GUWonder

IAD has CLEAR sales reps hitting up people right where the lines go when things get very long -- even sometimes for PreCheck -- and even have some seats nearby for people to sit and wait. The airport and the TSA seem to have business relationships with CLEAR.

PreCheck lines seem to be at their worst at terminals and/or airports where one airline dominates with a large hub.

Beltway2A

Without clarification as to whether this number includes people who paid the extra $15 for GE, the article seems pretty worthless. Not one mention of Global Entry in the whole piece.

Kagehitokiri

i was just replying to GUWonder

nomad420

At SFO where UA "dominates" the PreCheck line at times is a joke. I learned over the years multiple TSA clearance tricks there. Often just the regular line is better and you can still use some of the benefits that precheck offers. Also, depending on the time of day and other factors, I will clear TSA at the international terminal which, and again this isn't always the case, the lines CAN be way smaller. You can make your way back to the domestic UA terminal air side then. I have not broken down and joined Clear but that is an option as well.

cestmoi123

Given that retired military are actually slightly MORE likely than the population at large to carry out a terrorist attack than the population at large, it really doesn't make sense to use that as a criterion for providing PreCheck. The % is vanishingly small in both populations, so it's not a rationale for additional screening either, but if we're going to choose criteria for allocating PreCheck, then we shouldn't choose one that actually works against the rationale for the program.

That being said, if I had my druthers, I'd make PreCheck the default for everybody.

Boggie Dog

What evidence do you have to support the conclusion that retired military are "slightly more likely" than the population at large to carry out a terrorist attack?

People who have retired from the military generally have held various levels of security clearances, have been entrusted with extremely expensive equipment, and have a known track record.

cestmoi123

I had done this analysis a few years ago, but went back and updated my numbers. Looking at terrorist acts in the US since 2000, limiting the list to ones where someone other than the perpetrators were injured or killed, you come up with 44 incidents, and 73 perpetrators.

Total population: 73 perps, 330M people in the US, that's odds of about 4.5 million to one.
US military veterans: 7 perps, population of 19.5 million, that's odds of 2.8 million to one.
US military (active duty and reserves): 5 perps, population of 2 million, that's 400k to one.
No military connection: 61 perps, 309M people, that's 5.1 million to one.

The odds of engaging in a terrorist act are astronomically low for any of these populations, and I'm certainly not saying "keep an eye on those vets!" That said, there's no basis to consider veteran status as a justification for considering someone lower risk than the population at large.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror..._United_States
https://www.va.gov/vetdata/veteran_population.asp

Boggie Dog

Your analysis is flawed. There is a difference between a military veteran and a military retiree. I didn't include all veterans just those who are retired.

cestmoi123

Aha, got it. You'd probably get the same "benefit" by just giving it to everyone over the age of 40, though, or to all retired federal government employees. If we're going to give the benefit to groups of people based on a characteristic, then there needs to be evidence that that characteristic is actually useful in some way.

Certainly, though, there's no justification for giving PreCheck to active duty military by default, since they are much more likely to engage in a terrorist act than the population at large. Again, the percentages are incredibly low, so it would also be silly to impose extra screening on members of the military.

Again, the solution is to give Precheck to everyone.

Boggie Dog

I've stated for some time that Pre Check type screening should be the default initial screening for everyone escalating as needed. So we agree on that point.

When you use one population as a risk group why did you compare them to just themselves when they should be compared to the total population to understand what percentage of risk that one group demonstrates overall?

cestmoi123

Good to know.

Not sure what you mean here. If we're deciding "should we consider people with characteristic X to be low risk," then we should look at "have people with characteristic X been less likely to do <badthing> than people who don't have characteristic X?"

If we just look at "# of people with characteristic X who did <badthing>" vs. "# of people without characteristic X who did <badthing>," without considering how many people have characteristic X, then we get a metric for "how likely are people who did <badthing> to have characteristic X," which isn't helpful if only a small portion of the population has characteristic X.

You need to compare % of the risk to % of the total population to be able to comment on the risk that a given group represents.

