At airports across the country, businessmen within a decade of retirement are receiving terse rebukes from TSA personnel: “Sir. You do NOT need to remove your laptop.”
What’s happening?
It turns out these new machines rolling out, the ones capable of seeing all the terroristic intentions hidden in your laptop’s heart even if that laptop is still in your backpack (or briefcase or purse or the garbage bag you use as a carry-on), are CT scanners, the same things they use at hospitals to look at your brain after you slam it into the McDonald’s drive-through sign in victorious ecstasy upon arriving while the full breakfast menu is still being served. The question is…
What will this do to Pre-Check?
Maybe I’m an anomaly, owning four laptops but only having two of them kind of work so usually traveling with both those two, but the only things that TSA Pre-Check seems nice for are 1) skipping the line, 2) not having to get my chest patted down after a TSA agent bullies me into leaving my necklace on for the body scanner, and 3) keeping the laptops in the bag. The third one’s the big one. I live in Austin. Our TSA lines are only long if you’re taking the first round of flights of the day. We’re not big enough to have real TSA problems. The necklace thing? A fun battle of wits. Maybe for others of you, it’s different, but I assume everyone in the world has the exact same set of experiences I have, so I’m guessing that’s not the case. I’m guessing you also only care about laptops.
These machines are a revolution, and Pre-Check is the one at risk of being deposed.
