this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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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.

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[–] RainfallSonata 141 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Either everyone needs TSA screening or we don't need it at all. Get rid of it. Problem solved.

[–] cbarrick 72 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Clear doesn't skip screening... It skips to the front of the line to be screened.

Everyone still gets screened.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (8 children)

They are also pre-screened and interviewed to get into the program.

[–] cbarrick 17 points 2 months ago

Yeah, but it doesn't really matter.

The federal government doesn't trust Clear enough to let them into the Precheck line.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Good Guy California getting rid of pay-to-win subscription for air travel.

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[–] Furbag 69 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] eugene171 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

It's not only theater, since Americans can't be trusted to remember they have loaded guns on their person

So many loaded guns.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 months ago (20 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 69 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (8 children)

I disagree. Clear gives wealthy an “out” and incentivizes the TSA system to NOT change. Clear is increasing sales but there is no relationship between their sales and TSA. TSA is not incentivized to make Clear more money. It’s a bad move.

[–] OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'd day it's still a good move as it prevents inequal wealth resulting in inequality treatment. We should ALL be moved to the front of the TSA line, with no extra cost, or none of us should.

The ultimate solution is a change to TSA that makes it easier to board for everyone, but if the only option is to let people who pay a fee get a leg-up, I'm fine with just banning the whole service.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Holy fuck yes please. Clear serves literally no purpose besides laying the groundwork for the future of tiered airport security.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 12 points 2 months ago

You don't like security theater and micro transactions to bypass annoyances?

[–] QuarterSwede 43 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (10 children)

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.

[–] cbarrick 19 points 2 months ago (8 children)

TSA Precheck involves a background check and interview. This allows the actual screening process to be lighter.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

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.

[–] betterdeadthanreddit 9 points 2 months ago

"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.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

Precheck actually increases throughput by relaxing the scanner requirements. Clear is literally just paying to skip the line.

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[–] Chainweasel 35 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] cbarrick 24 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Clear doesn't bypass TSA. It just skips you to the front of the line.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] WhatsThePoint 38 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

What’s preventing one of their software developers from just creating a bunch of approved people? Probably not much.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] brygphilomena 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] Theoriginalthon 11 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Ah so it's for drug trafficking not terrorism

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

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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[–] vatlark 29 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Raiderkev 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Subtracty 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] TankovayaDiviziya 19 points 2 months ago

Jesus, paying to cut the line could not sound anymore American capitalistic. Good on California for banning this!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] kaitco 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] cbarrick 9 points 2 months ago

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.

  • Precheck: $14/y
  • Clear: 190$/y

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.

[–] frickineh 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] gastationsushi 15 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] sylver_dragon 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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:

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[–] TheTimeKnife 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Good, absolute insanity it was ever allowed in the first place. Hope more states follow the same path.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] partial_accumen 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] Maggoty 7 points 2 months ago

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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