A new bill, the first of its kind in the U.S., would ban security screening company Clear from operating at California airports as lawmakers take aim at companies that let consumers pay to pass through security ahead of other travelers.
Sen. Josh Newman, a California Democrat and the sponsor of the legislation, said Clear effectively lets wealthier people skip in front of passengers who have been waiting to be screened by Transportation Security Administration agents.
“It’s a basic equity issue when you see people subscribed to a concierge service being escorted in front of people who have waited a long time to get to the front of TSA line,” Newman told CBS MoneyWatch. “Everyone is beaten down by the travel experience, and if Clear escorts a customer in front of you and tells TSA, ‘Sorry, I have someone better,’ it’s really frustrating.”
If passed, the bill would bar Clear, a private security clearance company founded in 2010, from airports in California. Clear charges members $189 per year to verify passengers’ identities at airports and escort them through security, allowing them to bypass TSA checkpoints. The service is in use at roughly 50 airports across the U.S., as well as at dozens of sports stadiums and other venues.
Kinda wish they would just take aim at the entire security theater complex that airport screening has become, but that’s going to be a task destined for the federal level and god knows we can’t get those fucking morons in congress to agree on anything, even if it’s for their own benefit.
It’s not only theater, since Americans can’t be trusted to remember they have loaded guns on their person
Walking through a metal detector will sort that out, no need to remove shoes, etc.
When you compare EU/rest of the world security screening to US ones the farce becomes obvious. Next they’re going to require a half striptease “for security”.
When I was in college, my lacrosse team was traveling to Florida for a game. My teammate went hunting the week before and forgot he had shotgun shells in his Carry on. They didn’t find the shells until the RETURN flight. He missed the flight back because he had to go through a ton of extra security/ interrogation. The fact that he made it on the first flight with live ammunition in his backpack always made me not very confident in the TSA security theater.
What’s the fucking point of the TSA if you can just pay extra to bypass it?
It doesn’t really seem like a stretch that a terrorist organization could come up with a little extra money per ticket to make sure their plan pays off.The company runs a background check to verify that the person isn’t a terrorist. Then at the airport they use biometrics to verify their identity.
Sounds like what tsa should be doing. Either security is necessary or it isn’t. The airport is the most classist place in the country.
Sounds like what tsa should be doing.
That is what TSA is doing. Clear just lets you bypass the TSA Precheck line and go straight to the xray machine and metal detector (they don’t use full body scans on that side).
That’s the premise of TSA pre check. Clear just adds biometric verification instead of a TSA agent checking IDs.
Honestly, it’s stupid and I’ve refused to use it because I don’t trust companies with that biometric data. I saw TSA try to use similar at an airport once and I specifically opted out.
I had to travel with a school group recently so couldn’t use Pre. At the front of the TSA line, they took my ID, then had me stand in front of a camera and display screen. It showed it scanning my face and clearly doing face feature segmentation (eyes, nose, hairline, etc).
So that’s now happening too.
Yea. That’s what I opted out of. Afaik, you still can and it’s only in a very small disclaimer right there at the TSA agent.
Tsa precheck is better than clear anyway. Clear just puts you at the front of the normal line. Precheck allows you to skip the normal line entirely.
Ah so it’s for drug trafficking not terrorism
TSA has always been security theatre. Have they ever stopped a credible threat?
I can’t believe I’m saying something positive about them, but they keep about 6,500 guns off planes a year. Irrespective of thoughts on gun control measures, I think most would consider a gun on a plane a credible threat.
Good to give them credit where it is due. They can be a horrible, mismanaged, institution and still do some good!
Which could easily be duplicated by metal detectors at the airport entrance. Without disrupting flow of passengers. At far less cost.
It is a security threat to have TSA lines in airports. Any terrorist could walk into the airport security line with a firearm or explosives and kill hundreds of people.
We would never know. The thing about the circus that is the TSA is that it does cut people off from even planning to go that route. And the simple fact is that annual hijackings since 2002 are way down.
