In my first week of middle school, 9/11 shook my community. Just 45 minutes from New York City, my town lost a tremendous amount of members due to the many people working in the World Trade Center.
The purpose of the Clear Card is to cut down lines at security checkpoints in United States airports. Some high profile airports that have installed this new ‘improvement’ include Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, LAX and Boston’s Logan International. So far, 21 airports across the country have added a Clear lane to their airport.
In our post-9/11 world where heightened security measures are a must and everywhere you turn people are suspects, this new Clear Card concept troubles me.
I do not want to see anyone affected by terrorist attacks lose any more loved ones because airports want shorter lines.
I say put on your iPod and listen to two songs while waiting; talk to a complete stranger, have family time or laugh at the person who decided to wear knee high boots.
I, for one, know my airport security experience would not be the same without having to go through that humiliating minute of my life where my passport picture is examined and I proceed to assure the TSA official and those around me in line that it was a bad hair day or that the photographer at CVS made me smile that way. I could not imagine going through that without the little support group in line.
There are a few things that, logistically, prove to be unsafe and unfair with this plan.
First of all, the cost of the Clear Card for a year of travel is $128. This price does not allow the card to be acceptable to the masses, only the ‘elite cardholders’ have the privilege of skipping out on long lines.
Secondly, this new option will create a new and easier outlet for terrorism. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations still prove to be a threat and not all of their members are on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Spread throughout the country, many in sleeper cells, it is harder to trace the members and distinguish if one of them is a terrorist when giving out a Clear Card. To a terrorist that has not been recognized yet, the Clear Card is a golden opportunity to slide through the system unnoticed.
Another unsafe feature of the Clear Card is the required member fingerprint. Identity theft is a possibility when so much personal information is needed to obtain a Clear Card. This has already proven to be a problem with Clear Card users when on July 26, Verified Identity Pass Inc., lost a computer containing 33,000 Clear Card users’ personal information at the San Francisco International Airport.
The Clear Card’s motto is ‘fly through security.’ In the Clear lanes, a Clear attendant examines your boarding pass, Clear Card and government-issued ID.
Metal detector and X-ray processes are faster and these attendants will also help you with the bins through checkout-although TSA officials help with bins in regular lines too.
Clear Card boasts a 30 percent increase in lane speed, that and 33,000 people looking for their identity.
The only real reason for the Clear Card is to cut down security lines. But’ in the state of our world today, the risks outweigh the benefits.
There certainly needs to be a more efficient way of managing lines and speeding up the security screening process.
However, I will wait as long as I have to for a safer way to carry out this plan.
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