I had to remove and power on every single electronic device I carried (and I carried, for the time, many) to demonstrate no components had been replaced by explosives. Not only in the US but also Europe and Asia.
Today is better than any time in the past, again, unless you're on death's door remembering flying in the 1950s and 1960s.
Put your bags on the conveyer, walk through the scanner, done. Based on my observations the people who have problems with this are those unfamiliar with the procedures needed (like removing the Mr. T-style amount of jewelry they're wearing) to make things move smoothly.
Much better and faster than staff with nylon rods poking around in every bag and frisking every person.
This illustrates the misunderstandings about the TSA.
The TSA didn't make up the liquids rule. The British did and then they promulgated those rules up through the ICAO (international civil aviation organization).
The TSA implemented the rule because the US is a member of the ICAO, as did many other countries.
If the TSA didn't exist, the FAA or DOT would have implemented the liquid rule instead and a private security contractor would be throwing away water bottles instead of "wannabe cops working for the federal government".
Same with shoes.
https://www.icao.int/Security/SFP/LAGS_STEBS/Documents/A%20h...
The TSA can't even change anything if they try. They only implement rules as directed by Congress, the FAA, and the ICAO.
They tried to unban knives because their analysis showed that knives posed no threat to aircraft, but were overruled by Congress.
Point 1: the TSA in particular is not at fault for the modern state of airport security
Point 2: airport security is better than it has been since the 60s
You spent most of your first post arguing point 2, which is counter to my own experience, and which GP contradicted. Rather than address their points, you've ignored their argument and switched to point 1, which they didn't even challenge.
My summary of the situation: the culture of fear that arose in the wake of 9/11 has resulted in a slough of changes that as a whole have made the experience of getting on a plane materially worse than it was prior to 9/11. One of those changes was the establishment of the TSA. While the TSA does not itself bear much if any of the responsibility for the problems with the security process, they do serve as a figurehead for all of those changes. And yes, I agree with GP that airport security is much more inconvenient than it was in the 90s.
My indicator is how early you're advised to arrive before a flight. In the 80s and 90s, the common wisdom was to show up an hour early, or an hour and a half to two hours for international flights. After 9/11, that bumped up to an hour and a half for domestic, and now after COVID, they recommend 2 hours or more for a domestic flight, 3 during holidays.
This is a bad indicator because the driving force behind it are the retail establishments inside almost every modern airport.
This has huge potential to track people everywhere they go. It's also not hard to imagine Clear adding some kind of "risk score" that bans people from every Clear-enabled business, which has massive potential for abuse.
Literal line cutting is just a special case of separate lines with different processing priority.
Plus, a lot of Precheck people have it via Global Entry, which really is paying to skip the line. Since I got GE, I have never once spent as much time at immigration coming back to the US as it took me to walk from the gate to the immigration hall. Longest line ever was maybe five minutes, because an entire jumbo jet's flight crew was in front of me. I've bypassed hours-long lines.
Though as more advanced scanners come in this might lose value, at many airports now everything stays in your bag anyway, shoes stay on and you go through the whole body scan (which takes 5 seconds). It was amazing how quick it was going through las vegas
In some sense air travel is an exercise in friction and waiting. Standing in line definitely rubs me the wrong way, but others might weight their inconveniences very differently. Perhaps keeping your shoes on should be a separate upcharge from a shorter wait :P
Clear and Pre-Check both have signficant friction to sign-up. If line cutting was offered with little friction (i.e. without security considerations), I think it would be quite popular.
"Airports empower Clear Secure’s employees to issue instructions to all flyers going through security—including those who never signed up for CLEAR."
Cost optimization can turn anything to crap. As a kid I used to go to amusement parks on off days and get 10-20x the riding in, because nobody was there. Often could go from a ride exit to a ride entrance and hop right into a seat. Now they "optimize" this, run rides so you always have to wait 20-30 minutes.
