It's about making people feel safe.

We're not rational beings, so what do you do about an irrational fear? You invent a magical thing that protects from that irrational fear.

You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist attacks far more.

You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what about the extremist who works for the airline?

So you invent some theater to stop people from panicking (a far more real danger). And that's a perfectly acceptable solution.

> You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist attacks far more.

This can be traced to people in a car believe they can control whether they have an accident or not (and largely can). In an airplane, however, you have no control whatsoever.

> It's about making people feel safe.

I don't think that's a common perception of airport security. Few people take reassurance from it, most consider it a burden and hindrance that could stop them getting their flight if they don't perform the correct steps as instructed.

The lifting of this restriction is an example, the overwhelming response is "oh thank goodness, now I don't have to pay for overpriced water" and not "is this safe?"

> It's about making people feel safe.

My guess it's more about being able to say: 'We did everything we could.' If someone does end up getting a bomb on board. If they didn't do this, everyone would be angry and headlines would be asking: 'Why was nothing put in place to prevent this?'

I seriously doubt that most people are happy with the tradeoffs of safety vs. convenience provided by the TSA. The general idea of x-ray, metal detectors, sure, that's all good. But the stuff with taking off your shoes, small containers of liquid, etc., no. I think if we reverted to a simpler system with fewer oddly specific requirements layered on top, most people would not feel significantly less safe, but would feel less inconvenienced.

> You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what about the extremist who works for the airline?

This is said as an axiom, but we have protected against the motivated terrorist, as shown by the safety record.

It’s a $12 bn/yr production. I don’t think that’s perfectly acceptable. Let’s invest in loudspeakers if all we’re doing is shouting at people.

> You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality

Ah yes, the insidious opponent who learns the inherent vulnerability of ... huge crowds gathering before hand baggage screenings and TSA patdowns.

And these crowds are only there only due to a permanent immovable physical fixture of ... completely artificial barriers that fail to prevent anything 90-95% of the time.