I was recently reminded that Robert F. Kennedy once said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” By that criterion of unrepentant failure, TSA is rapidly creeping up on the Donald Trump style of greatness: we must be right, because we say so. Notwithstanding the recent embarrassment of a 95% failure rate in detecting weapons and explosives during quality control testing at the checkpoint, there is also a perverse reckoning behind a recent TSA move to create a new sub-list to the terrorist watch list to include persons who have not cleared the TSA Pre-check background investigation, including airline frequent fliers who have been kicked out after automatic enrollment in Pre-check by virtue of being good customers, perhaps for decades. Apparently, after the airlines were assured that loyal frequent fliers with hundreds of thousands of miles were the definition of trusted traveler, TSA has now decided that some fliers are less equal than others. If a Pre-check investigation indicates “involvement” in violations of certain un-named security regulations of undefined sufficient severity or unexplained frequency, they’re booted from the program and put on a separate watch list.
Perhaps more irksome than the fact that there was no opportunity for public or industry comment on this change, is that the agency claims this is a “different kind of list”. The rejectees are only banned from Pre-check lanes and must still undergo standard screening. [emphasis added]. OK, stay with me here: certain silver, gold and platinum passengers have all had standard screening for more than 13 years. Then, their TSA-approved frequent flier programs moved them into the Pre-check fast lanes, after which TSA, for unstated reasons, puts them on yet another list to throw them out of the program, and back into the standard screening lanes where they started out... but now they’re getting flagged for being on a special watch list with apparently different criteria which mere mortals are not allowed to know. Can anybody explain to me – or them - why this extra level of bureaucratic secret lists to manage a ridiculously redundant list is necessary to simply irritate the bejeebers out of people while putting them back where they started out when TSA put them there when trying expand the viability of the program?
Maybe if each of them asks nicely, but tersely, why they were dumped in less than 140 characters: TSA is now contemplating a plan to add Twitter to its non-responsive web-based PR/blogging repertoire, to respond directly to individual questions and comments from travelers. Southwest Airlines has 60 people dedicated solely to social media, and does a reasonably good job of dealing with cranky passengers, but for very different reasons than the Agency which everybody loves to hate. I suspect it’s the wrong audience with a very narrow demographic, notorious for being a snarky, flaming and primarily anonymous platform, and I would bet the rent money that it will be almost exclusively in negative damage-control mode. I highly recommend that whoever mans the keyboard do so under a pseudonym from the second basement of a secure facility, jack up their mental health insurance, and get a copy of Ambrose Bierce’s “Devil’s Dictionary” to be able to hold his/her own in the ensuing unpleasant discussions. [ “Discussion, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.” Bierce.]
