All those pat-downs and all that time in all those TSA lines, and it remains just “security theater”: Transportation Security Administration screeners are still basically worthless.
News out of the House Committee on Homeland Security this week is that TSA agents
.
Officials weren’t giving the exact number, but a similar audit two years back found a 95 percent failure rate — so maybe they’ve improved from utterly hopeless to mostly worthless.
The TSA announced it’s taking the findings “very seriously” and “implementing measures that will improve screening effectiveness.” Shooting for a 30 percent success rate, maybe?
Yes, even incompetents provide some deterrent value: It’s one more worry for a prospective terrorist. And screeners aren’t the only thing that the TSA’s $7.5 billion-a-year budget goes for.
But it’s still undeniable that the main achievement of the TSA’s most public activity is inflicting pointless delays and inconvenience on travelers.