So that means the TSA could do the same thing for anyone with Pre-Check or Global Entry since we already had to go through all that.
I don’t trust a private company to do that screening. They will skimp on checks to save money the moment they have a bad quarter unless there are specific rules forced on them by TSA.
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Clear sucks and I hate them, but:
I don’t trust a private company to do that screening
There are specific rules forced on them, and the real screening still happens at the checkpoint, by the TSA.
Keep in mind two things:
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Prior to the early 2000s, there was so such thing as the TSA, and all airport screening was done by various third parties, though still according to rules set forth by the federal government. But it was just a vendor doing the screening, usually the same vendor that pushes Wheelchairs.
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Since it’s creation, the TSA has failed audit after audit after audit letting prohibited items through, so they are not a paragon of security
You could argue it’s all moot, and this is largely security theater anyway, which wouldn’t be fully wrong.
I flew before 2001 and man flying was so much faster and easier before TSA. I get it’s not perfect, I just trust something with no profit motive more than companies who will justify anything for a dollar. Either way, I prefer Clear not exist because there is enough pre-paid privilege in the American caste system.
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Clear doesn’t bypass TSA. It just skips you to the front of the line.
It does bypass TSA. The Clear agent goes up to the front of the TSA line, tells the TSA agent “This one is okay, I checked, you don’t need to,” and through you go.
Nope definitely not. I had a one year trial of it. They skip you to the front of the precheck line and you don’t need to show ID, but your stuff still needs to go through the xray and you have to go through the detector.
Edit: in some airports I guess it depends on if you have TSA Pre as well which line you get put into the front of.
They take you to the front of the line but, they still need to go through the actual screening (metal detector, bag scanning).
From the clear website: Simply step up to a CLEAR Pod at the airport where you’ll scan your boarding pass and eyes or fingerprints, and an Ambassador will escort you to the front of the security line for your screening.
The TSA Precheck line for xray and metal detector is far less stringent than the “regular” line. They use metal detectors only, not body scanners. You don’t have to take your shoes off or electronics out of your bags. It’s like going to the airport in the 1990s.
Clear and its counterparts allow you to have access to that lower level of screening without having TSA Precheck.
Not at all airports. In LAX and DEN CLEAR only skips you to the front of the normal line, not the TSA Pre line.
Unless you already have TSA Pre
Right, I didn’t realize that part when I posted. So the people who skip the TSA Pre line are paying for both, not just Clear. Just paying for Clear only brings you to the front of the normal line.
It doesn’t bypass TSA. Maybe it is different at different airports, but all of the ones I fly through on a regular basis the Clear people only take you to the normal TSA screener, where you still get screened. They don’t bypass that screening and they don’t take you to the TSA Pre line. In other airports they might take you to the TSA Pre line, but you still get screened there. Just less intense baggage and body scanning.
How often do you fly in the United States? That’s not how it works.
They walk you up to the front of the ID check line. TSA still checks your ID, and you still go through security.
Isis: we would love to suicide bomb a plane, but the budgets a bit tight this month and we just can’t afford to cover the TSA skip.
Everyone is beaten down by the travel process
TSA has been proven to be a sham time and time again. They’re ineffective at best. Just get rid of it already.
I also fail to see how this is really any different than paying for TSA pre check. The only main difference is skipping the security line but what difference is that really? Both are paid for services that allow the “rich” (yeah right) to get through security quicker. The real rich aren’t traveling in public transportation. Why don’t we ban private planes?
Oh and no offense to the, mostly, good people working there with the public on the front lines. They’re typically pleasant and great with the kids in my family’s experience.
TSA Precheck involves a background check and interview. This allows the actual screening process to be lighter.
I don’t recall an interview, just fingerprinting.
I had to go through a full interview to get a TSA precheck. Lots of invasive probing questions about who I am and where I work and what my family ties are.
My initial application was like eight (?) years ago, I wonder if they’ve changed it? Maybe they don’t interview everyone?
Did it this year. Some web forms, then went to a place that finger printed me and checked my ID. That was it.
