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.
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
Good. It is already a multitiered system and there is no reason to let it be any worse. Rich fucks should wait in line with us unwashed masses.
But also, wash your asses
Nah, eff that. I fly a lot both for business and for vacations, so I have high status and get upgraded every flight. Those upgrades get me a special security line, even though I’m not rich. If I had to wait in the normal line every flight behind people who have no idea how to take off their shoes, let alone that they have to take them off, I just wouldn’t fly for work. Most of the people in those lines (Clear, TSA Pre, First Class) are people who travel a lot for work and know how to go through security faster. They also have to deal with that shit more often. Some of them are just rich assholes, but most of them are business travelers who would have significantly worse lives because you hate rich people.
Oh no I have to wait in line for a few more minutes. Woe is me woe is me.
You: “Rich fucks should wait in line with us”
Also you: “Oh no I have to wait in line for a few more minutes. Woe is me woe is me.”
So if it isn’t such a big deal to wait in line for a few more minutes, then why do you have a problem with rich people paying extra to avoid it? You are happy, they are happy, right?
Because it makes the line longer for me.
But you just said a few more minutes is no big deal. Woe is me woe is me. If you don’t care about a few more minutes, then why do you care if your line is a little longer?
What part is your rich ass not getting? There are four lines if everyone just waits in the lines the lines move quick. If you make a special rich person line it means the other three move slowly as one line isn’t at capacity.
I do not know how clear I can make it. Your rich person line sucks, you suck if you use it, and everyone has to suffer because you looked at a finite resource and said “fuck you, I got mine”.
OK, so you refuse to acknowledge what you said about it not mattering much to you if the line takes a little longer.
We need to stop terrorists, unless you’re willing to pay a premium, of course!
Who thinks this shit up? That the idea gets in your head is one thing, that it leaves your mouth is another…
We need to stop terrorists, unless you’re willing to pay a premium, of course!
The only step Clear skips is essentially identifying your identity. As in, you are who you say you are. They do this by requiring your eye retina scan biometrics (no thank you). This replaces a TSA officer looking at your ID and looking at your face and letting you through to the next step.
After the identity check (TSA looking at your ID or Clear looking at your retinas) all the steps and priority are identical. Your hand carried bags are xray scanned, you go through a body scanner of some kind.
My mate and I were traveling for awhile where she had Clear and I just had TSA Pre. Out of 8 times traversing security, only one time was she through faster than I was. She dropped her Clear service (which was just a free trial anyway).
Is it really retina, or is it iris scan? The latter is easier (therefore cheaper and more common), but more prone to false positives.
Good question. I don’t know.
It doesn’t even do that. The TSA agent still checks your ID. And that’s not even the bottleneck at security anyway.
When I’ve seen Clear customer traverse, they are check by face/eyes with their machines, a Clear employee walks them to the front of the line, announces to the TSA officer that X number of cleared passengers are entering and the Clear employee shows their ID. I have never seen a Clear customer show an ID to a TSA agent.
So will TSA Pre-Check be next?
I have a buddy who accidentally tried to fly with a gun in his bag out of DFW.
He has his concealed carry permit, and this was in Texas, so he had to pay a fairly substantial fine, but that was it (yes, he’s a white guy). Still made his flight in time.
Same friend had TSA pre check and Clear. TSA precheck, to their credit, stripped him of the privilege. Clear is still fine with this, though.
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?
Precheck actually increases throughput by relaxing the scanner requirements. Clear is literally just paying to skip the line.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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
This seems like a good step. If the security bottleneck is mandated for all of us by the government, then people who don’t like it should work to improve it. Though I guess the owner class proper doesn’t really have to deal with any of it, with special processes to get to private jets.
But, this is also air travel we’re talking about. Every single step of the process to get from A to B is as enshittified and monetized as possible. Zero surprise that it’s the same with security.
I fly a lot. About a year ago I was going back from a business trip and my flight was cancelled. So get an Uber to the nearest hotel, have a few restaurant meals, and fly out the next day. All in all about 300 dollars extra and the money means nothing to me since it isn’t mine and the project is in the millions of dollars. As we are taking off I was just sitting there thinking about the poor bastards yesterday flying for fun with their kids. How devastating a flight cancelling can be for them. Little things like telling people there flight was cancelled earlier would save those people so much money.
