OK - I am probably going to regret this but, after having read the entire thread, I am going to offer up my 2 cents...

There are two concepts woven throughout this thread - security and privilege - and much of the commentary answers one with the other.

So, I'd like to offer up some thoughts to offer a perspective in which both can exist. Before I start, let me acknowledge that putting oneself in the middle of cross-fire is a known stupid thing to do so do not assail me for being stupid - my wife owns that franchise and she will sue you.

From where I sit, I figure there's really not a fatal bullet to be found - unless there's a terrorist in the FT crowd who has figured out how to deliver a bomb via TCPIP :<)

Security

I think it's fair to say that PreCheck exists as a security program - not a privilege program. Before some descend, let me say that in practice, there are certainly vestiges of privilege in PreCheck but that the GENESIS of the program was to identify a segment of the traveling public who posed minimal risk and provide them with expedited screening. The benefits weren't just for them - it enabled concentrating resources on the remaining populations and lowered costs in servicing a lower risk (pre-screened) population.

To do this, TSA developed some risk models and determined what information would be necessary to allow someone into the expedited screening program. Empirically, it seems one model was based solely on Frequent Flyer data as PreCheck was offered to many solely on that basis. It also seems that they developed an alternate profile which leveraged the Trusted Traveler program and offered a path to PreCheck through that program. It should be noted that to qualify through the TT program, there is likely a certain population who could qualify for PreCheck but did not qualify for TT (ie PreCheck is as a set is not entirely within the TT qualified population).

So let's think about how this model for PreCheck inclusion would work. The model is most likely an affirmative model - that is if you score a particular number, you qualify. Denial does not mean the TSA thinks you are a terrorist. It simply means that they cannot score you affirmatively for PreCheck. It could be because they have enough information and you fail, there is a disqualifying piece of information in your profile (those annual summer vacations to Yemen) or that they simply do not have enough information to score you.

So, BubbaLoop, they don't think that you are a terrorist but they just don't have enough information to generate a score that would grant you PreCheck. I know that sucks but in any screening system there's going to be a line and some will be one on side and the other not. As a US Passport holder, there is a line that exists every time I go to the UK or Europe that is different from those that hold other passports and I travel with less "freedom" and convenience as a result.

Now there have been a number of comments about how nobody has tried to give an entire 747 a hot foot since Richard Reid so why do we have to take off our shoes?

Screening processes have two effects. Of course, we want to catch someone who is bringing a bomb or something wrong on-board. But screening is also a deterrent. The fact that shoes are being examined or that liquids beyond a certain volume are prohibited deters certain types of attacks. We have spend considerable time, money and, yes, inconvenience for the traveling public to harden the transportation system. One can certainly be critical of the trade-offs (and I am of many), but ultimately any system will be expensive, inefficient and inconvenient. For those who offer that there should be no screening, the past certainly offers plenty of evidence that will lead to a certain % of bad outcomes.

One speculation is that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would have qualified for PreCheck. I am not so certain. Yes, his brother was interviewed but for what purpose? It was in response to a request from Russia and I don't think there was any specific ministerial action on the table for the US. Should that event have precipitated a special tag for him with TSA/FBI...? If so, that tag would have been essentially created by the Russians. What if they had asked the FBI to interview someone else who they considered a dissident risk? What if it was someone affiliated with Pussy Riot - a feminist group - which the Russian government has issues with? Or some other group that many might find unoffensive (or even noble)?

Bottom line, PreCheck certainly screens out people who are no risk. But I think it is fair to say that it is designed to identify a population whose risk falls below a certain threshold not to identify all people who are not a risk (and conversely identify those who are a risk - terrorists, that is). The reason for doing so is not PRIVILEGE but rather SECURITY and better use of resources in its pursuit. Think about it, I probably go through a TSA security screen 70-100 times per year (that's 350-500 times over the 5 year life of GLobal Entry). Expending a fixed cost (which I subsidize by paying $100) to reduce the variable cost of screening me makes a lot of sense on purely economic and risk bases.

Privilege

Of course, the result is we go through lines and we look at the line we're in and the line we're not and it's a short leap to "Why are they privileged and why am I getting felt up?"

As has been pointed out, the faster, easier line is available to many. It just takes some time, effort and $100 to go through the process. Let me also acknowledge that many are willing, ready and able to take the time, effort and expend the $100 to access PreCheck. Unfortunately, TSA in their finite wisdom (which in some cases is wise and other not so) does not have a model to include you.

From the perspective of privilege, let's dispense with time and effort. If one travels little, why take the time and make the effort to go through the process to avoid an inconvenience that occurs infrequently. This issue can be dispatched with the reasoning of marginal utility.

So, we're left with the $100. Which one could argue is a tax that unfairly screens out those with less privilege. Or one could argue it costs something to do the screening - in which case, those asking for/benefiting from the pre-screening are incurring the cost of the screening. It's clear that the screening costs money (probably more than the $100 - and before one screams that is unfair, realize it probably leads to lowered downstream costs for TSA) so I think a logical conclusion is the fee is to cover costs not screen out unprivileged travelers.

