Originally Posted by kmfdm91
All,
Yet again, I've had another attempt on trying to figure out what might cause one to be SSSS'd again. Here's my experience:
I'm a Premier Exec on United and a General Member on American. On quite a few flights on both carriers, I have been SSSS'd. It happened randomly, but usually when trips were made just before flying...even in Full-Y. This all stopped last fall, even when trips were booked the day before or even the day OF flying. I might not think much about it, and purely think of the randomness of it all...but I've since noticed these oddities.
* A coworker traveling with me had the exact same itinerary, booked the exact same date (day before travel on a paid F ticket). She got SSSS'd and I got nothing. This has happened more than once. Both of us have no status (on AA).
* I have taken several one-way trips on US (I'm only status because of *A) booked the day before, without a single one being SSSS.
After thinking about it all, I realized that I haven't been SSSS'd at all since I received my full TS (Top Secret) Clearance. Is this somehow tied into the government's processing of SSSS'ers? It would make complete sense, but I couldn't find anything about it at all in the forums.
I'm sure that other FTers have clearances (especially here in WAS); How many of you all have been SSSS'd if holding a clearance...if so - how high was the clearance and what was your itinerary?
I'm just curious
-jeremy
I can tell you one thing, harassment doesn't stop because you have a TS clearance, and it isn't just applied to TSA.
I worked with a guy at a previous job that had a higher level clearance than that (mainly due to compartments, etc), and he got hassled every time he tried to re-enter the country. He's of Indian descent, but a natural born US citizen. At any rate, he got hassled twice when coming back into the country from overseas. At first, he thought it was just the airport, but then he got it at HNL when he re-entered the country while on official business. Didn't matter that he was traveling on an official red passport and had travel orders. He still got the works by immigration. I think a few calls to agency security stopped that.
If anything's saved you, it's probably elite status. Airlines can deselect SSSS pax if they have status on an airline, have been a member for more than 6 months, or flown a certain amount of miles to establish a pattern.