I mean, I know it is OT but what right do CLEAR patients have to skip the line? I would argue that it is the same as this poster skipping the line.

IAH TSA is the worst that I've dealt with. I got yelled at in 2019 for having my laptop in my bag while going through precheck, me telling the TSA agent that it's a benefit of precheck to not have to take out my laptop (which was a pain in the ...) just made him visibly irritated. I ended up acquiescing, so I didn't miss my flight and was blown off by the complaint line telling me that agents have a right to change the rules as they see fit.

Basically their advertising is false.
They state "TSA PreCheck� hours are subject to change based on operational needs. TSA incorporates unpredictable security measures throughout the airport and no passenger is guaranteed expedited screening."

I wonder if anybody ever told those idiots who run Precheck that compliance to (stupid) instructions has no relationship to whether or not someone is going to bomb the plane.

In this instance, this was one of those combined lines where i had the laminated paper saying I was precheck, the guy was just being an idiot, then stuck to his guns when I corrected him. I do love the addition of "unpredictable security measures" in that though. It's the perfect cover for incompetence.

In IAH Terminal A, the AA and NK side (gates 18-27 I believe) has 2 lines
1. Regular
2. Clear

There used to be a priority line

The other side (low A gates) has 3 lines
1. Regular
2. Pre
3. Clear

This also used to have a priority line

In order to use pre, you have to go on the low A gate side and take the connector walkway. About a 8 minute walk. If you use the AA side (High A gates), they will hand you a slip that allows you to go through the metal detector, however all large electronics need to be removed. However, you will have to either have clear or stand in the regular line.

I looked at the dfw airport checkpoint status and like AA at IAH, Terminal D and C no longer have priority checkpoints. There is one in A and B. Looks like yet another "enhancement"

Clear has a deal with the TSA to allow passengers to do that. It's no different than why priority pax can board before regular ones - pay more, get more.

In the OP's case, there is no longer a priority line.

FIFY.

Check in takes forever. Baggage takes forever. Security is run by bigger idiots than usual. They manage to put bags on the wrong bag belt with regularity and twice have managed the unique feat of putting one flight's bags on 2 belts at the same time.

So, formalized corruption?

Do you consider Global Entry and TSA Pre to be "formalized corruption"?

If so, not much I can say to change your mind. if not, its largely the same thing. It is a service that you can pay for that comes with certain published benefits.

Interesting -- my understanding was that in those combined lines, you typically get "PreCheck-light", which applies to your person (i.e., you go through the metal detector rather than the full body scanner, and keep on your shoes, jacket, etc.) but not to your bags (i.e., you still have to take out your laptop). This is because the laminated paper stays with you and you give it to the metal detector agent, but they don't have a way to associate PreCheck with your bag as it goes through the X-ray along with non-PreCheck bags.

So it would not surprise me to be asked to take my laptop out.

I did go through a combined checkpoint at PHL last year where they actually kept track of PreCheck versus non-PreCheck bags in the X-ray. I thought that was the exception rather than the rule, but I do see another report (from 2020) that "the bag goes through with an identifier (often a brick) and thus no 3-1-1 or laptop silliness".

In any case, this could easily still vary by airport, and "PreCheck-light" was the norm in combined lines for years, so I'm not sure why you're so confident that IAH TSA was wrong in this case.

Unless that rule is specific to IAH, it's definitely not the case. ONT (my home airport) has the dedicated precheck line closed often, even pre-covid, due to lack of volume in morning and evening, so I go through the combined line with the laminated page, and I have always got normal precheck behavior, laptop stays in the bag, non-puffy light jackets stay on, toiletries stay in the bag, and shoes stay on.

The premise of precheck is that the US checks these people to make sure they are ok to skip normal security.
It doesn't actually say they can go to the front of the line. They have to wait in line with the other people.
CLEAR doesn't actually add any security verification to that. So why should they go to the front of the line?

CLEAR is not government. As far as I know you cannot pay a private company to get you an expedited passport. You pay the government (which we call normal in the US).
Can an individual hire police to provide security? In Africa they do, pay for VIP service from the airport to the city. Only a few hundred dollars. Police will escort you.
Is that the same in the US? The government is just for hire?

Okay, but I linked you to a whole thread about PreCheck-light where laptops do come out, so I'm clearly not making it up even if you've never seen it outside of IAH. I could equally well claim your experience is specific to ONT.

Cool, unfortunately linked threads always obvious so I didn't see it. No reason to be offended, it wasn't my intention to imply you were "making it up", was just giving you my experience. That said, I also flew 150k-ish miles a year pre-covid, mostly from small airports with international travel peppered in, and have experienced it at many places outside of just ONT and I've never once been told to remove my laptop because I was in "precheck-light".

Well the idea behind CLEAR is that they don't need to go through the identity verification part because CLEAR does that for them. The first line is to verify your identity.

Personally I think it's BS but it is what it is. I hope that CLEAR is paying TSA enough money for that.

Which, if you think about it, is the government admitting a private company can verify identity better than their "professionally trained officers."

I actually think the idea behind CLEAR is that precheck is too cheap for priority security. Gotta make travellers pay more.