This presupposes that there is no mechanism for assessing the relative threat of a passenger. Basically every passenger is an equal threat and so everyone needs to be processed identically.
Of course that is a non-sensical assumption but 'profiling' is considered a worse evil and so the TSA terrifies little children in order to avoid the evils of profiling.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but there is no "of course" about it! While I think the moral indignation about profiling is justified, the real fear is that a system that relies heavily on profiling is very weak to attack by learning the profile and planning accordingly.
Especially when airline airplanes are also used for shipping. No need to even show up.
"With over 3,400 flights a day to Southwest destinations coast to coast, Southwest Airlines® Cargo has the flight you need, when you need it."
http://www.swacargo.com/swacargo/home.htm
okay. if the terrorists stuff a 4yr old child full of explosives and blow me up, they win. I give up. not being groped in public is worth being blown up.
What a different and more wonderful world this would be if President Bush's speech-writers had put together a more pithy variant of your attitude for his speech after 9/11! But I think a policy of courage would have been wildly less popular than that of fear proved to be.
Political popularity is hard to quantify. But for whatever they are worth, I have three points in support of my claim that President Bush's policy was (and is) "popular", one factual, one which I believe to be true but have no data for, and one anecdotal:
1) President Bush won reelection quite easily,
2) The "War on Terror" had and continues to have bipartisan support, while many other policies introduced since it began (such as the actual wars) have been wildly polarizing, and
3) In my personal discussions, I have found it very difficult to persuade most people that our response to 9/11 was anything but correct and justified.
I don't think people who weren't afraid liked it. But people who were afraid (or could be made afraid) seemed to be pretty fond of it. Because the policy wasn't one of pure fear; it was one of security through fear.
Of course that is a non-sensical assumption but 'profiling' is considered a worse evil and so the TSA terrifies little children in order to avoid the evils of profiling.