[lbaskin]

It's not only TSA personnel (who are, on the whole, so incompetent I wouldn't hire most of the ones I meet to do ANYTHING), it's policy itself. Security policy in much of the world today is reactive and shortsighted - shoe bomber? take off your shoes, Underwear bomber, let's x-ray everyone, etc. etc. - all just to be able to say they "did something," whether or not is effective or efficient in any way at all.

I remember several years back when the shoe-removal policy has just been relatively new, and I was flying out of Israel. The security personnel there had someone devoted solely to going around telling people NOT to remove their shoes, in order to make sure the lines keep moving.

TSA just could not care less whether people actually make their flights, or whether terrorists get through, as long as they don't get blamed for missing something they should have caught.