cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
The best $80 I ever spent: TSA PreCheck - Vox
It absolutely shouldn’t exist, and is absolutely an incredible value.
The only thing better than arriving at a destination and finding no line to get in is realizing there is a line and getting to cut straight to the front. You get the gratification of your roller coaster/purchase/concert entry faster, and you receive the added benefit of feeling better than other people. Not qualitatively better, just ... luckier. For one brilliant moment, you’re the one who’s friends with the band or who remembered to call weeks ahead to reserve a table. Someone has to be the first in line, right? And why not you?
Of all the lines we wait in, the one to pass through airport security might be the worst. The baseline barrage of privacy invasions you undergo just to get to your gate is comical in its authoritarian overreach. You take off your shoes to prove that they are not bombs. Then you pull out your toiletries (which you have already separated into too-small-to-be-a-bomb quantities) and display that they are also not bombs. You put your laptop on the conveyor belt so it can be scanned for any bomb-like properties.
And that’s the simplest, most privileged experience of airport security. It’s the level I face as a white, cisgender person. There’s an additional level of scrutiny given to anyone who is singled out for attention after they’re “randomly” pulled out of line or their gender is intrusively questioned by a TSA agent.
It absolutely shouldn’t exist, and is absolutely an incredible value.
The only thing better than arriving at a destination and finding no line to get in is realizing there is a line and getting to cut straight to the front. You get the gratification of your roller coaster/purchase/concert entry faster, and you receive the added benefit of feeling better than other people. Not qualitatively better, just ... luckier. For one brilliant moment, you’re the one who’s friends with the band or who remembered to call weeks ahead to reserve a table. Someone has to be the first in line, right? And why not you?
Of all the lines we wait in, the one to pass through airport security might be the worst. The baseline barrage of privacy invasions you undergo just to get to your gate is comical in its authoritarian overreach. You take off your shoes to prove that they are not bombs. Then you pull out your toiletries (which you have already separated into too-small-to-be-a-bomb quantities) and display that they are also not bombs. You put your laptop on the conveyor belt so it can be scanned for any bomb-like properties.
And that’s the simplest, most privileged experience of airport security. It’s the level I face as a white, cisgender person. There’s an additional level of scrutiny given to anyone who is singled out for attention after they’re “randomly” pulled out of line or their gender is intrusively questioned by a TSA agent.