[scelerat]

I flew a week ago from Oakland to Burbank. Prior to showing any boarding pass or ID to a TSA official, or identifying myself in any way, my colleague and I were waved into the TSAPre line. I've never signed up for TSAPre. Basically we walked in the door straight out of BART.

There is no way any background check was involved for this.

[zzalpha]

That's very different from actually qualifying for Pre.

For better or worse, the TSA is also applying a policy where, to address slow security lines, they're allowing folks to get waved through Pre.

In principle this is random, and therefore has the same effect on security as not patting down every passenger.

Assuming it actually worked that way.