TSA pre-check program and opting out?
 

Not sure if this has been covered in any other topic but if you are approved for the TSA pre-check program and allowed to use that fast lane can you still opt out or do they only the body imaging devices?

Both times I've been able to use the PreCheck lane (LAS and MCO) it's only led to a walk through metal detector (WTMD) and no NoS.

Same for LAX. I'd be surprised if there were a nos/wbi/ait machine at any pre-check lane.

I think the whole point of pre-check is they give you a lower level of screening, hence why you don't have to take off your shoes or take your laptop & liquids out of your bag.

PreCheck = WTMD only, in my experience.

Here's a question - I signed up for pre-check as a United 1K, but never heard anything back. On the app screen from UA, this actually appears:

"Your application to participate in the TSA pre-screening program has been submitted and will be processed within the next 24 hours.

Again, once you apply, you will receive no further communication from the TSA or United about your status in this program.

The TSA manages and operates this pre-screening program. Please contact the TSA for information and answers to questions.

The TSA will determine your expedited screening eligibility on a per-flight basis every time you fly."

Uh, how am I supposed to know if I'm approved or not? Since each flight is a coin toss as to whether you can use the fast lane or not - people I know who have used it say it's 50/50 for the most part - do I need to try a couple of times and see if I'm "allowed"?

What kind of FUBAR program doesn't tell you if you're in or not?

TSA Precheck. It is the TSA after all.

A program whose goal is not added security, but instead to mollify the gullible masses so that they complain less.

DFW C31 has WTMD, I haven't tried the recently opened locations at other DFW terminals.

When you get your boarding pass scanned and get the magical LLL, or triple beep, depending on the boarding pass scanner type, you get send to the pre-check dedicated lane. No NOS, just baggage x-ray and WTMD. The whole purpose of the program is to bypass the silly games TSA likes to play

Its not 100% guaranteed you get to access the pre-check lane every time you fly. Your accepted on a trip by trip basis not on a general basis.

Do you care to elaborate? Why would you care if there is no added security? TSA has been a joke since day one. If i don't have to waste my time opting out, practically stripping myself and the contents of my bag for the x-ray, playing the stupid say your name, or answering 20 questions irrelevant to aviation security, why is this a bad thing? I wouldn't call myself gullible, i'm not sharing any information that TSA doesn't already have based on secure flight data you are required to give when booking a ticket.

Because TSA desperately wants to scope-and-grope all air travelers, and we oppose it not just on personal privacy grounds (no genital touching, please), but also on the grounds of freedom. (I am old enough to remember being taught that one of the ways we were better than the Commie Russkies is that we didn't restrict the right of people to travel in their own country.)

If the TSA had insisted on scope-and-grope for everybody, it wouldn't have lasted more than a week. So, first they exempted pilots. Then, they exempted flight attendants. Next, they stopped feeling up children and the 75-plus crowd, because nobody (except for maybe the occasional pedophile) believes that feeling up children is a good idea.

What's left? The frequent traveler. Once Precheck is done, then they'll still have the NoS everywhere, and insist on the right to use it in a dire emergency. I want the NoS gone, not just to get a personal exemption.

CD, my point is - I have no idea if I'm accepted or not. Since pre-check is random, if approved, I theoretically could be denied a bunch of times before getting the go-ahead go go through.

Or I'm not in the program, and I'm wasting my time trying to use it.

And I agree with the last post. No one should have to go through NoS as primary security. I don't have an issue with it as a secondary option, where it's that OR a frisk (not both). But as a primary, where it was not intended to be, is the problem I have.

(bolding mine)

This points out how ridiculous this program is. If TSA has (and they do) all my information based on secure flight data when I buy my ticket, then why do we have the program anyway? What purpose does it serve? If they have my secure flight data (and they do), why should I (or any pax) have to go through the charade of 'opting in' to the Pre-check program?

GE is something else entirely - and a GE pax should be allowed expedited screening on virtually all occasions (similar to CBP experience - 'random' secondaries are the exception, not the norm).

I think it's interesting that unlike GE, where the default seems to be a quick, clean trip through CPB, TSA still presumes that the pax is always guilty until conditionally deemed 'innocent' - for one flight only. Unlike GE, I suspect that Pre-check's 'randomness' algorithm is really more about airport staffing, FSD's personal biases, general nonsense, etc, not any true security concerns. I read a quote from one TSA manager who said 50% would be a very high acceptance rate - now contrast this with TSA's alleged goal of 75% of pax in Pre-check - clearly, either the lines at the WTMD would get intolerably long or....Pre-check folks will be sent through the NoS.

OT, but does anyone have experience as a 75+ wearing a 'light jacket' and/or shoes through the NoS? Supposedly the seniors are now exempt from removing light outerwear and shoes, but nowhere do I see them guaranteed a trip through the WTMD. If that's the case, TSA may already be looking ahead to a time when Pre-check folks go through NoS while still preserving the 'benefit' of not having to remove shoes and light outerwear.

+1

Passenger A flies 100,000 miles a year on Delta.
Passenger B flies 100,000 miles a year but spread across several airlines and does not have elite status on any one of them.

Passenger A flies 100,000 miles a year from ATL.
Passenger B flies 100,000 miles a year from some tiny airport that sees a handful of flights each day.

DHS deems passenger A less of a threat than passenger B.

Need I say more?

What are the costs of rolling out PreCheck? What are the software development costs in integrating each airline's systems with that of the TSA?

You won't even know until you get to the checkpoint whether you have qualified that day for the quicker screening. So you still have to show up early enough to account for a longer queue.

How about we have a tiered speed limit on the nation's highways? Experienced drivers can go ten miles per hour faster than everyone else. But you won't know until you get on the highway whether you can go in the special "experienced" lane and drive faster.

The Airport Assessment is when you'll have your interview. You'll also take a vision test and be fingerprinted.