There is a continuing internal conflict between the two TSA concepts of Pre-Check and managed inclusion – that is, quicker/easier security screening for persons who have been previously vetted and enrolled in the system, and quicker/easier security screening for persons who have not. Both programs have their pros and cons, often depending on one’s perspective: facilitation, which is getting through the system quickly with minimum hassle; or enhanced levels of security, which is, after all, the underlying purpose for the program’s existence. Regular readers of this space will understand how much it pains me to defend TSA; I have been their opponent on both sides of the argument, but in this instance, I think TSA has pursued an acceptable, albeit still imperfect, middle ground.
Every day brings media stories about TSA’s massive push to enroll people in Pre-Check in dozens of cities, large and small. Business travelers and frequent flyers love their own private high-speed, low stress queue, and it makes sense that identifiable good guys don’t require the Full Monty (in both full meanings of the phrase). However, “managed inclusion” then defeats the process by using such questionable methods as behavior detection to direct random unknown travelers into the same short line, simply because it’s less crowded, and boosts the TSA’s overall throughput figures.
This is where the process falls short, and where managed inclusion recently sent a known convicted felon through the fast lane, beginning yet another flurry of Congressional activity to “fix” the system... and which opens a whole series of questions we don’t have time or space to answer here: how did they figure out he was a known felon after they sent him through? Did they dump the terminal or the airplane? Was he on the no-fly list, and they just blew it? OK – stay with me here....
Other TSA purveyors of good sense have recognized that the very young and the very old, persons with high-level security clearances, the Disney – bound family with three kids, uniformed military (ours, not theirs), or certain other groups of reasonably well understood and identifiable individuals are of sufficiently low risk to be allowed a little slack. There is clearly a dichotomy here: good security versus ease of travel... And this is where things start to get a little bit crazy....
Members of Congress led by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), many of whom have recently and vociferously complained that these just plain good old law abiding American folks shouldn’t be treated as criminals in the heavy duty screening lane, have now introduced legislation to make it so – to exclude them from the fast lane; to restrict the TSA’s PreCheck program solely to members who have applied for and been given access to expedited screening, ensuring that passengers going through the line have been thoroughly vetted. Managed inclusion be damned, and there are many who think it should be, although I admit to a change of heart: let it be. Behavior detection is seriously flawed, and its selection criteria are almost comical if this wasn’t such a serious business. But in the real world, half of this nation’s traveling population won’t – and shouldn’t need to – sign up for PreCheck, creating one more bureaucracy inside yet another larger bureaucracy that often creates more problems than it solves.
There is an adage in the security business that there is no such thing as perfect security; only varying levels of insecurity, which also describes PreCheck quite nicely. We are all at risk in everything we do, from driving the car to walking across a busy street, but in real life, you don’t stay home because the world is a dangerous place. Yes, an occasional miscreant will get through the system, and some poor TSO and/or intelligence officer is likely to take some serious heat for it. But an occasional hyped anecdote is not sufficiently relevant data to legislatively kill the system that despite its many flaws, actually works for the travelling public.