Boggie Dog

I admit upfront that stats aren't in my field of experience. So using your example I'll frame a couple of questions.

If military veterans are responsible for 7 acts of terrorism why frame that 7 by just other vets (19.5 M) and not the total population (330M)? We are looking for the odds that a vet will be a terrorist, so shouldn't that comparison be 7 vet perps to 330M potential perps? Is it just a matter of what answer one is trying to reach?

I understand that you resolved for the odds of a vet terrorist against other total vets.

cestmoi123

It is a question of what answer you're trying to reach. Let me give an example. You're on a (pretty sick) game show.
*In front of you are 100 briefcases. Ten of them are blue, 90 red.
*Five of the blue cases have a bomb in them, the other five have nothing.
*Ten of the red cases have bombs, 80 are empty.

So, out of the 100 cases, 15 have bombs, and 85 are empty.

You have to open one case. Do you pick a blue one or a red one?

Presumably, you pick a red one, because you know that your odds of getting a bomb are only 1 in 9 (10 out of 90), while they're 50/50 if you choose a blue case.

The question you're trying to answer is "if I know what color a case is, what are the odds that case has a bomb?"

This is similar to the situation we've been discussing. If you know someone is active duty military, then does that make that person more or less likely to be a terrorist than the population as a whole?

The answer, based on the data since 2000, is more. (Really, though, the answer is "it's incredibly unlikely a person is a terrorist, whether they're military or not.")

There's another question, which is "If someone's a terrorist, what are the odds he's active duty military?"

This is similar to the question in our example "If a case has a bomb, what are the odds it's blue?" The answer is only 33% (5/15).

In other words, military terrorists are a small portion of total terrorists, but military members are an even smaller portion of the population as a whole.

So, saying that we should provide automatic precheck to active duty military is kind of like saying we should open a blue case, because most bombs are red.

Again, I'm not saying soldiers are likely to be terrorists. I'm just saying that there's no reason to say they're less likely to be, and to automatically give them precheck, vs giving it to the population as a whole.

FliesWay2Much

I think that the original grand & glorious plans for ExtortionCheck came off the rails for several key reasons. None of them were around at the inception of ExtortionCheck:

1. The TSA was "shamed" into giving it for free to active duty military and to DoD civilians with CACs. This significantly increased the numbers of people, but they didn't pay, so I wonder if they are counted in the official numbers? Back in my working days, I was a civilian in an agency that issued DoD CACs. I simply entered my CAC number in the "trusted traveler number" block on the reservation. I never was officially enrolled. I just started using my CAC number. I sure as heck didn't pay the $85 extortion money.

2. ExtortionCheck is a give-away with Global Entry, which is actually useful. Again, I'm not sure people are actually enrolled in ExtortionCheck if they have GE.

3. People over 75 can get ExtortionCheck-like screening anyway, removing another block of people from the market.

My guess is that the rest of the flying public has been socialized to the Pornoscopes and the gropings and don't feel the need to "escape" to the tune of $85. Instances of the TSA harassing and sexually assaulting passengers simply isn't news anymore.

chollie

1) Pre-check was all about revenue generation. They've gone too far down that path to gracefully back out.

2) Even infrequent travellers witnessed Pre-check lines out the door or Pre-check unavailable or Pre-lite being substituted for Pre. Paying $85 is a crap shoot at best for many travelers. Even then, some airports add enough 'random' extras to Pre to gum up the works (like PHX Precheck randomly mandating only one electronic in a bag, all others removed and put in individual bowls. I got pulled because I had a Sonicare toothbrush in my bag along with my phone - two electronic items in one bag, not allowed. Except the next time through the same checkpoint, no electronics had to be removed. TSA has never consistently delivered what it advertised.

None of my statements are meant to cast shade in any way, shape or form on our fine 100% terrific folks at TSA and the organization itself. It's just us pesky travelers and our expectations. If we knew what they teach at the 'academy', we wouldn't expect that when we pay $85 for a service, that service will actually be consistently delivered.