Jun 23 2009

“Clear” registered traveler company fails after wasting $116M

260,000 members down the tubes. No refunds.

Congratulations, suckers! Not only did you sign up for and pay money to a totalitarian program, but as usual, the police state was run by incompetents. Your little attempt to suck up to the TSA gestapo now won’t be doing you any good.

Their competitor “Flo Corp” is working hard to “analyze the implications of this announcement”. We can give them some help. A tiny minority of Americans signed up for the National Security State you offered them. You lost the election, the people voted with their wallets and their feet. Your fly-by-night stock is hovering right near 1cent per share. So get a clue and get out of the business while you still can pay your debts. What the public deserves is reform of the whole TSA system, so it provides real rights and real service and real accountability to EVERY traveler — not just to rich guys happy to have their iris and fingerprints on file. TSA’s culture of impunity needs to end, then we’ll all get along a lot better.

Oh, and to investors in Clear? It’s charming how you hoped to profit from funding the totalitarian tracking of the movements of all the citizens. (You couldn’t hope to make money at it unless pretty much every traveler signed up for it.) We’re so glad that every dollar you gave Clear is now a dollar that you can’t waste on your next socially destructive idea.