'Cleared' to Wait--So, What's the Point?

Clearly, Some Are Different

A New ID Lets You Skip The Line at the Airport. But Just How Fast Are You?

By Hank Stuever

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, January 27, 2008; M01

Two of Washington's airports -- Dulles and Reagan National -- will soon be part of the federal government's Registered Traveler program, which offers passengers the happy prospect of getting through security lines faster, swifter, better. (Ninety thousand of them and counting have enrolled.) All you need do is pay an annual fee -- $100 to start, plus a $28 shakedown so the government can make sure you're, you know, okay. Next you submit all sorts of personal information, fingerprints and, because the future is now, an eyeball scan.

Then you are all clear.

. . . Here's the rub: The world is ending. Things are getting tight, desperate, short. Clearness is coming to airport security lines just in time for chaos to wipe out everything. Clears are good at things like mass evacuation, but not so great in soup lines. (Just …