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How the rich took over airport security
Transportation Security Administration
Thursday, Mar 22, 2012 10:00 AM PDTHow the rich took over airport security
Security checks were one of America's most democratic places--until rich passengers got their own, speedy lines
(Credit: Reuters/Salon)
The other day at Bergstrom Airport in Austin, Texas, I witnessed a striking manifestation of the new American plutocracy. Along with getting a photo at the Department of Motor Vehicles and sitting in a jury pool, standing in line at airport security with a mob of other people, miserable though it is, remains one of the few examples of civic equality in our increasingly oligarchic republic. Much airport security, of course, is theater, designed to provide alibis for bureaucrats and politicians in the event of a terrorist attack. But while we can debate what a rational airport security system would look like, no rational system would discriminate among passengers on the basis of ability to pay.
That is what makes the policy of Delta Airlines so shockingly un-American. In Austin, Delta had not one but two lines that fed into the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint area. One line was mixed race, mixed class, and mixed age. The other line was usually empty. Now and then a white, middle-aged man would appear in the second line and the first line would be halted as he went directly into the TSA checkpoint.
?Who are those guys?? I asked a TSA officer, when I reached the front of the second-class citizen line.
?Delta has total control over the passenger line all the way up to here,? the officer answered. ?They?ve decided to let priority passengers as well as pilots and steward staff go through ahead of others.?
?So that?s the rich white guy line?? I asked.
The TSA officer laughed. ?On our side of the line, everybody is equal.?
Now I would be the first to concede that what Delta and other airlines do beyond the government security checkpoint at the gates that lead to airplanes is their business. At the moment, the model of America?s pathetic, predatory, deteriorating airline industry seems to be eking out nickels and dimes by playing crudely on the snobbery of their customers, with the use of two separate lines at the terminal gates, one for priority passengers?labelled, by various airlines, Gold, Platinum, Elite, and so on.
The priority line, needless to say, goes to exactly the same door and entry ramp and does not get the ?elite? to its destination one second earlier. Neither de Toqueville, who commented on the contrast between the status obsessions of Americans and their professed democratic egalitarianism, nor Veblen, who coined the term ?conspicuous consumption,? would have been surprised by this method of showing off. Such silliness is a matter for satire, not lawsuits or protest marches.
But going through airline security is different. It is not a choice, like belonging to an airline?s frequent flier points club. Security screening is an onerous civic duty. Like other civic duties, it should be shared equally by rich and poor alike. Remember the motto of Jacksonian populism? ?Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.?
Nearly all the airlines now allow well-heeled passengers to pay for the privilege of cutting ahead of the rest of us at the TSA checkpoint. At many airline checkpoint there are two lines. The long line looks like America; the short line is made up mostly of affluent white men.
Is this the future we Americans want?two lines at all airline security checkpoints, one for the privileged 1 percent and the other for the 99 percent, who have to stand aside to let the people with lots of money pass? Alas, it appears that making economic apartheid formal in U.S. civil aviation is a bad idea whose time has come. The TSA is experimenting with a ?precheck? program with built-in class discrimination, including the government?s crony-capitalist invitation of frequent fliers from private U.S. airline programs, but not other American citizens, to participate:
If you are a United States citizen and are currently a member of CBP?s eligible Trusted Traveler programs (Global Entry, SENTRI, NEXUS), you are automatically qualified to participate in the TSA Pre ? pilot as long as you are flying on a participating airline at a participating airport. (If you?re a more frequent flyer with Delta or American, you must opt in to the program by responding to the communication sent to you, which is why it?s important to find that email and follow the directions in it.)
In other words, if you do not fly frequently?and most low-income and middle-income Americans cannot afford to?you would not be allowed to take part in this public government program. In true crony capitalist fashion, the precheck program blurs the line between the government?s security function and the airlines? purely commercial frequent flier programs.
The precheck program is advertised as an experimental program, holding out the possibility that after a period in which they are subject to more scrutiny than affluent business travelers, low-income grandmothers travelling to visit their grandchildren at last will be able to take part. More likely, the precheck program would never be extended to the masses rather than the classes. It would simply become another permanent perk of the elite, whose members would have no incentive to lobby for democratizing the program?rather the contrary.
But wouldn?t it help an overburdened airport security system to reduce the number of people to be rigorously screened by TSA? Not if it means more screening for low-income grandmothers and less for frequent business travelers. Indeed, as anti-terrorist measures, trusted traveler programs allowing affluent people who are frequent international travelers to be subjected to fewer security procedures might well backfire. Osama bin Laden and Muhammad Atta were members of the affluent social and educational elites in their countries who lived abroad and travelled frequently.
These ?trusted traveler? systems will not make America safer. Their unacknowledged purpose is to create yet another area of American society that is privatized and segregated by class, to the benefit of the mostly-white economic overclass.
