Inexplicably, Mrs Flies Gets ExtortionCheck
 

I was the happiest guy on the planet today. Mrs Flies, who has no status on anybody, flew from IAD to GRR a couple our hours ago. When we printed out her BP, she wound up with ExtortionCheck without ever having applied. I will say she flew with her elderly mother in January, so they both qualified for the 75+ screening. I told her that the TSA is going through extraordinary methods to convince citizens to apply & pay for ExtortionCheck and that they are failing miserably. It will be interesting to find out if she gets ExtortionCheck on the way home...

What is "ExtortionCheck"? and yes I did try Google.

edit - Oh, I see. it's a cute little meme.

Mrs. javabytes' mother also gets ExtortionCheck without being a member. That's been happening as long as I have been her unofficial travel agent, which started in her late 50's. I believe TSA was granting it to older passengers with some regularity, so I think the age cutoff to randomly receive it is somewhere in the 50's range...

It's called Managed Inclusion.

The inclusion that takes place does indeed have a major age factor. It was designed to ignite the rate of inclusion substantially for people in the 50s with the rate rising way more for those in the 60s. The privilege of seniority, more so if a frequent travel companion of: current or former federal government employees; government contractors of sort; someone in a DHS "Trusted Traveler" program. The amusing thing has been that manipulating (In)SecureFlight info's age fields over a sustained period of time has been a way to game the system and get PreCheck at a higher frequency than would otherwise be the case.

Perhaps this explains it. She's 68 (the new 48!) and married to a current USG employee (me). Regardless, I'm not going to argue with success.

Some friends of mine from a NATO country in Europe with no enrollment in any DHS program have had sky-high rates of getting PreCheck when I book them from certain connections. Some of these people were even on their first or second trips ever to the US and yet they got PreCheck so often that the chances of it being random were probably close to the chances of me winning a billion (USD) dollar lottery in this decade. It was all the more surprising to some when some of them are/were well under 50 years of age at those times.

I'm not beyond having the "book, check-in and refund" game performed to see how results may vary.

I fall into the 60+ age group. The wife and I have received Pre on most flights. I do one other thing that I think helps but that is just a guess on my part and wouldn't be available to most travelers. I only have 3 legs scheduled for the rest of this year and won't know about Pre until check in time.

Huh? It used to be she would get it and I wouldn't. Since I crossed 50 I have gotten it most of the time.

Saw the same thing--some of her relatives were visiting. One had been in the US before, two had not. All were 60+. We were 5 for 5 on pre-check when we went up to Canada. (And, as often happens, she drew SSSS on the way back. Why do they think she's Jeckyl and Hyde??)

just buy it. It's only $85. or included free with Global Entry

Never! That is the "extortion" part of "ExtortionCheck". As many of us have noted in numerous threads, ExtortionCheck is identical to the Communist system of "privileges." The government creates an upper class which is dependent upon them for "privileges" that the government can revoke at any time for any, or no, reason. It's a proven method to silence dissent.

Indeed. The point of having a nomenklatura system was to increase control over the public. Want privileges? Do as the state wants you to do. Want to keep what you have or get back what you had before? Do as the state wants you to do.

The system was indeed about silencing dissent and incentivizing people to publicly parrot the party line.

What government grants, government can take away. PreCheck is one of those tools to both silence dissent and incentivize people to publicly parrot the government line at least in part.

And how well did that turn out for them, say in eastern europe or the soviet bloc? it's all part of the dustbin of history now.

Some battles, like getting viewed naked or getting your genitals groped, are worth fighting. This one, not so much. Since everyone here seems to prefer going through precheck if they can get it, geez, go buy a ticket.

Essentially, you've been vetted in some minor ways and you get relaxed security. Seems like a reasonable trade-off. I got much more scrutiny when I got a mortgage years ago, financially akin to a cavity search if I recall.

The TSA wanted an effective means to co-opt and divide and conquer, and that's why the TSA tried to bribe us with something like this. The high/increased effectiveness of such kind of system doesn't bode well for travel freedoms/rights. The TSA's nomenklatura system has become effective, and with it the TSA's desire to ramp up the invasions has done anything but dropped.

Don't we realize yet that PreCheck passengers too can end up subjected to more intensive "patdowns" the same as non-PreCheck passengers?

While I'll game the benefits of being in the ranks of the nomenklatura, I won't silence my opposition to the system that wants me to silence dissent.