Originally Posted by
FliesWay2Much
Never! That is the "extortion" part of "ExtortionCheck". As many of us have noted in numerous threads, ExtortionCheck is identical to the Communist system of "privileges." The government creates an upper class which is dependent upon them for "privileges" that the government can revoke at any time for any, or no, reason. It's a proven method to silence dissent.
I don't consider NEXUS or GE to be in that category, because I think those are real, and there's a sensible reason for them. I have NEXUS, and it doesn't really exempt me from a rigorous screening at the border, because the normal screening is pretty quick - there's just a lot of people in line on a busy travel day, especially southbound, and NEXUS gets me into a special lane. Last year I went to and from Canada with a Chinese national in the car and crossed in the regular lane, and the questioning was just normal questioning and was directed to ferreting out real issues - is this going to be an overstay, are the two of you lying about how you know each other, etc?
My $50 payment and application basically just identifies me as a frequent crosser for whom it's worthwhile to do the application, compared to an infrequent crosser who doesn't want to bother.
I think there are real issues that immigration screening can help to catch - overstays, human trafficking, things like that. And I suppose the big concern is customs. I got a random check and search northbound in the NEXUS lane once - polite and uneventful, and at that time, I suppose necessary to keep the NEXUS lane from being used exclusively by marijuana smugglers.
GE is also for a real reason, I think.
But as to the TSA and calling it "Extortion," definitely I understand your reasoning, but MY experience with it is not that it functions as a THREAT to me, but that it REMOVES me from the obnoxious parts of the process so that I don't have the same EXPERIENCE as the non-Übermenschen in the regular lanes. It isn't the threat (although it's there, certainly) that tends to keep the Übermenschen compliant, it's that the things that happen to us (to me anyway) AREN'T unreasonable and so the only people in the Übermenschen population who are going to struggle against the degeneration of passenger screening are people who are real activists.
The most irritating thing that's happened to me in the Übermenschen lane is that I went through alone at JFK T4. Came to the document checker, passed through, went through the x-ray and metal detector, NOBODY else in line that whole time. That's unfair and irritating, but it's not unfair to ME. The only people who really fight against things like that are real activists those are few in number. Many passengers are removed from the population of people who might protest not because they feel a threat, but because there is nothing for them to protest AGAINST.
Since becoming an Übermensch, with an Übermenschen lane both ways, the only chances I have gotten have been trying to get the clerk to call in the hazmat team when she found bottle that I had put in there and forgotten to take out after a misconnect, brushing off a couple of guys who told me I couldn't take pictures of the checkpoint (I guess they were National Guard patrolling the airport or something) and presenting my driver's license at JFK T1 even though the clerk kept telling me she needed to see my passport. That caused her to call a supervisor, who called somebody on his walkie-talkie (who, I know not) and then looked at my driving license, scribbled on my boarding pass, and passed me through.
The worst abuses come not from the rules themselves, but from clerks that don't follow the rules. And now I have an extra layer shielding me from abusive clerks.
So that's a tough tough problem to solve if you want to get the public more activist about this issue. And lots of people believe with all their hearts that taking THEIR OWN shoes off makes them safer.
Originally Posted by
FliesWay2Much
How many people, even on the forum, whine & complain about the ExtortionCheck line being held up by somebody who doesn't know the system or tries to take out their laptop and freedom bag?This whole set-up has worked like a charm for the TSA.
Are people actually complaining about that, or are they complaining that "their" line is being held up because there are too many people in it, and disguising that as a complaint about "clueless" people? I have been behind somebody that didn't know how things worked, maybe TWO times, and I quietly told them what to do. And when the clerks quietly tell people what to do, without yelling into the air, the passengers adapt just fine. I have had the thought "Oh, so many people in front of me, maybe I should try another checkpoint" - but I never thought of those people as "not belonging" and I said to myself, just stay here, you'll be through in 10 minutes or less, and this is a GOOD THING for this line to have more people in it.