Can you be trusted?
Feb 14, 2014, 8:30 AM | Updated: 8:40 am
The Transportation Security Administration officially opened a"TSA pre-check", making it easier for frequent airline passengers for expedited screening at airport security checkpoints. Passengers who qualify for expedited screening will not be required to take off their shoes, jackets or belts, or take their laptops out when they undergo security screenings. U.S. citizens must agree to be fingerprinted and pay an $85 fee for five-year access to expedited security check lines. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kent D. Johnson)
(AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kent D. Johnson)
It’s been slowly spreading across the country, and it will soon come to an airport near you if it hasn’t already. The TSA’s Trusted Traveler Program.
Those special express lanes at the airport are being opened to ordinary people like us if we can pass the TSA pre-check.
For the unveiling of the program in Seattle, a TSA official explained that you provide your ID, make an appointment to be fingerprinted, provide proof of citizenship, pay $85, and if you pass, you get your personal Known Traveler Number.
“It is that known traveler number that uniquely identifies you to TSA when you fly and it makes you eligible for the Pre-Check Lane,” said TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers.
The Pre-Check Lane – and you know what that means.
“You get to leave on your shoes, leave on your belt, a light outer jacket. You can leave your laptop in your carry-on, and you also can leave your liquid gels and your aerosols in your carry-on bag,” said Dankers.
Other travelers still have to take off their shoes and their belt in a moving line with a laptop under one arm and the boarding pass in their teeth, but not you. You can skip past them all.
And as Trusted Traveler #5551212 no one has to know what you’re using for your skin rash.
And as you run to the gate, you don’t have to grab your pants because they told you to leave on your belt.
If this trend continues we might someday have overhead bins that are actually big enough to hold your bags.
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