I don't fly anymore if I don't have to because of this security theatre, so the one thing it has a positive effect on is perhaps ecological. Otherwise it is completely hysterical, a remnant of some US lawmakers that wanted to look though at some point. It has grown and grown and just is a caricature of sensible security policies.

That autocratic states readily pick up on it should give you pause, but instead of questioning the efficiency of a security apparatus, it is excused because the status quo is already shitty.