Standing In Line

Priority Queueing is anti-democracy.  I'm not gonna squawk about express check-in at a hotel or picking up the rental car or whatever a company wants to do with - or for - people who spend more money than I do.  But next time you fly somewhere, be sure to look for the TSA express line at the airport security thingie, and check out TSA's program. Pay to play was never more exciting.

TSA Pre✓™ allows select frequent flyers of participating airlines and members of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler programs to receive expedited screening benefits during domestic travel. Eligible participants use dedicated screening lanes for screening benefits which include leaving on shoes, light outerwear and belts, as well as leaving laptops and 3-1-1 compliant liquids in carry-on bags.

Maybe it's a good sign - if TSA is saying they'd like to move towards not treating everybody like a criminal, demanding we all prove our innocence, then OK.  I still get a bad feeling though.  TSA's been in business for almost 10 years now, and while they've made certain claims in the past about thwarting terrorist attempts, we don't hear much of anything about them any more - and you know damned well they'd be all over the news jumping up and down celebrating if they could document anything even close to breaking up the next 9/11.  But instead, we hear mostly about the occasional oops when the FAA tests the system and an agent wearing an Allahu Akbar t-shirt manages to get a chain saw and a bazooka and 5 kegs of black powder past the Toll Booth School washouts at a security checkpoint.  So it'd be nice if TSA is getting closer to the point where they'll just go away, but knowing that no government agency ever just goes away, I guess we can look forward to a long relationship with airport security because somebody is busily figuring our how to make the whole thing very very profitable.

Only slightly tangential, give this one a listen (from 99% Invisible):