Originally Posted by Superguy
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.
I'm with Superguy here too. Too many people who have or have had high level security clearances have been selected for rather routine haraSSSSment that it's not a guaranteed way to minimize haraSSSSment selection.
The travel-related public-private collaborations -- collaborations that I consider to be, in parts, unAmerican in both process and result -- produce the scarlet letter-equivalents mostly without consideration of security clearance. Aspects of DHS related to customs and immigration are another matter, but even there security clearance is no guarantee of being given a "get out of here easy" pass.