How Do You Know That Your Tsa Precheck Is Denied
The Transportation Security Administration tin can't stop talking about its new Pre-Check program, which offers air travelers preferred screening status if they submit to a background check.
Simply the bureau seems less eager to accept a conversation about the tens of thousands of passengers who lose their Pre-Check privileges, sometimes for petty offenses that appointment dorsum decades.
They're frequent air travelers similar Tim Pickering, who a few weeks ago noticed that the lilliputian Pre-Bank check icon on his boarding pass had disappeared.
Pickering, who works for a medical evacuation service in O'Fallon, Mo., and received his Pre-Cheque benefits through Global Entry, a trusted traveler program run by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, sent ii polite e-mails to the TSA through its website. He received a form response suggesting his status had been randomly and temporarily removed.
Having TSA Pre-Check status is no guarantee of using the faster lines, where you can vesture shoes and go through metal detectors instead of full-torso scanners.
"I would similar to detect out what has occurred to seemingly block me from the plan," he says.
The answers provide a troubling picture nigh how piece of cake information technology is to lose your Pre-Check status and how hard it is repossess it.
The TSA is understandably reluctant to discuss who is added to its "disqualified" list and how.
"TSA maintains a listing of individuals who are butterfingers from receiving expedited screening for some menstruation of time — or permanently — because they have been involved in violations of security regulations of sufficient severity or frequency," says TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein.
He says passengers can be disqualified for having a loaded firearm in carry-on baggage at the checkpoint, for example.
A search of the TSA website shows a more detailed list of infractions. Information technology includes "non-physical" interference with the screening process or improper use of airport access facilities.
In other words, it'south possible to accept your Pre-Check status revoked for something as modest as hurting a TSA screener's feelings or inadvertently using an exit door to admission the terminal. Worse, the agency won't always tell you if you're on the list; in Pickering'due south case, he had to notice his downgraded status and received a satisfactory reply only after I inquired on his behalf.
A letter sent to Pickering by the TSA'south Part of the Chief Risk Officer noted that in February, he had committed a violation involving unloaded firearm magazines at a Raleigh-Durham International Airport checkpoint.
"Based on this violation, you volition be ineligible for TSA Pre-Check consideration for a flow of one year from the date of the violation," the adventure officer noted.
Pickering isn't pleased.
"It seems to be purely punitive," he says. "Be a good citizen for a year and we'll requite your privileges back smacks of a kangaroo court and capricious decision-making without our correct of due process in social club to deprive me of a benefit."
He'southward inappreciably lonely. A retired executive who lives in Boca Raton, Fla., and doesn't want her name used says she was tentatively approved for Pre-Check status earlier this year. During her interview, she revealed that 50 years ago, she'd been arrested on charges of stealing a $25 necklace at a store. The authorities employee conducting her interview said it would "not exist a problem."
Merely it was. "I received a notification that my temporary approval had been revoked and that my application had been declined," she says. "My fingerprints had come back indicating I had been arrested for trivial larceny."
She is appealing the rejection since she'd been given a exact assurance that since the incident happened so long ago, it didn't matter. The TSA deferred questions nearly her to Community and Border Protection because she'd received her Pre-Cheque status via the Global Entry program.
But her disqualification raises an even bigger question: How, exactly, is a retiree who tried to steal a necklace as a teenager a risk to drome security? Or how is a business organization traveler who mistakenly packed a few innocuous pieces of metal — non a gun, listen you — a threat to aviation safe?
The TSA should be clearer near who can be removed from Pre-Check, and why. Something tells me nosotros'd detect the agency is adding the wrong passengers to its blacklist, and for the incorrect reasons.
What to practise if you're on TSA'southward naughty list
Look for the check. If the Pre-Check icon is missing from your boarding pass just once, it may mean you've been randomly selected for regular screening. But if the icon is missing for the next few flights, odds are you're on the TSA'southward naughty listing.
Inquire about your status. If you believe you've take been placed on the TSA's disqualified list, you can contact TSA's Primary Gamble Officer at tsa.gov/contact-us.
Entreatment the conclusion. If you have Pre-Check status through Global Entry, y'all can file an appeal through its Ombudsman's Part, which adjudicates appeals. You can electronic mail the Customs and Border Protection ombudsman at CBP.cbpvc@dhs.gov.
Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate and editor at large for National Geographic Traveler. Contact him at chris@elliott.org or visit elliott.org.
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2014/06/30/tsa-pre-check-rejected/11722517/
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