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Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks prompted the federal government to seal off airport gates from anyone without a boarding pass, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has begun letting some people back through, provided they’ve already been vetted as “trusted travelers.”
Special Privileges — Not Freedom for Everyone
The new program, called “Gateside by TSA PreCheck,” allows PreCheck members and holders of a “Known Traveler Number” to pass through security without a ticket, so they can walk a departing companion to the gate, greet an arriving one, or simply wait out a layover with a friend, activities that were routine before 2001 but have been largely impossible since. TSA describes it as “an exclusive benefit for our most trusted travelers,” designed to “bring back the moments that once defined air travel.”
The program is free, but requires online application one to three days in advance and approval before arriving at the airport. Passes are only valid for a single calendar day, though re-entry is allowed within that day. “Gateside” has launched at 13 airports so far, including Los Angeles International, Dallas Fort Worth, Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International, and Salt Lake City International, and TSA says it plans to expand to more airports in the coming months.
The timing of the program’s implementation — during the same week as the 25th anniversary of the attacks — underscores how durable the post-9/11 security apparatus has proven, and how narrow this particular rollback is.
Permanent Security State
Rather than restoring the old, universal system in which any member of the public could walk a ticketed passenger to the gate, the new arrangement extends the privilege only to travelers who have already paid to enroll in a federal trusted-traveler program and undergone a background check to obtain PreCheck status or a Known Traveler Number. Everyone else remains barred beyond the checkpoint. In that sense, Gateside is less a return to pre-9/11 openness than a further tiering of airport access by government-vetted status. It’s a small but telling data point in the broader, still-unresolved debate over how much of the security state built after 2001 was ever meant to be temporary.
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