Based on this completely ad hoc “survey,” that would indicate that they do perform interviews, but not for everyone.
I’m sure there’s not any racial profiling going on, no sir.
I’m pasty white and had a TSA pre-check interview about 2.5 years ago.
Waiting on a Global Entry interview.
I had to do an interview for Global Entry, not Precheck
All the info you submitted before the fingerprints
The real rich
What some lower-middle class Americans don’t realize is that to the great majority of people in this world… we are the rich.
In the US we look at someone making $75,000+, $100,000+, $150,000+, $250,000+, 500,000+, 1,000,000+, 1,000,000,000+ as rich… depending on what our current income level is. The reality is that even making 30k in the middle of nowhere is still better than 85% of the world’s income and quality of living.
If you can save $10,000 a year you can save more than 60% of people in the world actually earn.
When I point this stuff out though I get a ton of downvotes. Imagine buying a car, a plane ticket, or personal electronics when your total pre-tax pay is 10k or less… that is most people’s situation who are alive today (but less than 30% of Americans!) As a bonus, imported goods are typically cheaper in the US then almost any other country. Hair Gel that is $5 here is easily $20 USD in Santiago, Chile.
There should be way more taxes on the highest earners and more mechanisms that siphon wealth away from those with extreme excess. Just be aware that Americans overall have the most to lose if this goes to a global scale. A lot of things we take for granted and expect are luxury for billions.
And when those people have to live in the US you can make the direct comparison. Go look up PPP. That’s why you get downvoted so hard. For example 30k US is 90k in India. Solidly Middle Class but not wealthy. And before you shout about how much 90,000 USD would buy in India, that’s not the comparison. The comparison is in lifestyle. So they’re living in the US the way a middle class person in India would live. The number just contextualizes it.
Also, using a country that’s the dictionary example of monetary and fiscal mismanagement might not be the best way to go.
PPP falls apart when you consider the price of consumer electronics, electricity, gasoline, airfare…
In the Dominican Republic you can’t get completely stable electricity. It just doesn’t happen without generators/batteries. Generators aren’t suddenly cheaper in DR. It’s 20DOP for 1kwh of electricity in DR, or $0.34 USD/kwh. I pay less in the greater Boston area. Wages there are way, WAY below 30k/year. The thought of having air conditioning at home is practically impossible for almost all who live there.
I love how you nitpicked the chile reference (with no counterpoint whatsoever) but it’s true across Latin America. Imported goods to poorer nations generally cost way above and beyond what the US pays…unless it’s prescription drugs because almost all other nations negotiate those prices to be much, much less than what the US pays (and only just started negotiating… for JUST Medicare.) I’m sure there are other examples as well. The PPP is so far apart on imports it’s insane. Often times things are sold in the US even if they are made locally because the price in the US is way above and beyond what the locals can afford.
And you’re not cherry picking? I’ve been to developing countries. It’s not cardboard shacks. Yeah they don’t generally have central air and electricity cuts are common. But they have houses, mass transit, good food, bars, smartphones, etc.
Things have improved a lot over the last fifty years. If you want to complain that a bag of Cheetos is expensive and they have to buy Rosquillas de Quesito instead you’re not going to find much sympathy among people actually trying to improve lives.
Also, I did provide a counter example. I didn’t mention India just for giggles. It’s got one of the largest populations that still score as poverty stricken in the global sense. That don’t have running water, don’t have access to transit, smart phones, healthcare, good jobs, electricity, or safe food.
Huge qol improvements in india https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTZVKYYyig
I’m not really a fan of BI for hard info but I checked back in and it looks like they’ve basically eliminated extreme poverty.
This is the stuff I like to read about -
These include a national mission for construction of toilets and attempts to ensure universal access to electricity, modern cooking fuel, and more recently, piped water. As an example, rural access to piped water in India as of 15th August 2019 was 16.8% and at present it is 74.7%. The reduced sickness from accessing safe water may have helped families earn more income. Similarly, under the Aspirational District Program, 112 districts of the country were identified as having the lowest development indicators. These districts were targeted by government policies with an explicit focus on improving their performance in development.
