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.
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.
Casting call screening I bet.
Yeah, but it doesn’t really matter.
The federal government doesn’t trust Clear enough to let them into the Precheck line.
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.
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.
Which, itself, is infuriating.
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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.
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.
So will TSA Pre-Check be next?
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
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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What’s preventing one of their software developers from just creating a bunch of approved people? Probably not much.
Jesus, paying to cut the line could not sound anymore American capitalistic. Good on California for banning this!
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.
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.
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.
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.
But also, wash your asses
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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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.
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.
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.
Nobody (at the time of my writing) is reading the article or understand what Clear is or what this new law is doing.
- No, its not banning Clear (in all forms, only its present one)
- Clear is a private company NOT a government program. TSA Pre is a government program. Both allow a traveler to pay for extra background checks and biometric collection to allow them through the identity step of airport security faster. Neither of these skip the hand baggage and body scans.
- Nothing in the law is about TSA Pre
- No, its not removing the pathway for “pay to play” allowing those willing to spend more money to get through security faster. Its complicating it for the Clear company, but also perhaps ending a result which Clear subscribers get through even faster than today!
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.
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Why do people use Clear? What am I missing?
As long as there are fewer Clear customers, they can essentially jump ahead of the folks in line for TSA Pre. For folks that travel on airplanes as a living, every moment counts, and they’re willing to spend whatever to cut out delays. Further, some concierge services and high end credit cards offer Clear subscriptions included. Others are business travelers and just charge their Clear subscription to their business expenses.
Its certainly not worth it to me, and I’ve never been a Clear customer.
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.
I agree that their current business model wouldn’t work, but their current model only has limited value anyway. I would say it changes the best possible business model for Clear to choose to operate more like Delta SkyPriority where there is a whole separate line from beginning of security to the end, not just the first step of the line, which is what Clear does today.
Hmm I feel like it would be difficult for a private company to get approved to take over the TSAs job. It would create a conflict of interest- Clear would want to get people through as quick as possible for as cheap as possible.
Hmm I feel like it would be difficult for a private company to get approved to take over the TSAs job.
You misunderstand. It would still be TSA staff, however they would be dedicated to Clear members. Who would pay for it would likely be Clear.
Delta does this already with their SkyPriority service. It is a separate security line specifically for Delta First class (or Skypriority member) passengers. No amount of Clear, TSA Pre will get you into that dedicated line.
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 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 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…
As annoyed as I get with Clear skipping the line, why is it any different with First Class/Sky Priority separate lines that skip to the front? This is just an extra fee to skip even that line. I’m a frequent traveler (both business and pleasure), so I get upgraded every flight. It annoys me when airports don’t have Sky Priority lines (I’m looking at you IND!) or the Sky Priority line doesn’t actually skip anything (Delta’s new LAX terminal design), so I don’t fundamentally have a problem with Clear. I’m just too cheap to pay for it. In DEN, Sky Priority is absolutely necessary because of how unbelievably stupid their security setup is.
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Also a frequent traveler and I don’t do any of that stuff. I sit in economy and I do the normal TSA line. Use my points for a free trip.
