TSA has recently announced their Registered Traveller program.
There’s a lot of elitism in air travel already. Not only are there the various classes, with First being given to those who pay a premium for large leather chairs, first-on-the-plane service, and complementary drinks, but it seems that every airline has their own mileage and premium clubs. The bennies involved range from special service lines at ticketing, to comfortable lounges with drinks, food, and wifi access.
While I really dislike the fact that because I’m generally a small-business or personal traveler, I get treated as though the airlines are doing me a favor by letting me pay for a ticket and stand in line, I can deal with it. Many people fly very little, and a small subclass of Americans fly quite a lot. That class is catered to, since they’re the frequent and lucrative customers.
When it comes to security, however, the current plans by the TSA to create an express system for “pre-screened” travelers don’t sound like a good idea.
TSA already gets quite a bit of flak for relying on CAPPS, which deterministically chooses some travelers for special screening, on the assumption that background patterns will predict which people are likely to be dangerous, and that checking those people more stringently is going to raise the “hit-rate” for arrests. Unfortunately, as is quickly shown, this is easily defeated. Cells of terrorists may be able to test the system in order to find out which hijackers will avoid this scrutiny, and test their historical success/failure in dummy flights. A much better method is to use a completely random search, similar to what I encountered when visiting Mexico. Everyone entering through customs pushes a button. A red light or a green light turns on, selected via some distribution. There is no way of outsmarting this system – it is far too stupid. Creating a group of people who are “pre-vetted” is even worse: this leads to at least two liabilities. Prospective terrorists may be able to pass these initial tests and background checks, or people who have already been vetted may be recruited. Additionally, by creating a set of identities that are able to bypass portions of security (at least, the chance of enhanced security screening), this causes the creation of a set of identities that can be stolen by perpetrators. Sure, there are plans to use snazzy biometric systems. I’m sure that they are infallable.
But on the subject of elitism, by removing a class of people from the pool of those eligible for additional screening, this will cause travelers who are not part of the Registered Traveler program to be more likely to be screened – simple percentages. Do people deserve the additional inconvienience of being more likely to be forced into the additional screening lane?
Sadly, this class system is already on the way. At least at PDX, there is a special line to enter security for members of various premium clubs. They seem to arrive in the same security lanes, and I assume they go through the same security process, and it could be a policy of the airport and not TSA, but I’m also willing to assume that “premium club” status goes into the algorithm when an airline selects someone for special screening. I do not believe that a government entity such as TSA should be particpating in such an unbalanced (and unsafe) scheme