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Comment by ctrlp | Hacker News Reader

Pre-check screening is the EZPass of the security state. Exchange your privacy for convenience. Submit to a background probe and permanent residence in a government database (and god knows what other consents are required) and you, too, can join the upper tier of society. Leave the filthy plebes and their shoeless drudgery and pat-downs behind you as you ascend into the clear air of the Verified(TM) elite. You pose no threat, quite the opposite! You support and serve the power structure. Welcome aboard!

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Don't forget that it also costs money.

Nothing like a government-sponsored system to make life visibly better for those who can afford it. And - since it siphons line-space and machines - harder for everybody else.

Sometimes I think that pre-check, toll-roads, and their ilk will take us all to the guillotine if we keep it up long enough.

At least in Kansas, the toll roads are not using tax money, so that's better than a government-funded TSA wanting more cash from you to make your life easier.

Ugh, you mean that stretch of the Turnpike on 70 that forces you to pay a toll for travel between Topeka and Kansas City? Not exactly an optional tollroad if you're driving across the country on 70, and you can tell they're not using a lot of the money to maintain the roads...

Aside from the interview, the government already has all the background check data in their databases already. It’s not like you’re applying for a security clearance where agents go around your friends, family and neighbors digging up undocumented dirt.

Do you know for a fact that your background screening does not now or will not ever include calling out to a social media extremist detection service? I'm not so confident.

I’m also not confident in that. But again, if someone has put me in an “extremist detection” database I’m already in the database and the government could already query it.

Would you like to be subject to Twitter's or Facebook's interpretation of extremist?

why would the government care if i’m banned from twitter?

Why would the government care to have you banned from Twitter?

The TSA gets all the info they'd need to do that when you buy a ticket. Precheck or not.

It's increasingly not even that convenient. The last half-dozen times I've traveled, "PreCheck" turned into me going through the regular security line, carrying a card which they ignored.

How does that even happen? I have pre-check, and it's always been an entirely separate line. They'd have to do a fair amount of work to redirect you over to the 'regular' line.

It used to happen only at smaller airports that didn't have the capacity to handle extra lines. But lately, I've had it happen at bit airports (like ATL), so I'm not really sure.

The answer to your (implicit?) question is that it doesn't work. The staff take the card from you at the start of the process, and once your bag is in the machine, they have no idea if it's yours. So far, every time this has happened, I"ve been singled out for additional security.

So after you already start the x-ray process, they take you aside and make you do the shoes, belt, and the rest?

If I sound confused, it's because I am :). I don't get a pre-check card, it just shows up as a notation on my boarding pass. I scan it just like normal, then shove my phone into my backpack and toss it on the belt. No removing my shoes, belt, etc.

They also won't touch my bag, and I have to be the one to push it onto the feed belt of the scanner. They have to have a pretty good idea that it belongs to me.

Coincidentally, I just travelled through ATL a few weeks ago. It's never as smooth as my home airport (PDX) because it's a much busier airport, but I don't recall anything out of the ordinary happening.

> I don't get a pre-check card, it just shows up as a notation on my boarding pass.

(Not the person you replied to.)

These are different things. It has nothing to do with you or your eligibility, but the specific time and place.

If you're eligible for PreCheck and have it printed on your boarding pass, at some airports and security lines that don't have a PreCheck lane open, you're given a laminated card that the first agent tells you will accord some of the PreCheck benefits. As with the OP, these didn't always work in practice in my experience.

The PreCheck line can temporarily be closed in a larger airport that would normally have one, or this may be a more permanent process in a smaller airport that might not have the space.

Interesting. I have never run into that. Thanks for the information.

My local airport is so small that they don't process security until half an hour before boarding. We have one "gate", and the planes we get can hold 50 people when full.

I have Precheck (always marked on the boarding pass and I assume it shows up on their screen when I scan it), and what happens is the person at the podium notes it and lets his colleagues down the line know. I get a card, and show it to the person handling the body scanner, at which point they send me through the metal detector instead. There isn't much difference when it comes to the bag scanning (if any).

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