Civil liberties such as the right to fast and easy security lines at the airport. Quick, someone call MLK and the ACLU and let them know there is a cause they are ignoring.

I love this thread. The wackos are really out in force in this one.

They've been around for a bit. They operated locations in Virginia I think and JAX maybe? Hopefully they'll give clear members a free year! :D

I'm not sure why you feel this way. The airlines themselves have the right to request ID because the ticket they sold you is not transferable, and so they would like to know that the person they sold the ticket to is the one using the ticket. They've essentially farmed out the ID check to the TSA at the security checkpoint, where, shocker, they can do this more efficiently. Would you really rather have the GA's doing ID checks at the time of boarding, like they did for a while right after 9/11?

I was never extorted - I got it for free since I joined in 4/08 and my membership wasn't set to expire until 10/10. All without a dime out of my pocket.

No, civil liberties such as:

-The right to freely travel in ones own country without 'papers'.
-The right to demand our tax dollars be spent on sane, effective security.

Of course I do. One of the reasons I do not give out my DL as primary identification, only NEXUS card or Passport.

First off those out there who say the business plan was flawed…come on really?! So how many of you read the business plan? It was an excellent concept and works successfully in many other forms..ie Golbal Entery, Nexus, Sentri, Fast Driver etc… Yes these are run by the feds so perhaps the profit / loss number is not as great for them vs a private business. It’s a shame that Clear was never allowed to do what the original concept was and at the start agreed upon by the TSA. If the TSA had embraced it and cooperated with Clear to facilitate a program that benefited all we would be seeing a much different result.

To me the TSA (as usual) screwed this up for those of us who used the service…I am also in Global Entry…run by the TSA, so my question is why are they pushing the Global Entry but trying to put Clear and others like it out of business? Is it all about private vs. public operations, perhaps we should look for a private public partnership on this? Will we see TSA start their own “Clear program” ?

For those of us that used this service and were willing to pay for it it’s very disappointing but predictable. Especially when we have folks that represent travel like this guy David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association out there making statements like….the program provided "no real customer convenience or security benefit." Well the ATA has no idea what is good for the customer! So background checks on flyers are not a benefit?

At this point logic would dictate the Airlines and the gov’t should be doing everything it can to make travel easer…but no let’s make it more inconvenient so less people want to travel so more airlines can go bankrupt. Great plan guys!

To all those out there talking about your information you must not own a credit card, a passport, a bank account, an ATM card, drivers license, etc…it was a voluntary program…if you don’t think all your information is already out there stay home and don’t pay the play...end of argument. If I want to give my info for something like this, that’s my right.

This was no referendum on security or privacy, just a continued screw up by the powers that be on the public side and the private side.

The problem is - flying by plane is not a RIGHT.

Actually, since they aren't using anything to correlate the validity of the boarding pass to the ID they are checking, it doesn't perform that function at all. Bruce Schneier wrote a few excellent pieces on this.

Ugh. Let's try and get a couple things straight. First, they took an iris scan and/or fingerprints. Neither the iris scan or fingerprints were stored as actual images. Mathematical representations of each of these were stored, and these representations can only be compared against, not used to reconstitute the iris or fingerprints.

You might want to learn the difference between civil liberties and civil rights before invoking references to Dr. King. @:-)

If you are a CLEAR customer, I would be VERY, VERY concerned right now about how your private data will be secured and managed once the company shuts down.

I would be sufficiently concerned that I suggest members gather themselves into a co-operative group, hire a lawyer and force CLEAR to destroy, while being inspected, all personal data records and biometric information of customers - basically electroincally incinerate every customer data and biometric record and physically burn backup tapes containing this data. I would even petition the court to appoint a third-party to conduct this process as well as investigate where CLEAR staff might have moved or backed-up other copies of customer data.

Once the company closes its operations, your personal and biometric data will be at grave risk - if it hasn't been scattered about already.

The airlines are private businesses that I can choose to do business with or not, based on many factors. They do not have to make people show ID for revenue protection if they do not want to. If they choose to do so, I may be willing to show my ID in exchange for being able to buy restricted-use tickets at a discount price.

The government has no right to know who travels, when, where, or why. I should never have to identify myself to the government just because I wish to ride on a commercial aircraft.

It is a privilege, but it is not a privilege to be lorded out to passengers at the whim of a disgusting government agency.

Am I concerned that the coded representation of my iris will end up in the hands of the Chinese mafia who will steal my identity then clone me so that they can finally implement their nefarious plan to take over my industry?

Yes. I am terrified.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHH wont someone please think of the children!?

Even IF digital images of my iris and fingerprints were stored somewhere by Clear (they are not), so freaking what? It's not like I need an iris scan to buy a can of coke. It's a random piece of information about me. There a millions of random pieces of information about me on this very website. I guess if IB ever goes under I should demand that the FT database be scrubbed!?