Our Huge Hassles With Airport Security

Yesterday I found myself in a giant bureaucratic hassle at the San Francisco International Airport.

A couple of weeks ago Elena signed up for the CLEAR program and paid a $179.00 annual fee.Their logo promises:"Speed through airport security in less than 5 minutes any time that you fly." Elena was electronically finger printed and had a retina scan taken.

Most likely her fingerprints, names, and other details were checked against all the "no fly" lists, intelligence data bases, National Crime Information Center and Interpol (for criminal records and outstanding warrants), the IRS data base, child support enforcement, etc.

(By the way I served in the US Navy. I had a secret security clearance and was considered for a top-secret clearance when I was offered a job at the US Navy section in the White House in 1972. What Elena went through was just what anyone goes through to get a secret security clearance.)

Elena passed this rigorous background check and was given an impressive-looking CLEAR card. We assumed that she would go to the airport and fly through security rapidly without the necessity to take off her shoes, pull out her laptop and be subject to an x-ray body search with its radiation exposure.

Many of us have learned in life that what the book says is supposed to happen and what happens in real life are two different things. When Elena arrived at SFO to begin the journey to New Orleans, she went right to the front of the CLEAR line. She expected a quick walk through security.Instead an employee of CLEAR escorted her to the normal security line where she was forced to take off her shoes, pull out her laptop computer and go through the dreaded x-ray body search with its radiation. We both were mad as hell. We were sure that some large error had happened.

Likewise when we were getting ready to board the plane to return from New Orleans, Elena was subject to the same indignity. We were even madder.

Yesterday I went to the CLEAR booth in the international terminal at SFO. A very bright and charming young woman named Ann looked at Elena's card, the boarding passes,etc. She carefully explained to me that the CLEAR card gets one rapidly through the line. The Transportation Safety Administration determines who gets TSA pre-screened so that they do not have to go through indignities like taking off shoes, pulling out laptops, and being subject to invasive and radiation-filled body searches. Ann told me that I had to go to a special Transportation Safety Administration office that handled TSA Pre-screened.

I spent one hour walking around two levels of the SFO international terminal and talking to several people before I found a tiny office sandwiched in between Starbuck's and BART. A lady on duty told me that Elena would have to come to that office during normal working hours (9:00 AM-5:00 PM Monday through Friday to have her finger prints taken to get accepted into the TSA pre-screened program.

The people at CLEAR never told us this. It sounds to me like there is a big bureaucratic battle going on between the people at the CLEAR program and the TSA. The TSA people fear that the CLEAR program will put them out of business.

I explained all of this to Elena. She agreed to go to the TSA and be finger printed. She wondered why it was necessary to pay a fee to get the CLEAR card. I think that the CLEAR card started with the noble intention of speeding very trust-worthy travelers through the security process. The Transportation Safety Administration felt threatened and decided to put obstacles in the path of the CLEAR program.