So yeah, I’m absolutely elated to read that.
Man… they use a metric of $2.57/day in 2023 dollars to define the level of extreme poverty? That’s $938.05 a year. Just wow.
They cut me off at pre check which is really really irritating.
Good, absolute insanity it was ever allowed in the first place. Hope more states follow the same path.
Holy fuck yes please. Clear serves literally no purpose besides laying the groundwork for the future of tiered airport security.
You don’t like security theater and micro transactions to bypass annoyances?
Either everyone needs TSA screening or we don’t need it at all. Get rid of it. Problem solved.
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Clear doesn’t skip screening… It skips to the front of the line to be screened.
Everyone still gets screened.
They are also pre-screened and interviewed to get into the program.
Yeah, but it doesn’t really matter.
The federal government doesn’t trust Clear enough to let them into the Precheck line.
They offered me a free skip to get me to try it. I refused… being more wealthy than some people doesn’t make me better than them.
Are you sure? There is a 6-month+ wait to schedule an interview for the Clear program in most places. It’s not something they can pull you out of line to give you a free trial… There is a background check and in-person interview as part of the process.
I use pre-check because I travel often for work. That registration process involves bringing in more documentation than is required to normally fly, a background check and fingerprints.
I also got offered a free trial from Clear a few weeks ago while getting into the security line, but the system wouldn’t work properly with my ID (he said it works better with passports, which I wasn’t carrying with me) so the rep just had me follow him to the front of the line, gave my ID to the TSA agent, and send me on my way. Clear doesn’t appear to need an interview, but pre-check does. You can have just clear to skip the line but not the security check.
Yes, I was in line at… either SFO or San Bernidino, it’s been a while. They asked if I wanted to try it and I asked what it was, then they said the personal info they wanted and I said no way. They had people walking along their empty line talking to people in the TSA line. The TSA line was actually moving pretty smoothly that day, I bet they got more takers on slow days.
Casting call screening I bet.
Yes, but that doesn’t change anything at all about the actual screening process. That pre-screen and interview only lets them get past the initial line. They still have to do everything like a normal person.
I have pre-check but it looks like Clear just cut the pre-check line. Pre-check is more like a pre-911 airport experience. Shoes and jackets typically stay on. If you don’t trip the metal detector you’re good to go.
Which, itself, is infuriating.
If Clear is an equity problem, then the toll lanes that are going in all over California certainly are.
Toll roads would be equal. The toll lanes feel really bad.
I came to say exactly this. Fuck those stupid lanes. Carpool was just fine. The fact that these were approved by Democrats is really disheartening. They also just approved speed cameras which should be up soon enough. These are blatant cash grabs along with the gas tax increase Jerry Brown shoehorned in before he left. We already have the highest income tax in the country. WTF does the state do with all our money? Everything is crazy expensive here, and shit like this doesn’t help the working class that the Democrats are supposed to represent.
When the cameras went up in RI they could not stop bragging that they made 2 million in the first few days as if we should be excited that they’re taking money from the lowest income areas and sending it to a billionaire in Colorado:
Yeah, I’ve had 0 tickets in the last 10 years. But if I get a bullshit ticket in the mail for going with the flow of traffic, fuck right off. I remember seeing them in Arizona about 10 years ago and thought to myself wow, what an Orwellian shit hole AZ is. Glad we don’t have these in CA…
I believe there was a study for the highways outside of Washington DC that had toll lanes. The fees were variable and higher during rush hour. This effectively was a small fee for the wealthy to pay in order to get to work on time and left everyone else to sit in traffic. As far as I know, the lanes still exist, but there is no variable charge.
When they installed these in my area in CA, the first month or so, they opened them to everyone while they were getting the toll system set up. It was wonderful. They fixed all the choke points and traffic was a breeze. Then when they started enforcing the toll, the traffic was back… Cunts
The traffic would have gotten worse again eventually. Just one more lane bro, induced demand, etc etc.
