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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> I have seriously never had a positive interaction with the US border force. Wether it's the TSA or another associated organisation (since I've been pestered by people who are not TSA)

The trick is to pay to not interact. Global Entry, TSA PreCheck with Digital ID, et cetera.

And for the record, I'm dark-eyed and brown skinned. There are absolutely racists in the Trump administration. But they don't seem to have co-opted this element yet. Instead, it just presents the classic American preference for wealth.

(Note: I'm not endorsing the system. TSA PreCheck makes sense; the fee for it does not. Same for Global Entry.)

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These days at many airports, precheck has the same procedures as normal screening. You keep your shoes on, laptops and liquids stay in the bag, and you don't show a boarding pass. And the lines are the same length.

Global entry is a real difference, but you need to travel internationally quite a bit to make the application/renewal process worth it (conditional approval backlog is 12-24 months now, although it seems you skip to the front just in time to do interview-on-arrival on your next trip).

by the way - You can use Global Entry ID# for precheck during domestic travel. My precheck was expiring and I had called specifically for a question. Their support person told me that since I recently signed up for global entry, I didn't need to get precheck. So even if you don't travel internationally often, but might - then its worth it to get Global entry. Of course if you don't plan on ever travelling outside of the U.S ,then yeah no reason to get it.

I call it the travel bribe. It excuses you from security theater. If you have an airline credit card they also reimburse the cost of the bribe.

you meant to write unequal treatment for the wealthy right?

> you meant to write unequal treatment for the wealthy right?

Yes. I'm not endorsing the system. Just stating why folks on HN might be having wildly different experiences.

Broadly speaking, if you have to interact with border control or airport security, you're going to have a bad time. The stupid, lazy and mean are overrepresented in their ranks. You may have a slightly-worse time with particularly physical affects. But I've absolutely watched my British-accented white friend from Atlanta get singled out every time for fuckery by their TSA.

If, on the other hand, you get the unequal wealth treatment, you won't see a disparity. Because there isn't one. You're rarely interacting with a human being.

Ah yes, the “give in to the system” strategy to avoid the deliberate conditioning to force everyone into the panopticon.

One easy trick to world domination prison planet…

> the “give in to the system” strategy to avoid the deliberate conditioning to force everyone into the panopticon

I'm not sure what I'm giving up by ceding fingerprints and a picture to a government agency that almost certainly already has both.

It’s not the simple act of just “giving them what they likely already have” once that house booked about 20 years ago. And yes, I can sue you the government had way more on me, but I seem to at least realize that that stallion is long gone.

You seem to represent a rather is phenomenon in society though. For a lack of a better term at the moment; the shift or maybe even deliberate psychological manipulation of society, civilization, culture towards not only a passive, depressive state, but also a kind of self-harming, self-destructive, nihilistic state of “what does it even matter anymore” and “I probably deserve the abuse of my abusers” type of mentality. A variation of that is “I’m not sure what I’m giving up by ceding…” an odd fatalism.

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