It's been an interesting several days since I posted "Is Clear a present danger for football fans?" and "Is Clear worth anything at all?" last week.
After that second post, Steven Brill, CEO of Verified Identity Pass, Inc. (VIP runs the Clear Registered Traveler program) contacted me to dispute my conclusions. Brill was very generous with his time in helping me to understand what Clear does and is trying to do.
That was nothing unusual; I often get followup calls from the companies behind products and services I mention here.
The Clear card
(Credit: Verified Identity Pass)But shortly after the first post, I got a call from Ellen Howe in the public-affairs office of the Transportation Security Administration. Apparently, government bureaucracies can be even more responsive than private companies. (I also know a smart, effective manager in the Corporate Communications division of the Department of Homeland Security, TSA's parent agency. Assuming this isn't purely a coincidence, I hope the rest of the Federal government follows DHS's lead in hiring good people for these important positions.)
Howe was correcting a factual error in my first post, but as I explained in the second entry, correcting the error only strengthened my original argument, which Howe agreed with.
Having discussed the issue at great length with the two involved organizations, I feel I'm in a better position to explain the problems I see with the Clear program. To me, there are two essential assumptions behind Brill's vision for Clear: ... Read more
A couple of people sent me links to an Associated Press story, "Texas Startup Says It Has Batteries Beat."
In the story, AP writer Grant Slater presents the claim by Austin, Texas, start-up EEStor (the company has no Web site yet) that "a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline."
Now, c'mon. This is just not practical. I can say this even though I know nothing about EEStor's technology beyond news reports that it's some kind of high-density ... Read more
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