I’m all for doing a risk based analysis of people and having a higher or lower level of scrutiny based on that analysis. “Ability to pay” shouldn’t be part of that analysis. Of course, given the history of problems with building such system, I also don’t expect that the TSA (or any group) is going to do well building a risk based system which isn’t:
Hilariously, I constantly get pulled for secondary. On my last trip they had us in a separate line and I finally made the connection. We were all guys that ran hot. It’s the old heat=sweat=nervous idea. So a calm terrorist wouldn’t get caught by their automatic secondary selection system. Like someone about to commit suicide that’s made peace with their decision.
I stopped getting pulled out for secondary scan after I asked if it said asshole next to my name. I’m fine if it does but I’d like to know. And no extra scans.
Security Theater
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So what’s the difference between this and TSA pre check? You have to pay for that too so the money privilege argument makes no sense here.
Kind of. TSA Precheck is <$100 for 5 years, so it’s significantly cheaper. That amount is a lot more accessible to average travelers than CLEAR.
Most people enrolled in those programs are frequent business travelers who charge it to the company.
When I was traveling all the time I did global entry. Since it was for work, I paid for it with my companies credit card. I also did the interview during company hours, drove to the interview in a company vehicle, and paid for parking and lunch on the company dime.
Nobody blinked at the expense. Of course it was the same month I traveled for 3 weeks, hit 5 countries and 10 states. It took me a full day to do my expense report.
This is my exact question, too. I have Pre-Check and I love it because it is like travelling prior to Sept-11.
Pre-Check is cheaper than Clear because it’s like $100 but it lasts for 2-3 years, so again, it’s a separation between those who can pay and those who can’t. Also, what’s next? Every airline removes First, Business, Basic Economy “classes”?
Banning Clear doesn’t resolve the “class” issue. What would be better is to just improve the entire TSA process so that it’s not so miserable for everyone, or let’s get more of those high-speed rails built so we have more travel options and airlines have enough competition to force improvement.
TSA Pre is $75 for five years.
The problem with services like Clear is that for even more money, you get to skip to the front of the TSA Pre line, too. It also means that a private company (with what kind of oversight, do we even know?) gets to do the security screening instead of TSA.
If you don’t think it’s all security theater, I don’t know what to say.
TSA Precheck involves a background check and interview performed by the government. This allows them to make the actual screening process lighter, because they’ve deemed you to be low risk.
With Clear, you still have to go through the full security check. And it also costs significantly more.
- Precheck: $14/y
- Clear: 190$/y
The cost of TSA Precheck is $70 for 5 years, so $14 per year (plus an additional $8 for the initial enrollment). If you travel internationally a lot you can upgrade to Global Entry for $100 for 5 years. Or if you travel to Canada frequently, you can get Nexus (a superset of Global Entry) at $50 for 5 years.
It’s hard to make the money privilege argument with Precheck at that price.
From what I can tell there are two main differences:
- TSA pre check isn’t guaranteed; you can have pre check and still be randomly selected for a full screening. Clear you always get a “light” screening.
- Pre check you still go through the TSA security, just with a less intensive screening and shorter line. Clear has it’s own little security area that bypasses TSA completely
There maybe others, but these seem to be the most important.
Clear doesn’t bypass TSA completely. They just walk you to the front of the TSA screening line.
These clear assholes are brought to the front of the line skipping everybody.
TSA Precheck is significantly cheaper than Clear ($75 for 5 years, vs $189/year for Clear) for what seems like essentially the same thing, and Precheck has extra benefits like the ability to keep your shoes, belt and jacket on, and keep laptops and liquids in your carry on bag. I’ve got Precheck and it’s always been just as fast as the Clear line, if not faster…
Why do people use Clear? What am I missing?
Clear and precheck are two separate things, clear only let’s you skip to the front of the line. If you want to enjoy the benefits precheck brings to the table with clear then you have to purchase both. It’s worth mentioning that most people do not pay for clear as it’s usually given out of a benefit for some credit cards and even some jobs that fly a lot.