However, I agree with the author that a private company should not be getting between me and my government. I am okay with TSA as long as it is my government making sure airports are safe. I am fine with paying more for expedited passports because that is a deal between me and my government. I am fine with expedited boarding because that never involved my government and it never should.
This is a situation, like the author said, that is similar to the intuit catastrophe. Paying CLEAR is equivalent (in the long term) to ensuring that no forward progress is made on simplifying and expediting airport security.
On the other hand though, I returned yesterday from a business trip to Israel, where taxes fund a highly functional and adequate healthcare system, but many well-to-do tech workers also pay for private health insurance which allows your family members to be seen almost immediately by a specialist when needed. I would be okay with this system in the United States as a compromise to supersede the dysfunctional system we have now.
Can you? Not in my country of residence.
> and for Group 1 boarding of the aircraft
That's not a monopoly - you're free to choose any airline you want if you want to pay them for extra service.
> and for an Uber to pick you up 5 minutes early on the way to the airport.
Once again, you as the consumer have a choice of supplier.
My understanding of Clear is they positively identify me via iris scan, then match it up to a background check and my KTN. With that, I’m a “known traveler” and don’t need an experienced officer to review my documents.
$100 or $189 is trivial compared to all the plane tickets and other expenses of travel. Over a couple dozen trips a year, I’m grateful for the reduction in waiting time and stress.
If there was another tier that had an even faster and more pleasant experience, maybe off to the side somewhere, I’d pay double.
If you're flying out of LAX then there is[0], but you'll be paying substantially more than double for the privilege.
Don't assume everyone else has the privilege of not being worried about an additional $100-$200 cost to airline travel, it isn't a cute look.
To be fair, if someone goes through the cost, time, and privacy invasion to get line cutting, more power to them. Pre I think is okay, Clear seems dubious. Clear, similar to public-private partnerships, generally shouldn't exist.
Airports and airlines are businesses, not government facilities or public commons. The primary reason the TSA exists is so profit motives don't trump security standards and end up with another 9/11.
In one airport I noticed I didn't have to show my ID at all, only boarding pass (QR code on my phone).
On the return leg I didn't even have to scan my boarding pass.
As someone who hasn't got real ID yet, this Is a good hack for me.
Disgusting.
People pay for access, convenience, and improved service in many areas of life.
Better passes at Disney World. VIP concert tickets that get you access to abundant restrooms, better food and drinks. I’ve seen some restaurants in S.F. that seem to have moved to a model where depending on which part of the restaurant you reserve you get different menus and service (I forget which, but saw that this summer).
Honest question, I’m not sure exactly what it is you want to disallow - can you elaborate?
Clear is a perfect example of a company that exists to extract value from a system, and and company that will fight to maintain the status quo of a shitty experience for everyone else. Every time I pass the Clear line, I wonder why some private enterprise was given this space, and handed this right to insert themselves in the security process.
I want to agree with you, but disregarding the clear thing - is it really optimal (and not only locally optimal) to not have any means (not per se financial) to not have everyone be handled equally and fairly, especially if we're talking things like "expedited access", usually for people who have put in some work once in order to speed up their daily/weekly/monthly thing over the average person doing the activity once per year or decade.
Maybe I'm just being too focused on this example at hand, but if you look at immigration queues, we often have these "this is for local people where we don't have to check anything, really" and "this is for people who might need to find their visa and it could be complicated, thus a long line" - or the simple example of buying a monthly ticket for public transport and not standing in line at the ticket machine.
Your example about locals vs. foreigners at customs and border control also makes sense to me. I'm fine waiting in a longer line when I get to Europe since I'm not an EU citizen.
Think about EZPass on the highway. Anyone sitting in line waiting to pay a toll manually was just lazy in not setting up automatic toll payment.
You’re not replying to me, but I think any and all prioritization in security lines should be outlawed.
It's not about airports, it's about identity or rather social credit
2020 Health Pass - https://www.labcorp.com/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/news/cl...
2022 Normalize at major conventions https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/conventions/clear-tec...
2024 To get truly Clear, Download the app today!
And who wants a share of all that user data?