While I support the rights of an airline to do something like this in principle, if the government is doing it AND every flyer is paying the same security surcharge without any choice in the matter, then it's wrong to treat them differently.

If I'm paying $10 on some round trip and wait two hours in a line and someone else gets right through for being "elite" while paying THE SAME $10, it's not right. If you pay the same amount for the security, you should get the same level of service. And if the airlines want to kiss up to the elites, fine. Let them pay a (higher) security charge for the elites and subsidize the cost for those in the longer lines. If the security charges are different, you can morally justify the difference in line sizes.