Clear for Second-Class Citizenship?

Something about Clear, the private-sector answer to gross DHS inefficiency and questionable airport employees, raises my civic republican hackles. From one perspective, it now looks like the government is permitting wealthier people to race their way through the same lines the rest of us schlubs have to tolerate — far more irritating than simply tax crediting the purchase and use of personal airplanes. It’s weird for national security to be semiprivatized, and only for paying customers.

But from another perspective, it’s even weirder for civil liberties to be sold off or farmed out to private organizations working hand-in-glove with the feds, even on a voluntary basis. Presumably it’s firmly in the government’s interest for every citizen to sign up with Clear, and I expect targeted tax cuts to wend their way out of Washington accordingly. Eureka: everyone will be a second-class citizen.