Of course, when one sits in those lines and sees someone going through a different (quicker and more pleasant) process, it is hard not to think of them as privileged. In fact they are enjoying a privilege. It's just important to note that the privilege is not the driver of the process but rather a characteristic of the outcome. It is not causal.

I hope this helps. There are many valid points that have been made in this thread. We have the right to hold different opinions. But if we want to have meaningful dialog, we need to identify some things that we can jointly agree on. If we can't do that, then there is no use to the thread.

JMN57,

The problem of this whole argument is that it assumes that the non-PreCheck screening process will weed out (or detract) more terrorists than the PreCheck process. It doesn´t. Metal detectors are better at detecting guns than body scans and taking off shoes does not add to security. [Even if taking off shoes did something, any terrorist with half a brain knows (as I do) that you can fly without removing shoes over and/or into the US if you board abroad.]

It isn´t about risk assessment. It is about quieting the more vocal segment of the flying public without loosing face or money into the pocket of full body scanner sellers.

Everyone should be screened using PreCheck standards.

I agree that everyone should be screened using precheck standards.

Fortunately, we have not had a statistically significant number of incidents to mathematically compute the relative risk between the different procedures. It is your opinion, not fact, that precheck is a safer process.

It is my opinion that the TSA leadership is taking a risk adverse approach so that if there is an incident they can say "we did all the public will tolerate". I doubt that they give a rats butt what the frquent fliers think.

JMN57's post is an outstanding analysis of the issue.

It's clearly being marketed as a security program; only a fool would market it as a privilege program. (And yeah, TSA and all that, but they're not THAT stupid.)

But that's not to say that it's actually about security; it is more likely that it is about pacifying the most frequent flyers who are the most frequent victims of TSA's antics, and the most likely to be critics of TSA's policies.
And this is where it starts to fall apart. The traveling public, as a whole, poses minimal risk. When one group is 99.999999999% trustworthy and the rest is 99.99999999% trustworthy, claiming one is "minimal risk" compared to the other is absurd.
I fail to see how continuing to scope-and-grope the shoeless people in the 99.99999999% trustworthy group is a benefit to that group. "Concentrating resources on the remaining populations" simply means that the groper can take more time going through BubbaLoop's bag and searching her underwear. There is already a perception that those who do not have PreCheck are in some sinister way disqualified from PreCheck and therefore deserve a really thorough search. "Lowered cost" is a fiction; if you think they'll cut numbers because a few people get through PreCheck faster, you haven't been paying attention. TSA has surplus staff as it is, doing gate checks and patrolling the parking lot and just goofing off at the checkpoint.
Or, more likely, they asked themselves "what groups of people would (a) pick up most of the frequent flyers and (b) be easy to get personal data about"? To which the answer was clearly FF programs and the GE/Nexus program.

Consider: they could have identified Federal and State government employees as a trusted group. But many gov't employees are not frequent flyers, and there is (probably) not a quick way to get the biographical data (birthdate, citizenship, place of residence, travel history) of all those employees in one database. Or they could have identified all school teachers as a trusted group (they presumably have some sort of background check before working with children) but again, many school teachers are not frequent flyers, and you would need to get their data from numerous county or state databases. There are other groups they could have chosen, since pretty much any demographic is going to be 99.99999999% trustworthy in regard to airline terrorism, but they chose two groups in which most members are frequent flyers and for which data could be easily obtained.
Again, I believe this choice had nothing to do with "risk models" (at which TSA has shown themselves woefully incompetent) and more to do with large groups on which they could easily assemble basic information. And to groups which are most likely to complain about TSA policies.
No, because if TSA thinks BL is a terrorist, they should not simply turn her down for PreCheck; they should notify the FBI, have her arrested, charged, and put on trial. I think the penalty for being convicted of terrorism is a little harsher than "no PreCheck for you." Conversely, when they have no evidence that BL is a terrorist, there's no excuse for not letting her (and everyone else who has not been convicted of terrorism) have PreCheck.
And yet the result for BubbaLoop is that she's in the long line for the full "guilty until proven innocent" treatment simply because the gov't doesn't have enough information. The same line with the "we don't know whether you're a terrorist or not" people. Your "I know that sucks but" doesn't make it less irritating.
As I noted upthread, every country in the world, AFAIK, does that for IMMIGRATION. The way that a country examines its own citizens for entry is quite different from the way it examines citizens of other countries, and there is a natural reason for having separate lines. Further, I see no difference in "freedom" in such a system (except that a non-citizen may be denied entry) or convenience (the line may be longer for passport control, but you don't have to remove your shoes while standing in it).

