Here's a nice quote for the post-9/11 era:

In written testimony submitted to the House aviation subcommittee, Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said Transportation Security Administration screeners and privately contracted airport workers "performed about the same, which is to say, equally poorly."

His report, as well as a study by the consulting firm Bearing Point, portrayed the TSA as an unresponsive, inflexible bureaucracy that is failing to provide an adequate level of security at airports.

I can't say this is particularly surprising, but given all the rhetoric that flew a few years ago it's disheartening. Not sure what the answer would be - you can't trust the airlines given how they've handled things in the past, but clearly the new government set-up is leaving a lot to be desired. There's a small part of me that wants to call out some sort of existing law enforcement or military police unit, or maybe state police for each airport location, but I don't know if that would work, either. Asking cops or soldiers to spend the day staring at a screen or pawing through underwear seems like a waste. So you could create a new branch of these existing bodies, but then you're back to doing something like the TSA.

Or maybe we keep the status quo and bring back the guys with the M-16s to wander the terminals to scare bad guys off. Frustrating.