The alternative is air travel goes back to the old days when every ticket is first class and a large segment of society can’t afford to fly.
The alternative is we break up the monopoly, ban stock buybacks, pass minimum standards of comfort, and suggest to the airlines that if they are short on cash they cut executive salaries.
There is no excuse for it. I have flown outside the US twice the past 9 months alone and will fly at least 3 more times abroad before Dec of this year. Consistently the US domestic is the most awful way to fly. Flown on airlines that are very much 3rd world where I had more space and better quality airline food all for less money.
Also the Germans got it right. Loaded up last passenger? Close the doors and start taxing. None of this bullshit about everyone must have sat down for 45 minutes before the plane moves.
The third world airlines are generally subsidized by the local governments to maintain connectivity.
The EU deregulated its airline industry about two decades after the USA and it is going down the same path. Some flag carriers have gone out of business and the market is becoming saturated with low cost airlines that make Southwest feel like luxury in comparison. Even then, the EU has benefits that the USA doesn’t have like no fuel tax and plenty of airports in comparison to the USA.
Just do whatever needs to happen to fix it. I don’t care. I shouldn’t be in misery flying from coast to coast and in luxury flying from Vietnam to Thailand. It’s bullshit that the country that invented air travel has airlines this bad.
Pre check isn’t any better. I went through an airport last year that had 16 stations for pre check and 3 for everyone else. The line for those 3 stations wrapped around the airport.
Improve TSA? Nah. Let’s ban the better system instead.
This is 100% political pandering. It has nothing to do with fixing a real problem.
Wait till I release “Even Clearer,” and my customers will skip in front of the Clear people.
California is not able to set policy for a federal agency. What they can do is end the “relief value” that lets people skip the bad policies for money.
At that point, the people with money may start putting pressure on the federal government to improve the TSA.
So they are doing exactly what youre asking them to, in the only way they can.
No, they’re manufacturing outrage by saying “look at those people that are skipping the line, don’t you hate that.” They’re just trying to get popularity points. It’s a completely manufactured problem, and they’re wasting time and resources that should be spent on real problems.
If TSA lines are a genuine problem that these politicians feel need to be fixed, then they can do plenty of things without Federal TSA policy changes.
So since youre personally a fan of broken govermental systems that private companies use to generate profits at the expense of the the citizens of California, you think state reps should just “shut up and work on the things I think are important” while fully ignoring that this change might have been a direct request from their constituents.
Gotcha.
First off, waiting in line at TSA while some people get to skip should be pretty far down the list of problems to fix for any reasonable person. It’s unfair, but it doesn’t hurt anyone. There are finite resources available to fix problems, so why not fix the problems that actually hurt people every day.
Second off, even if you decide TSA wait times are a high priority problem, this proposal does nothing to fix it. Again, why not spend these resources on reducing wait time for everyone?
All this does is draw attention to people spending their way around an inconvenience, without actually fixing the inconvenience to for ordinary people. It’s generating outrage without fixing the problem.
Is it actually better security, or just a better experience for the people that are willing/able to pay for it? Maybe we could actually improve the TSA instead of allowing a “skip the line” fee that goes to a private for-profit company?
That’s 100% my point. Why not fix the problem for everyone instead of banning a solution.
It’s not a solution. It’s just an alternative ID check currently offering a way for people with more money to skip to the front of the line. They still have to go through the same TSA screening. If everyone used the service it would offer zero benefit. So no, it’s not a solution.
You’ve just described how it is a solution; it’s additional ID verification capacity.
Neoliberalism y’all, TSA’s equipment and all the services that go along with it are actually revenue streams invented by mega donors. The “free” market in action.
Seriously…Clear is some bullshit…
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
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.
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”.
Good, absolute insanity it was ever allowed in the first place. Hope more states follow the same path.
I feel like this post was astroturfing that went horribly wrong for Clear. I’d like to thank all my fellow travelers who see this is a horrible additional fee that they want to make mandatory not to wait behind their pointless service.
Anyone who thinks this is a good service deserves to wait in the regular line for every ride at Disney.
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.
