Throw away previous civil disobedience and accept free PreCheck?
Apr 19, 2014, 6:41 am
#46
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 3,657
TSA could make PreCheck the default for everyone* tomorrow if they wanted to. They could have done it yesterday or months ago. Yet they didn't. Because, as others have hinted, it's not as simple as that. They have to collect money, or offset the "lower scrutiny" 
of PreCheck with background checks or web surveillance or something else nefarious.
of PreCheck with background checks or web surveillance or something else nefarious."Gee, millions of people went through the 'lesser screening' of PreCheck, and no planes fell from the sky. The lesser screening makes passengers happy and is cheaper. Maybe we should do more of it."
Apr 19, 2014, 10:23 am
#47
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 729
But, as I said before, TSA as an organization cannot undermine its own existence. It will continue to have pax jump through hoops , it will continue to use pax as guinea pigs for security vendors' technology du jour, and it will continue to use "SSI" as a shield against any fact or study that questions TSA practices.
Apr 19, 2014, 2:49 pm
#48
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 3,657
Which, actually, somewhat supports my point. Since there's no objective standard as to what constitutes "adequate" security, TSA is free to define it however it likes. Granted, there will be plenty of folks who will want a say in that, too --- Congress, the airlines, the traveling public, Justin Bieber --- but that doesn't mean that TSA's definitions of "adequate" security are fixed in stone.
Apr 19, 2014, 10:37 pm
#49
Moderator: Manufactured Spending
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 6,580
Not necessarily. If we accept the premise that Rapiscan et. al. are just in this for the money (not an unreasonable premise), then all they really care about is that TSA is buying the machines, not how often they are actually used. I don't see the ETD manufacturers complaining that not enough passengers are selected for its screening.
Apr 21, 2014, 10:33 am
#50
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OP here. Love the idea of taking video of the entire screening process. At 2-4x per week at my smaller airport, I imagine it may help reign in some of the more rogue TSA clerks.
I still feel like Pre should be the default for anyone in possession of a US Passport.
I still feel like Pre should be the default for anyone in possession of a US Passport.
Apr 21, 2014, 1:42 pm
#51
FlyerTalk Evangelist
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There's a way to read that, though, that isn't nearly so conspiratorial.
There are statements from various TSA folks (at all levels) that suggest that TSA wants to move to PreCheck as the standard for all screening, precisely for the reasons that many of us have complained about for years here (ineffective screening, invasions of privacy, wasteful spending, etc.). If TSA is attempting to respond to silence the criticism by, you know, actually doing the right thing, then a happy consequence of such actions will be to silence the critics who offer that criticism.
On the other hand, participating in PreCheck might actually encourage the TSA to open it up to more and more people. TSA has managed to screen thousands of people a day using PreCheck without any loss of security. That might convince TSA that more people should be allowed to use PreCheck --- with the ultimate goal, of course, being that PreCheck is the default mode of screening for most passengers.
But I'm a "glass half-full" sort of person; as always, your mileage may vary.
There are statements from various TSA folks (at all levels) that suggest that TSA wants to move to PreCheck as the standard for all screening, precisely for the reasons that many of us have complained about for years here (ineffective screening, invasions of privacy, wasteful spending, etc.). If TSA is attempting to respond to silence the criticism by, you know, actually doing the right thing, then a happy consequence of such actions will be to silence the critics who offer that criticism.
On the other hand, participating in PreCheck might actually encourage the TSA to open it up to more and more people. TSA has managed to screen thousands of people a day using PreCheck without any loss of security. That might convince TSA that more people should be allowed to use PreCheck --- with the ultimate goal, of course, being that PreCheck is the default mode of screening for most passengers.
But I'm a "glass half-full" sort of person; as always, your mileage may vary.
There's an easy way to get back to a precheck style of screening without the invasion of privacy - it's called going back to the way things used to be. Everyone gets the same type of precheck screening unless there's an alarm or a reason to screen further.
It isn't rocket science, but precheck is s scam that allows TSA to invade a person's privacy AND get money to do it. It's a win-win for TSA, lose-lose for pax.
Apr 21, 2014, 1:45 pm
#52
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
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His stated hope -- in one place at least -- has been for 3/4 or 4/5 to get it. For a family of four traveling to Disney with one parent enrolled in a DHS pay-to-play membership program, 3/4 getting the PreCheck LLL screening as an option shouldn't be a surprise. That is where he wanted to go with this.
Apr 21, 2014, 4:29 pm
#53
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The TSA is anything but a cost-effective implementation team; and given the TSA's obsession over ID and boarding pass checks and strip search machines, resources get diverted from contraband WEI interdiction and airport perimeter security to the dog and pony show for which the TSA is known in these parts.
Apr 28, 2014, 2:19 pm
#54
Join Date: Apr 2009
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Thanks again for the excellent suggestions and feedback. I tried to swing GE, even offering to pay the $15 difference, but was shot down. I only travel internationally 1-2 times per year, versus virtually every week domestically, so not a huge loss, and the suggestion certainly made sense...
Received my KTN in about 24 hours, so I guess I am officially out of the TSA antagonism business, for the time being. With all of the run-ins I have had with TSA, including at least one where they managed to abscond with my passport for a few minutes, I thought I might be in enough databases to get my application denied. But in the end, they got their $85, and I got a 9-digit alpha-numeric code.
Received my KTN in about 24 hours, so I guess I am officially out of the TSA antagonism business, for the time being. With all of the run-ins I have had with TSA, including at least one where they managed to abscond with my passport for a few minutes, I thought I might be in enough databases to get my application denied. But in the end, they got their $85, and I got a 9-digit alpha-numeric code.
If standing in a line of 300 people helps make a dramatic point about sticking it to the man, instead of going thorough Precheck, good for you. There are other ways to fight the battle.
Mooo.
Last edited by Bonanza36; Apr 28, 2014 at 2:25 pm