OK, this really isn’t a rant because I’m not upset about anything, just perplexed. Yesterday, I flew to Washington National (DCA) from Atlanta. In Atlanta I was picked for PreCheck. Returning today on the same reservation, I was not picked for PreCheck. In TSA’s defense, it still didn’t take me very long to get through security…it’s just that I hate wasting time putting all my stuff back in my bag that has to come out if I don’t get PreCheck.
I’m more tolerant of TSA’s penchant for needing a little “randomness” in security than most people I know….to a point. But it is simply asinine annoying to be “trusted” on the outbound leg of your journey, and not be treated the same way on your return from a simple Atlanta-DC-Atlanta roundtrip. Of course, I think it’s asinine annoying that I’ve had my hands swabbed because I wear an insulin pump 6 times in the last 3 weeks too, but I guess it beats (actually, it really does beat) the full secondary search they were doing for a while.
Rant off.
TSA agents couldn’t pick a terrorist out of a line-up if the terrorist had “terrorist” tattooed on their forehead. They are too busy patting down seniors and children while throwing out over-sized toiletries. PreCheck is an improvement for those of us who travel weekly but if inconsistent, it really does not good. Intelligence is what stops terrorist attacks. This is doing nothing but costing the tax-paying citizens billions of dollars and feeding another behemoth government agency. The money would be better spent on increasing intelligence and creating a process for legit back ground checks for frequent business travelers that have years of documented travel experience.
God I love the internet, the commenters just harpooned this author’s horrible opinion of TSA Pre. Kind of eliminates the whole point of the program if it’s predictable when you will get expedited….
@Peter, I do not have a horrible opinion of PreCheck. Quite the opposite actually. I was simply ranting a bit, a mistake which I have since moderated. Nor am I under any kind of illusion or misunderstanding about predictability. I was simply a little disappointed on a Friday afternoon that when nothing else was going right, that day, of all days was the one that I had to remove my shoes. I am certain that most of us that travel have had a moment. I had mine, and now I’m over it.
As I said in the post, I’m more appreciative of “unpredictability” than a lot of people I know. The “asinine” (and maybe asinine was too strong of a word… annoying maybe) piece of this is that the government has plenty of data on me….an above average amount of data… enough to determine that I am not a “bad guy” whether I remove my shoes for security or not.
“But it is simply asinine to be “trusted” on the outbound leg of your journey, and not be treated the same way on your return from a simple Atlanta-DC-Atlanta roundtrip.”
No, it’s not asinine at all. If outbound “trust” guaranteed you “trust” on the return, bad guys would merely book R/T and be squeaky clean on their outbounds. Once they knew which inbounds guaranteed “trust,” they’d be in a position to abuse it to everyone’s detriment.
There are a great many things wrong with TSA, but this unpredictability factor is not one of them.
I am 1 for 4 so far on pre check , The GF is 3 for 4 …. So basically those other 2 times she just waited with me… Ugh… The sad part is those TSA agents in that section are never actually working very few if any people have gone through it
Did you know your entitled a refund of the TSA fees if you cancel the flight? This was just on our local news:
http://www1.whdh.com/video/player/?clipId=7775936&clipFormat=flv&topVideoCatNo=#?autoStart#?autoStart
From what I’ve been told, being selected for PreCheck should be around 80%. The other 20% of the time, sorry Charlie. There’s no “memory” that you came through that station at some earlier time and why should there be? It may be annoying but you were not picked on, just unlucky.
Vincent, interestingly enough, I’d say I get picked for PreCheck about 80 percent of the time. 🙂 Thanks for your comment.
I had precheck last night in ATL, got the “random” hand swab and came back positive for something on my hand. The staff was nice, but it took about 10 minutes for me to clear secuirty after a detailed bag search and massage. I learned that pumping gas and/or using soaps with Glycerin can cause a false positve.
It’s not “asinine” at all, actually. Maybe the terrorist would take a positioning flight and pick up the bomb elsewhere. Who knows? But, that’s the whole of the process being random. It makes perfect sense that you would be selected on your outbound but not your return.