Registered Traveler Program Is Fake Security
 

Yes, in short, Registered Traveler is a program that lets people pay an annual fee of $100 to cut to the front of the line. As for the background check? It's purely theater to make the public think the program is something other than a way for the well-off to avoid the hassles of post 9/11 airline travel. The TSA promises that the program won't slow down regular travelers, but that's plainly absurd. If it speeds up those willing to pay $100, it's going to slow down those unwilling or unable to do so, since there are currently no plans to add special screening lanes for Registered Travelers.

Yup, we're all in this together, except that some of us are more all in this together than others.

UPDATE:

Cindy Rosenthal, the vice president of communication for Verified Identity Pass, contacted me to correct and contest some of my points (I had left a message for her yesterday).

VIP does make lines faster for everyone for several reasons (based on a trial in Orlando and new equipment):

* The designated lanes include longer tables for separating a traveler's things into plastic containers and there is a conceierge to help with that process
* The Registered Traveler kiosks, specially made by GE (now an investor in VIP), also scan shoes so that travellers don't have to take their shoes off when they go through the metal detector (unless they have a significant amount of metal, such as with steel-toed boots or spike heels)

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...ered_trav.html

A "concierge" ???? ROTFL!!!

If these folks can have a "shoe removal not needed WTMD" then why can't everyone else? What's a few hundred million $ in additional spending when you waste billions annually?

Sounds like a vig to me

What a load of crap.

It's all about making money using the Security Theater, and nothing to do with security.

agreed ... I'd eat a frozen turd on a popsicle stick before I'd give these people a dime.

I'd pay $100 to see that!

Ken in Phx

Thanks for your interest in our value added travelers services ... have your credit card info ready and simply logon to www.seemuddyeatafrozenturd.com and ....

LOL

Till there's some sort of OneWorld Elite line at MCO, I'll happily expense the $100

Whatever was wrong with INSPass biometric that it was both canned and no rolled out wider?

Extorted Traveler can go pound sand. :td:

The $100 might not be the issue with many people. Surrendering your biometrics and your personal info...all to cut in front of the line? Please.

Think how "fast" it was for the puffer deployment. That's probably how fast those GE machines will be rolled out.

And this has the HUGE potential to backfire. They're going to have a SINGLE lane for this?

They're still going to check your ID and BP for the airline's revenue protection. No time saver there.

I do think a lot of business travelers are going to do this. Thus, that single line is going to be long in itself. Are they going to open up more of those lines, and reduce capacity for Ma and Pa Kettle? That has the potential of being another PR nightmare for the TSA. And bad PR is the only way the TSA has ever backed off of something.

So, in a way, I guess I'm endorsing this extortion without actually paying for it.

If I could pay $100 a year and skip 90% of the lines at Dulles on a Friday afternoon I'd have my Amex out in a ninja like blur.

And I wouldn't even have to eat a frozen turd. :D

I continue to wonder if the main reasons the TSA went to "all shoes off" after 8/10, even though shoes had nothing whatsoever to do with the supposed liquid threat, was to create a tangible "benefit" for registered travelers to coerce people into using this anti-privacy program.

Think about it: prior to 8/10 many of us posted that there were no real benefits to registered traveler because you still went through the same screening as everyone else, avoided SSSS which as elites most of us rarely get anyway, and went to a supposedly shorter line which as elites most of us already get at big airports anyway.

Now post war-on-water, they could allow registered travelers to leave their shoes on and carry liquids through the checkpoint (since liquids are no longer banned in the sterile area and aircraft, their presence would not freak out the sheeple and cause evacuations and diversions). I suspect tens of thousands of frequent travelers would instantaneously sign up for such a program. Result: a huge hit for privacy and creation of a true two-class traveler system where the procedures and even prohibited items list are completely different. (And there would be no reduction in security, not because of the so-called background checks, but because normal shoes and liquids aren't viable threats anyway.)

:td:

I think the all shoes of had to do with the percieved benefit of the line moving faster.

It doesn't but they think it does.

If you travel enough to need to be a Registered Traveller (for air travel anyways), then the airlines already let you skip the line.

Only at some airports, not all 436. @:-)

Wow. "Specially made!" I wonder how much they cost... I have a $40 solution for the problem of shoes not being scanned: a ramp or step below the WTMD. Removable for people how can't take slopes/steps.

HTB.

Not AA Elite at MCO :(

I believe Continental is the first airline to officially go on record as opposed to Registered Traveler. Kudos to them! ^

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/ny.../05screen.html

“We don’t support the registered-traveler program in its current form,” said Julie King, a spokeswoman for Continental in Houston. “We just don’t feel it provides significant benefits to the people who participate.”

The better quote from the NYT article was this:

So what, pray tell, are people buying?

Heh, good catch. I assume this means you get to go to the head of the regular line (similar to the way in some airports the "elite line" empties into the same TSA lanes as the regular lines, but just has fewer people in it).

I don't think it is worth it, no matter how much you travel. To leave your shoes on okay, that would be nice, but still, you still have to take out your computer, you still have to put your quart bag in a bin, you are STILL inconvinenced, you might not have to go thur seconday so what is the use of the fee/program?

I'm in a similar program to enter Canada. CanPass. They do an extensive background check on you, then you can bypass customs. You go up to a kiosk. it does a retna scan, then prints out a card you show customs. The machine will randomly select you for secondary, but it cuts my customs wait to zero. I've had it for afew years and at $50CDN a year, and about 20 trips a year north of the border, its worth it.

I do get dirty looks from people when the customs hall is full and I zip over to the kiosks, but I beat the rush out to the taxi stand and am on my way before they get through inspection.

Technically, you bypass the immigration lines with CanPass.

And yes, a huge time-saver.

And I trust the Canadian government with my information before I ever trust Big Brother here.

in the mean time, just say y ou forgot your ID and use SSSS to jump to the head of the line.

cheers.

^ ^ ^ The $100/year remains in your pocket!!! You would not need to do MRs to maintain elite status to jump queues!