A government program that works!
Excitement was bubbling over yesterday as we got off the plane–I was perhaps the only person in history looking forward to going through immigration at the end of a long flight. Gail and I had our shiny new Global Entry trusted traveller numbers, and wanted to see how well the system works.
It works great. We got off the plane, trudged to the immigration hall, and walked up to one of the Global Entry kiosks. You just insert your passport (which didn’t work exactly right, but there were two uniformed customs agents ready to help. The machine reads your passport and takes your picture, you flop four fingers down on the screen to to have your prints read, answer the same old questions about what you are bringing back, and 30 seconds later you’re on your way out.
Grabbing your luggage from the carousel, you get to walk through a special, mostly empty line and you’re done. Zippety-zop, and what had formerly taken an hour just standing in line is reduced to two or three minutes.
I don’t often have anything good to say about the federales, but this Global Entry program is the greatest thing since chocolate Tootsie Rolls. Anyone who travels needs this.
Totally Unauthorized 
Nancy and I just went through Global Entry 1 hour ago and confirm everything you said.