Originally Posted by Bart
It's a difference between a general officer, for example, who possesses a top secret security clearance WITH a 25-year record of demonstrated trustworthiness and a 21 year old contractor who may have a top secret security clearance only because there was no derogatory information to disqualify him/her from consideration for that clearance. As a general rule, I believe everyone needs to undergo a measure of security scrutiny; however, IF there are going to be exceptions, then let's have some logic behind them.
I would agree that the average level of trustworthiness between the different groups in the TSA memo may vary significantly. However, being a general officer just means that one is very adept at working within the system - history has proven that even general officers are not without character issues.
If someone offered me the chance to board a plane containing only unscreened people (with identities verified) from the groups named in the TSA memo, I would have no problem with it - even if I was sitting next to the 21 year old bow-wielding contractor wearing a throwing star for a belt buckle.
Sure, there could be a bad apple in the bunch, and perhaps one may even have unwittingly brought something aboard as a "mule". However, I have much more fear of the unscreened illegal alien with a felony record working for the catering company that stocks the plane. I also have a much bigger fear of the logsitics guy working for one of the companies on the "trusted shipper" list that dumps unscreened cargo into the airplane.
There will always be holes - ideally I would like to see some level of screening for everyone. However, I'm in favor of anything that can shift efforts to address higher risk areas.