I've been opting out of PreCheck "random" alarms ever since they put the scanners in PreCheck. Takes forever to get the Freedom Grope. So, just for fun I went through the scanner when I got the "random" alarm today, to see if it was faster than opting out. Got a scan and a Grope. Took longer than opting out.

The groper told me to wait for glove test. I said to the supervisor, "this is government stupid." She said, "get your luggage and leave before he gets back."

What a bunch of worthless nonsense. Do you feel safer now?

Have never had a problem with pre-check and receive it 100% of the time with GE. Saves me a ton of time and time is money.

Maybe the randomizer is reading your mind.

From what I could parse of your post, it seems to me your beef isn't with PreCheck, but with TSA in general.

I've found PreCheck indispensable -- worth five times what I paid.

+1 - Why engage in policy disputes with line employees? Makes no sense and just gets you riled up as appears to have happened here.

Anyone who has traveled a lot from those US airports with WTMDs set to alarm "randomly" for the purpose of directing PreCheck LLL passengers to strip search machines would realize that even with a 100% Precheck LLL indicator that the kind of situation mentioned by the OP can hit -- it even hits TSA apologists if they fly enough from airports that have started with using strip search machines for PreCheck LLL passengers in the manner indicated herein.

I didn't get the impression that the OP was 'riled' or involve in a 'policy dispute' when he made his observation to the TSO, and based on her response, it seems clear to me that she didn't get riled, she was in complete agreement.

It is possible to discuss TSA things to TSOs who are inclined to chat. It's just possible that such conversations might open the eyes of a non-travelling TSO or enable a pax, as in this case, to realize that at least some of the TSOs do realize that much of what they are doing is either pointless but required or vindictive and retaliatory.

A question was apparently changed without adequate review on the GE kiosks. More than one pax self-directed to secondary as a result. At least one of those pax recounts how the CBP agent didn't understand at first, then realized that the pax was following the new directions to the letter, as instructed. That CBP agent said the question was nuts and said he'd follow up on it.

I don't know who did inform CBP in the end, but the question has been corrected to reduce confusion.

This.

It gets a bit tiresome when some pax assume that all silly or adverse encounters at checkpoints are 100% because the pax got stroppy - because, you know, no TSO would ever get stroppy or be wrong, and even if they did, a savvy traveller always knows how to defuse the situation.

What on earth does your complaint have to do with Precheck?

The issue is a direct product of "random" inclusion of strip-search machine use for PreCheck LLL passengers. People signed up for, or otherwise wanted, PreCheck LLL to avoid being subjected to the strip search machines and reduce having to "opt out" from strip search machine scanning. Those people are finding out that it is no longer all it was cut out to be.

Once you get a "NOS or grope" choice going through Precheck, the program definitely loses it's luster. As the last 13 years have shown us, once TSA starts down the road of things like this - NOS at Precheck, with "random" pull asides for NOS or grope - it only gets worse.

When "random" just meant a hand swab, I didn't think it was so bad. It was pointless but painless. I had it multiple times in one day, and it was just like a joke, nothing too terrible.

But the switch to full-body scanning and frisking destroys the appeal. The line is still often shorter but now there's just much more of a gamble.

After the attacks in Paris, the TSA is insistent on "ramping up" or "enhancing" security measures (those always seem to be the clich� phrases). This particularly includes gate screening, which all of us detest.

I still believe that they'll rethink their PreCheck plans over time. My thought is that TSA staff probably hate it immensely. Instead of happy passengers, getting through the checkpoint quickly, they now have uncontrollable long beeps at the discretion of some administrator. These can vary from day to day, and I'm guessing that no TSA employee wants to be standing at the metal detector on the days when someone decides it will go off for a higher percentage of passengers.

The even more cynical view is that a series of "dangerous articles" (another clich� term) will make their way through millimeter wave scanning. In other words, time will show that the machines just aren't so great after all.

I feel that the mentality is that the full-body imaging was something that many felt was the answer to all security fears. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's underwear forced legislators and some misguided members of the flying public into believing that full-body imaging provide instant safety to everyone. And we're not alone; Schipol has adopted it for its intercontinental flights. (Other airports, thankfully, seem to have saved it for secondary screening or left the machines turned off.) There is so much money to be made in selling those machines--a lot more than a metal detector.

For now, at least, nobody is going to loosen anything. But the rules seem to come in waves. Perhaps they'll shift the random full-body screening/frisking to some other idiotic and expensive screening technique.

Considering that Delta employees were carrying AK-47s in the cabins of domestic flights, I think the TSA should worry a little less about those of us vetted through Global Entry, PreCheck, and NEXUS, and worry a tad more about the massive gaps in security elsewhere in the airport.

I agree. When the "random" beep goes off for five straight passengers at Precheck, we're right back to 2011. Precheck was a solid step forward for TSA, a way out of the corner they painted themselves into. Well, they took the step, and stepped right into a pile of dog crap.

Not a peep about how NOS/grope is beginning to infest the PreCheck lines in this thread:

http://blog.tsa.gov/2015/01/reflecti...curity-in.html

Does anyone know how frequently the random alarm goes off, or whether it is a function of time or the number of passengers? I also find the random beeps to be really annoying.

I hate the "NoS" acronym since NO nude image is created... even a NON-ATR MMW image is hardly a "nude" image. It's mostly an image of muscles, like a sketch in a medical text.

Regardless, I don't mind it... It strikes me as both more accurate and less prone to false alarms than a metal detector. That said, I think they're a ridiculous waste of money. Actual explosives detection (yes, it involves maintenance which the TSA didn't like) would make FAR more sense if they wanna buy super-expensive fancy detecting machines. But "nude o scope"? Hardly.