Either everyone needs TSA screening or we don't need it at all. Get rid of it. Problem solved.
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.
Good Guy California getting rid of pay-to-win subscription for air travel.
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
This is on brand. Government thinks the problem is the “for pay” scheme to make the process more tolerable while forcing us into a system (TSA) that has NEVER been shown to prevent anything other than happiness. The problem isn’t with Clear, it is with TSA asshats. How about make a system that works so that no one needs Clear?
You are right, but having a system like Clear also incentivizes the whole system to be worse to increase sales. While it's not a whole solution, it's a good move, imo.
Yeah, but the best way to get something like this to improve is to make rich people suffer through it too. Letting them bypass a system like this allows them, and the politicians who cater to them, to ignore the issue.
Its like when segregation ended and white kids were being sent to the black schools and tons of money poured into the schools as the white parents realized the conditions there kids would have to suffer through. Like tsa the ultra wealthy just went to private schools/jets but the broad middle to upper middle class still has a lot of sway politically and can change broken systems like this, if it effects them.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Precheck actually increases throughput by relaxing the scanner requirements. Clear is literally just paying to skip the line.
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.
Clear doesn't bypass TSA. It just skips you to the front of the line.
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.
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.
What’s preventing one of their software developers from just creating a bunch of approved people? Probably not much.
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.
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.
Ah so it's for drug trafficking not terrorism
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.
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.
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.
Security Theater
Jesus, paying to cut the line could not sound anymore American capitalistic. Good on California for banning this!
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Good, absolute insanity it was ever allowed in the first place. Hope more states follow the same path.
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.
Nobody (at the time of my writing) is reading the article or understand what Clear is or what this new law is doing.
Important quote from the article:
"Newman said his bill, SB-1372, doesn't seek to prohibit Clear from operating its own dedicated security lines separate from other passengers."
Clear could set up their own end-to-end security (which would cost them more) but would be even faster to get through because they would bypass regular TSA security and scanning lines, which isn't what is happening today.
That would defeat the business model - they don’t want to pay to do security, they want to be paid to walk you to security. If they did security and took the liability associated, this would be a great service.
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.
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