Very well then. Why don?t we just make the new class-based discrimination official? Instead of leaving it to airlines and other corporations to construct the new apartheid piecemeal and informally, let the government issue a Premium Elite Citizen Card, valid for multiple purposes. For the right price, a price carefully calculated to be unaffordable by the majority of Americans, those willing and able to pay would be allowed to cut in line, not only at airports, but everywhere: at taxi stands, movie theaters, restaurants. All they would have to do is flash their Premium Elite Citizen Card to force the rabble to step aside and make way. The degeneration of America?s democracy into a banana republic would be complete, once the Land of the Free became the Land of the Free Points With Membership.
Michael Lind?s new book, "Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States", will be published in April and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com. More Michael Lind
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/22/how_the_rich_took_over_airport_security/singleton/
I am the 99%.
Re: How the rich took over airport security
Above Us Only Sky
But the point is, why should they have a separate security line at all? Security should have nothing to do with how often you fly or how much you paid for your ticket.
They're maybe not the 1%, but they aren't the majority, either.
I flew a lot for work, but we didn't fly business class, and because of the way our tickets were purchased, we weren't frequent flyers either.
So... yes, some people who aren't "rich" fly business or frequent flyer because of their work. And plenty of people working are flying coach.
My guess is that it's only jobs at a "certain level" where the tickets turn into business or first class.
I am the 99%.
That's what's messed up. Why are the airlines determining security lines? Isn't the federal government in charge of this?
BMW doesn't get to create a special "express" line at the DMV for its customers.
But why are the lines managed by the airlines?
If they're security lines, why aren't they managed by TSA?
I am the 99%.
It's not just business class that gets to go in the special line, though. I've flown business twice (due to miles), but I fly enough annually that I have premier status. That allows me basically the same lines as the business class folks. I could also get that with certain credit cards.
While flying does make me feel more like underclass chattel than basically any other regular event (especially when we literally board through different gates on the large long haul flights), it's one of the few things that isn't TSA's fault.
If you have 5 security lines, but you're funneling 95% of passengers through just 4 of them while 5% of passengers go through the last one, that's necessarily making the lines longer for the 95%.
Maybe because if I don't want to fly a class-based airline, I won't. I can choose to fly Southwest or Jet Blue or some other airline that doesn't make distinctions like this among its passengers.
Can somebody tell me why Delta gets to do this with its first class passengers?
Can Virgin do it with all its passengers?
I know that out of Seatac, Alaska does it with its fancypants passengers, but also with everybody flying their "shuttle" to Spokane or Portland. Why those two? Can they say that all their passengers get to the front of the line, in front of Delta people? Please to explain.
I am the 99%.
But they do it, too. At least Southwest does. If you pay an extra $15, you get to board the plane first, which buys your way into the extra legroom seats and gives you first pick of overhead space. You also get a free alcoholic beverage. For $10 extra, you're automatically assigned a boarding pass before everyone except the $15 spenders, so you get to board before them, too.
Jet Blue offers "Even More Space" seats for an extra payment, and those folks get to board before everyone else, and get their pick of luggage space.
Why are people so fired up about the security lines? It's no different than any other aspect of flying. Buy a more expensive seat, and you get the fastest service. The end.
And those are things run by private companies. Security lines are run by the government. That's the difference.
I actually don't know why airlines are allowed to create their own lines.
I don't buy this as a "rich people are screwing the poor" argument, but I don't think it's particularly fair, either. I think it's fair for check in or boarding, but security shouldn't have airline perk influence.
casmgn, I don't know if it was clear, but I fly enough to get the special line for the entire calendar year, not just when I'm upgraded. It has nothing to do with the price of the seat I've purchased. Then again, flying that many miles costs a shitton (I don't fly often, but I fly long distances), so I guess that puts me in the rich category for this context.
They're run by the government for the benefit of the flyers and the private companies. Their only role is to screen people. Who cares whether they have more than one line? It's all related to the same purpose for which there are class-based lines in every other facet of operation.
I agree completely that rich flyers shouldn't get lighter screening than poor flyers. We don't want the transvaginal wand used on the single moms and the millionaires getting a quick visual once over and then waved through. But the length of the line? I have no sympathy. Government allows people to buy their way to the front of the line routinely in many other aspects (e.g., expedited passport fees).
In Minneapolis, it is a sort of special screening. The elite/first queue has no prno scanners while all the others do. It's ridiculous. (Although I love being able to use that line.)
This I strongly disagree with; otherwise, I agree with Sibil. Flying already sucks and I don't mind airlines doing this to keep frequent-flying customers. As long as everyone is getting scanned just the same, I don't have a problem with it.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DAs long as first/business class passengers are subjected to the same screenings, I really can't manage to give a shiit here. First/business class and special credit card holders have always been entitled to special perks that make flying less of a pain in the ass than it is for other people. I'm not sure why it's so upsetting or shocking that it shortens the TSA wait as well.
Click me, click me!
Ditto-this is about to be the next big thing in transportation. It's only a matter of time before internet goes the same way. Where there are limited resources and high demand, there are always going to be haves and have nots.
And oh, btw, I didn't see it in this article, but military personnel now can use their IDs to go through the fast lines as well.
I love it too
It was so NICE in Vegas!!! ::holds tightly to liberal hippy card::
I think they should be able to when they are travelling en masse on orders, given that all their shiit is check, rechecked, and checked some more. On their personal time, not so much.
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