“Let’s” = “let us”, “lets” = “allows”. The apostrophe shows where the words are joined and should not be used to warn readers that an “s” is coming next.
clear only let’s you skip you skip to the front of the line.
The TSA Precheck line is usually very small when I travel, so it seems like it’s essentially the same thing. I fly out of SFO and SJC, and haven’t had to wait longer than 2-3 minutes in the precheck line even when the airport is busy.
Its really only useful at certain airports that aren’t managed that well. Like at seatac when it’s peak time but only have one of the four checkpoints open because they are still short TSA agents. I should also add clear also let’s you line cut in places outside of TSA inspection points like at border crossing customs and some stadiums events.
I have never seen clear at any border crossing.
It really depends on the airport. I flew out of San Diego a month or 2 ago and the precheck line was longer than the regular line. It was like 30-45 minutes. Other times you basically stroll right through.
Precheck actually increases throughput by relaxing the scanner requirements. Clear is literally just paying to skip the line.
The bar for identity verification is higher, because precheck you skip quite a bit of the security procedures, while clear just gets you to the front of the line
Seems good, but if you are trying to make airport screening more equitable, why just Clear? What about “Sky Priority” and “Precheck”? I’m wondering if the airlines are lobbying for this.
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Dislike this. I never saw it as a wealthy skip the line. It’s not that expensive . And they are on their private jets already. It’s great for those of us that travel enough for work that it justifies the cost. When you fly more than once a week it’s nice to be able to pay to not have to wait for those that do it twice a year(and are not as efficient due to lack of practice)
Once everyone is using it, no one is getting value from it. Then it’s just another unneeded fee you have to pay not to wait 2 hours. This is disney-like squeeze for more money.
You always have to consider the insidious nature of things like this… once they’re common and you have to use them not to wait, everyone will be in the same place, minus $300 a year. Yes, I raised the price; once a large number of travelers are onboarded and you have to use it or wait forever, that’s what the company will do.
Not defending the company per se. I assume they are just as scummy as the next, but I don’t see why everyone would sign up. There’s next to no value there if you don’t travel alot
Having watched clear in action, I’m not even sure it’s worth it. I have pre check and I watch the clear line from my line. Clear works based on these kiosks that scan your face. You need to be waved in to a kiosk and everyone seems to need help from one of the onsite technicians anyway, so it’s not like those kiosks are in full use all the time or all that efficient. Also, a clear employee has to escort you to the TSA desk to be waved through. Clear users still need to go through the TSA screening, so they join the pre-check line where you don’t have to take off your shoes.
Waiting for a kiosk, waiting for clear staff assistance; these things become a bottle neck and frankly the line doesn’t move much faster, if at all, than pre-check. Pre check costs less than $20/year. Clear costs nearly $200/year. You might save 5 minutes or you might actually take longer to get through. I just don’t see the value.
Oh yeah, and there is also the fact that you’ve given your biometric information to a private company. I’m sure they won’t be tempted to exploit or sell that information to make more revenue when they’ve exhausted their airport line based growth. /s
They are 100% selling the biometrics.
The real business model is to get people used to paid tiered airport security. This is not the money maker. The money maker comes later when they will sell multiple tiers of on-demand line skipping in airports which are getting kickbacks to make the standard security tier as miserable as possible.
Even the airlines are trying to grab that information now. I flew last week and United had these cameras in front of the gate like they needed to scan everyone’s face. I was like, no I’m not doing that and the gate agent was like “it’s the only way on the plane.” I had looked it up online and found that was BS, so I told him “not according to your privacy policy.” So, he goes “well, do you have a boarding pass?” Of course I have a fucking boarding pass, thats the way it’s done. I got on the plane without having my biometrics taken. So, everyone else on the plane just had theirs taken because United wanted that data, but they didn’t need it. People just go along with it because they’re scared to say no.
I don’t know why clear pisses me off so much but it does. It’s just not fair imo, but life isn’t fair.
Because it says you are a second class citizen.