And even so, PreCheck is not IMMIGRATION, it is SECURITY. I am not aware of any other country in the world that distinguishes, at a security checkpoint, between (a subset of) its own citizens and the citizens of other countries. Just the US.
Anything that can be hidden in a shoe can be hidden in the mouth or in another bodily orifice. A large number of liquids UNDER a certain volume (allowed) can be combined in an empty container (allowed) after the checkpoint to be a liquid BEYOND a certain volume (not allowed). To consider these measures deterrents is logically flawed. They are simply theater to convince the gullible that the government is "doing something."
Why? In my experience, airport security in Australia, NZ, Japan, Singapore, AUH and DXB, and Europe is not inefficient or inconvenient. Nor do I believe that it is particularly expensive, as (for the most part) they don't waste money on unproven technology. Again, it is mainly the US (with a nod to Canada and the UK) who believe that making it expensive, inconvenient, inefficient and unpleasant proves that you're trying harder.
No one on this board has seriously argued that there should be no screening. Most of us would be satisfied with WTMD, x-ray of all bags, and (while opinions vary) random ETD and/or bag searches. Please show us some of the "plenty of evidence" that this level of security leads to a certain % of bad outcomes. 9/11 doesn't count; that was not a failure of checkpoint security, it was a consequence of airline and gov't policy to cooperate with hijackers.

And while you're giving us all those examples of failed security, note that the above - WTMD/x-ray/random ETD - is EXACTLY what is used for Australian domestic travel and (until very recently) Australian outbound international travel. It is still the standard in much of the rest of the world. Please quantify disasters per week resulting from this reasonable level of security.
No risk?????? Really? Would you care to prove that?
Yeah, we get that it's worth it to YOU because it makes YOUR experience easier and YOU are willing to pay for it and YOU know that YOU are not a risk. But it's no less a privilege for all that. It is offered to some people who are low-risk and willing to pay for it but not to other people who are equally (or more) low-risk and equally (or more) willing to pay for it.
AFAIK, people who get PreCheck by being a FF on one of a handful or airlines do not have to pay the $100 to cover any sort of "pre-screening" so the GE fee is not covering any costs related to PreCheck directly.
Well, that makes it all better then. "We don't discriminate against colored people at our country club, we just don't allow them to apply for membership. But it's nothing personal."

As I stated in my post, you are entitled to your beliefs and opinions which clearly form the basis of your response.

He and his brother also cleared multiple US Government background checks. Paying money and getting cleared by a US background check thereafter apparently secured the Boston Marathon about as well as this PreCheck idiocy secures airports even when backed up by the profiling idiocy that is the BDO program. This PreCheck program is an Orwellian Animal Farm example of "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than other animals" hypocrisy being applied to free US persons. Welcome to America where administrative subjugation of otherwise free persons is increasingly done without due process of law in an open court of law.

No, neither the genesis of "PreCheck" nor anything else about it has anything to do with security. It is a program designed to quiet the complaints of frequent flyers about the laziness, slovenliness, dishonesty, and abusiveness of TSA clerks by giving those frequent flyers a special experience. "PreCheck" devotes disproportionate resources to a privileged group, depriving other passengers of the use of those resources. One whole lane, and 3 or 4 clerks, are devoted to "PreCheck," and usually for the "PreCheck" passenger there is no line at all. There is a trickle through the special lane which could easily handle 20 times as many passengers as go through it. The TSA News Blog did an analysis of the use of the "PreCheck" lanes used numbers to determine whether "PreCheck" allows for "concentrating resources on the remaining populations."

No.

Especially since her beliefs and opinions make sense and are backed by a coherent analysis of facts.

Oy, this thread is still alive?

JMN57, excellent summary and analysis. Unfortunately, it falls on deaf ears with this "life is unfair" crowd.

Well, it would be a better summary if it told us what the throughput ratio is between "PreCheck" and non-"PreCheck" lanes.

JMN57, I have one comment to make regarding the $100 I have to pony up every 5 years.

Why?

A TSA employee gets a one-time/good for life background check (unlike other areas of government and civilian life, where regular updates are conducted).

A TSA employee has far more opportunity and ability to cause mischief than the average pax.

So why do I have to keep paying $100 every 5 years? Why am I less trustworthy than a TSA employee?

For that matter, why does an active duty member of the military suddenly become less trustworthy the day he/she separates from service, even if that service is decades long?

The airlines cover many (probably most) of the costs associated with PreCheck that are above and beyond that of ordinary screening.

You don't have to quote two-screen-length post to provide a single sentence comment of disagreement when the two-screen-length post appears a few posts above; kind of mucks up the forums.

Why wouldn't it be; I doubt the complaint that "Pre-Check [is] denied more often than not" is any less a "Checkpoint . . . Debate" this week than last.

What makes you think it is only a one-time check for TSOs? The only one I've spoken with in specific about background checks is one of the ones who has SECRET clearance, so he couldn't really speak to periodic background checks for line TSOs.

Actually, I did not say that. I stated that metal detectors are better at detecting guns than body scans. That is a fact, simply because body scanners only detect stuff on the front and back surface of bodies, not on sides or inside, while metal detectors detect metal anywhere.

It is also very clear including from studies in Germany that the scanners have very high false positive rates.

The method is fundamentally flawed.

I don't know about those with higher level jobs/clearances, but I was told on different occasions by two TSOs from different airports that it's a one-time (supposedly at hiring, but sometimes delayed) background check. I was also told that this is the reason 'bad apples' sometimes turn up who have been working for TSA almost since the beginning. Apparently during the early rush to get TSA up and functioning, background checks were sometimes delayed and/or very cursory.

The bolded statements above certainly match what I have heard; one would think TSA that would at least be notified of any arrests of their employees.