Aussienarelle

I was travelling out of SAN today and they were using the dogs . Makes sense to me: close to the border, cocaine bust earlier this week and Spring Break. However, then everyone is now TSA-pre. But they have no idea what to do and the lie backs up.

What is the point of paying for TSA-pre when everyone gets it for free, and more importantly it makes the lines much longer for TSA-pre. It is a bit of a first world problem, and I know I sound like a DYKWIA but it was extremely frustrating.

I actually pay for GE but as a green card holder it only works 50% of the time. May not bother renewing my GE (and associated TSA pre).

petaluma1

TSA seems to have mucked up PRE quite badly, especially at large airports where it seems to be open only sporadically, DEN, JFK, ATL, MCO, LAX, LAS - I could go on. I've read many reports similar to yours - TSA brings in the dogs and it takes everyone longer to get through screening than it would have without the dogs. This happens mostly when the dog is stationary and passengers are forced to walk in circles around the dogs. In places where the dog is walked by the passengers, this confusion does not seem to be as consistent.

Then, of course, TSA can't get people buy into PreCheck. To make it work, they need 25 million but have only about 6 million. That’s why they are advertising so heavily as well as giving it away and hence why the lines are so long and slower than the regular security lines.

Hard choice to make - give up GE because it doesn't always work or keep and glory in the times it does work.

cmn.jcs

To make precheck work in what sense?

cmx

What do you mean everyone is now TSA-pre? With the dog, they don't have to take their shoes off and take out large electronics and get metal detector?

Are you talking about the T-2 West checkpoint? I've seen them route everyone by the dog before over there once (out of about 100 times), but then NO ONE was precheck--they had the whole precheck operation shut down that morning.

petaluma1

TSA needs 25 million enrolled so that they can cut the workforce significantly. Do you recall the long delays at checkpoints in the spring of 2016? What caused those delays was TSA cutting screeners (or perhaps a better explanation is not replacing screeners who left TSA) in anticipation of a huge rush to sign up for Pre. That rush never happened and TSA was caught short.

PreCheck is not about safety, it's about cutting the workforce.

cmn.jcs

Thanks.

Boggie Dog

Neither is TSA.

miuk

Curious as to why you say it only works 50% of the time as a green card holder. I'm GE as well as GC holder and i love Global Entry, gone are the days with ~1hr waits at immigration.

Aussienarelle

T2 next to United. No shoes off, no computers out, no belts off, etc. for everyone as they had been past the dog

Aussienarelle

I now need to complete the entry card as my GC will not be read half the time (no matter how many times I try), and do not get me started on the six months where the GC had the sticker since it takes that long for the replacement card. Wish I had the same positive experiences all the time like you apparently experience.

BeanTownBoy

I have pre-check, but a couple of times the designation has not come through on my boarding passes. It's those times that I realize that I really like not having to take off my shoes (and sometimes my belt as well) and unload my laptop (in addition to going through a longer line). On the other hand, more than several times I have gone through the regular line when PreCheck is jammed and the regular line is almost empty, but at least I have the choice.

YadiMolina

I have family members whose tourist visas would never be read correctly by the GE kiosks. But entering their data manually (non-US passport #) would always work. It took us several visits to GE offices to finally get the data linked up so the scanning would work.

WillCAD

Sniffer dogs cannot be trained to sniff for both drugs and explosives. They sniff for one or the other.

Sniffer dogs used by TSA in checkpoint queues are explosives detectors, not drug detectors.

If they are drug sniffers, looking for cocaine, then they are breaking the law, since searching mass numbers of people for drugs in a public place without warrant, probable cause, or articulable suspicion is clearly outside of the limited 4th Amendment exception granted for airport security screening, which holds that a search is Constitutional if "(1) it is no more extensive or intensive than necessary, in light of current technology, to detect weapons or explosives; (2) it is confined in good faith to that purpose; and (3) passengers may avoid the search by electing not to fly."

I've only had one experience with the PoochCheck, but it was a positive one. The dog and handler were in a roped-off penalty box in the center of the checkpoint queue, downstream of the TDC. The queue wrapped around the box, and the dog and it got a good sniff of everyone from close range as they rounded three sides of the box and continued on. Multiple ETD machines (I believe four or five of them) were set up on the outside edge of the queue, and random people were getting their hands swabbed and tested as they passed by. After that, the queue split into individual lanes, and screening used the PreCheck methodology - WTMD, x-ray of bags, shoes on, belts on, WBI used only for those who alarmed the WTMD. The queue in that case was moving so fast that the ETD operators had trouble running their tests before the tested pax had passed beyond their area into the split.

I would be perfectly okay with making this setup the official standard throughout the country. After a couple of weeks, there would be no confusion - everybody would know what to do and there would be no backups.

Of course, this would invalidate the need for the costly PreCheck program and stymie its real purpose - the mass collection of personal information from travelers, at bloated government expense.

Boggie Dog

I've long called for Pre style screening for everyone with increased scrutiny if a person alarms. Pooch screening sounds good but they have limited useful work time per session requiring several thousand pooches to make full time screening possible.

One thing I have no question about is that TSA screening currently violates the 4th amendment carve out.

WillCAD

Agreed, but I'd much rather see thousands of bomb-sniffing dogs in the airports than the WBI with its many grope-inducing false positives. I don't know how they'd compare in cost, but I suspect that the cost of PoochCheck would be far lower than the current WBI system, and far less abusive of travelers' rights.