Prechecked

Something weird happened when I went to the airport to fly out on Tuesday. The security line wasn't long, but when I got to the front the TSA agent told me that I was "prechecked" and I could go to a different line and not have to take my computer out of the bag or take my shoes off. I had never heard of this and, while I appreciated my good fortune (although I was ready to do both of those things and didn't care too much), I was curious about how and why I was among the chosen few. Never one to just wonder, I asked the agent how that happened. She said she wasn't sure, that sometimes it was random and sometimes people paid for it. This bothered me. If security is truly meant to protect us -- and whether it actually does is, I think, arguable -- why should anyone be able to pay for less of it? And even if it's random (as it must have been in my case because I sure didn't pay for it), what if one of the randomly chosen people has nefarious intentions?

The measures put into place over the last decade have depended at least in part on the threat of detection. If that threat is diminished in any way, especially for those who pay for it, what is the point? My suggestion is to have the same level of inspection for everyone. If the expectation that one may not be carefully checked exists, that increases the chance that someone will get through who shouldn't.