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.
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 Pre is $75 for five years.
The problem with services like Clear is that for even more money, you get to skip to the front of the TSA Pre line, too. It also means that a private company (with what kind of oversight, do we even know?) gets to do the security screening instead of TSA.
If you don’t think it’s all security theater, I don’t know what to say.
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.
Most people enrolled in those programs are frequent business travelers who charge it to the company.
When I was traveling all the time I did global entry. Since it was for work, I paid for it with my companies credit card. I also did the interview during company hours, drove to the interview in a company vehicle, and paid for parking and lunch on the company dime.
Nobody blinked at the expense. Of course it was the same month I traveled for 3 weeks, hit 5 countries and 10 states. It took me a full day to do my expense report.
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.
From what I can tell there are two main differences:
There maybe others, but these seem to be the most important.
Clear doesn’t bypass TSA completely. They just walk you to the front of the TSA screening line.
These clear assholes are brought to the front of the line skipping everybody.