I am fortunate to have a Nexus I.D. card which allows reasonably easy access to the U.S. (l mean not like the good old days when with, zero questions, my girlfriend on the back and "personal use" quantity of an unspecified substance stuffed into the padding of the seat on my bike, I sailed through the Churubusco crossing with a nod and a wave). At my local airport I have my picture taken by some machine and after I walk 40 steps to the agent, he/she greets me, confirms my destination and says "have a nice day". That my friend is fucking progress.
On the one hand, Marley’s objections here are remarkably stupid. On the other hand, I’ve never gotten past the ID checkpoint and not immediately run into a line held up by someone too stupid to understand how the security checkpoint works, so I doubt there’s any actual net effect to the change other than saving some money on TSA personnel (which given Merkley’s labor bona fides, is almost certainly a part of his calculation).
Yup! I just arrived at Dulles two hours ago from Switzerland, and Global Entry is so fast now that you basically just walk through. There were a lot of newbies going through this time, and they were all amazed and delighted: “Wait! I can just walk through?! You don’t need my passport?!” After our marathon flights, no one was in the mood to feel aggrieved about facial-recognition technology. Our attitude was more like, “Hallelujah! I’m not stuck in that three-hour line where they do things the old-fashioned way.”
And people who do object have the right to refuse. There is really no problem here.
Nothing wrong with a little robophobia, it's perfectly reasonable all things considered. He just needs to update his fears to something more contemporary, like those Boston Dynamics robo-dogs.
Why do you need to show ID at all? It doesn't do anything useful with respect to aircraft security.
In Japan for domestic flights you just wave your credit card or smartphone with QR code at the appropriate sensor. That confirms you have a ticket for a flight and that's it.
I know this is a serious topic, and I agree with you completely, but I must confess I laughed so hard while reading this that my face hurts now. Have you considered a career in comedy writing.
Hey Jeff, how about an article explaining your deep and abiding love for Harry and the Hendersons. That's at least two references I've seen in articles recently, clearly something is going on here and we deserve to know the truth!
This line particularly delighted me: "But the scandalous headline overshadowed the complex reality, probably for the first and only time in the history of media."
I might appropriate that for personal use. Thanks!
To a certain category of leftist, every fucking thing under the fucking sun is fucking racist.
And aren't we all a little tired of this?
I am fortunate to have a Nexus I.D. card which allows reasonably easy access to the U.S. (l mean not like the good old days when with, zero questions, my girlfriend on the back and "personal use" quantity of an unspecified substance stuffed into the padding of the seat on my bike, I sailed through the Churubusco crossing with a nod and a wave). At my local airport I have my picture taken by some machine and after I walk 40 steps to the agent, he/she greets me, confirms my destination and says "have a nice day". That my friend is fucking progress.
Hidden in the bike seat -- genius! Examine at your own risk, drug-sniffing dogs!
Something I didn't get into in the article is that facial recognition is becoming common at airports across the world.
I flew into Singapore a month or so ago and the entry process was literally delightful. So painless. Indonesia, on the other hand, was "different".
Happily, reentering the US with global entry was much much closer to the Singapore experience than the Indonesia experience.
On the one hand, Marley’s objections here are remarkably stupid. On the other hand, I’ve never gotten past the ID checkpoint and not immediately run into a line held up by someone too stupid to understand how the security checkpoint works, so I doubt there’s any actual net effect to the change other than saving some money on TSA personnel (which given Merkley’s labor bona fides, is almost certainly a part of his calculation).
If this works anything like Global Entry, then count me in. Global Entry is the fastest I've ever gotten through any type of gov't checkpoint.
Yup! I just arrived at Dulles two hours ago from Switzerland, and Global Entry is so fast now that you basically just walk through. There were a lot of newbies going through this time, and they were all amazed and delighted: “Wait! I can just walk through?! You don’t need my passport?!” After our marathon flights, no one was in the mood to feel aggrieved about facial-recognition technology. Our attitude was more like, “Hallelujah! I’m not stuck in that three-hour line where they do things the old-fashioned way.”
And people who do object have the right to refuse. There is really no problem here.
Nothing wrong with a little robophobia, it's perfectly reasonable all things considered. He just needs to update his fears to something more contemporary, like those Boston Dynamics robo-dogs.
Why do you need to show ID at all? It doesn't do anything useful with respect to aircraft security.
In Japan for domestic flights you just wave your credit card or smartphone with QR code at the appropriate sensor. That confirms you have a ticket for a flight and that's it.
I know this is a serious topic, and I agree with you completely, but I must confess I laughed so hard while reading this that my face hurts now. Have you considered a career in comedy writing.
Hey Jeff, how about an article explaining your deep and abiding love for Harry and the Hendersons. That's at least two references I've seen in articles recently, clearly something is going on here and we deserve to know the truth!
I don't need a full article to explain this: I was born in 1980. That pretty much covers it, I think.
It might not be needed but it could be good. :)
This line particularly delighted me: "But the scandalous headline overshadowed the complex reality, probably for the first and only time in the history of media."
I might appropriate that for personal use. Thanks!
I guess if you get all the white dudes through the airport quicker, it still helps every one else get through faster too!
I love the descriptions of the people who are checking my ID.