Is Clear a present danger for football fans?

Clear, a program approved by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration that lets frequent fliers bypass airport security lines, is now being used to let football fans bypass the security lines at pro football games.

Deals are kicking off this fall at home games for the San Francisco 49ers, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Denver Broncos.

Clear, the largest of four Registered Traveler programs operating at U.S. airports, isn't run by the TSA. It's a private service of Verified Identity Pass (VIP).

The Clear card

(Credit: Verified Identity Pass)

Doesn't it seem like VIP is leveraging its privileged position in airport security--a position established in cooperation with a federal agency--to enhance its position in private security?

Doesn't it seem to trivialize the program to use it for sporting events? Or conversely, doesn't bringing fingerprint and iris scanners to football games seem to overestimate the risk of terrorism at such events?

And if this is just the next step in a strategy to expand VIP's involvement in private security, how far will it go?

Is VIP now talking with movie theaters? Shopping malls? How many more places will be giving us a choice between longer security lines or giving up some of our privacy?

It also bothers me that the Clear program is clearly not good for security. At best (at best!), it's a way to bypass security lines for a fee. At worst, it's a way for terrorists to bypass security entirely.

Although the Clear program puts applicants through a background check, it's a fairly trivial check of criminal and other records. The fact is that many of the terrorists involved in some of the worst attacks of the last 20 years would surely have qualified for a Clear card.

Update, September 24: this background check is no longer performed. Anyone can get a Clear card as long as they have two forms of government identification. See my followup post, "Is Clear worth anything at all?"

At airports, one hopes that the TSA security officers give the same scrutiny to Clear's patrons that they give to everyone else. At least, that's what TSA administrator Kip Hawley said in a July 2007 interview with security expert Bruce Schneier.

But when the Clear program is extended to football stadiums and possibly other locations, where security is provided by relatively untrained and often part-time personnel, it's inevitable that people going through the Clear line will get less attention.

So I think the conclusion is inescapable: stadiums with Clear lines are less safe than those without.

VIP executives may have visions of Clear-based security lines everywhere people gather, but in my opinion, they aren't thinking clearly.

[joetesta70]

Clear is bullsiht BIG BROTHER at it's worst. Don't use it.

[rwmoore]

While I can not say that I am familiar with the workings of clear, I can say with certainty that this article is completely assuming and unfounded in its arguments. If you are going out to slander a company that is simply attempting to provide yourself the consumer with alternatives to long unneeded lines, then you should at least have factual evidence and knowledge of there processes and workings. Plus who is giving up civil liberties, you are simply paying an expense for a service, and if that means a fingerprint and iris scan so be it. Finally, your conclusion that they would be less secure than a regular security check at a football game is perhaps the worst and most unfounded conclusion I have ever read. While I generally seek to just discuss good points from bad within articles, it directly appears to me that this was not a simple misunderstanding or over lapse of certain facts, but rather that you are one of the most bias, assuming in your own mind, sending down unfounded judgements with no founding. Please in the future spend even 30 minutes researching your topic to develop some facts instead of just guessing (not even an educated guess) at what a company or program does when they are clearly trusted by the TSA, USG, and now the security at San Fransico 49ers football games. Worst article I have read in a very long time!

[protagonistic]

Your analysis could very well be applied to your own analysis. As Bruce would say, this is show security. That which makes us appear safer without actually increasing our safety. And anytime you allow automatic exceptions to the rule you actually decrease safety.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

No, I don't agree. I think it's clear that providing a second path through security can make the system weaker. Many security experts have reached this same conclusion, and I've never heard any relevant counter-arguments. VIP would probably say that its screening is supplemental to existing security measures, so it can't create a weakness. While this appears to be true in airports, it doesn't seem to be the case at the 49ers games based on the TV news coverage I've seen.

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[Zoobie]

How much stock dows rwmoore own in the company?

[zcline]

Although I agree on a few points with this article, it uses the wrong information to explain the implications of Clear and similar technologies. What rwmoore said was pretty much dead on in regards to this article. Zoobie, you only wrote one sentence. The least you could have done was proof read...