Elysium at the airport: TSA groping now only for poor people

Techdirt has an item on an airport security development that Grits first noticed during my vacation last month, but which I forgot to blog about upon my return. The Transportation Security Administration has partnered with the airlines to allow passengers who pay an extra fee to skip most security protocols. Reported NBC-News:

Currently, the program has been limited to U.S. citizens who are members of frequent flier programs on select airlines, or the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler program, or Canadian citizens who are members of the CBP NEXUS program.

Later this year, the TSA said it will allow other U.S. citizens to apply for 5-year enrollment online after submitting fingerprints and paying an $85 fee.

A TSA Precheck emblem embedded on the barcode of passengers' boarding passes indicates if a flier is eligible for expedited screening under the program.

Why should I pay extra to avoid groping, and by what logic would paying extra make me less of a risk? Don't you think an actual terrorist would be itching to pay the $85 and avoid the extra scrutiny? None of it makes any sense except from the airlines' perspective. They were allowed to profit by giving people in their frequent flyer or club-card programs special treatment, so I understand why they'd approve of this Elysium-esque logic. But from the TSA's perspective it seems like a public-relations calamity that a) demonstrates their irrelevancy, a tacit admission that such screenings were really pointless security theater and b) amounts to a tone-deaf snub of all passengers not so favored.

Bottom line: It appears groping at airport security is now only for poor people.

RELATED: Airport security, Kurt Cobain and the Fourth Amendment