My personal experiences with TSA vary from great to OK, and tend to be much better than my often not real good experiences with private cops doing airport security.
It seems, though, that other people are having bad experiences and terrible experiences with the TSA at the airport. Add this to the new pro-groping policy (“I'm from the government and I'm here to feel you up”?), plans for nude screening and the scene is set for popular push back against this multi-multi-million dollar exercise in bolting barn doors long after the entire menagerie has bolted.
My sense is that the hassle and inconvenience at the airports ought to be deterring people from flying, though I don’t have any evidence to know for sure. But if this is so, one would think that the airline industry would be screaming to the White House…”While you’re deregulating every other industry, why are you trying to put us out of business by scaring away our customers?!?”
But it may also be that Americans have, with a few noisy exceptions, gotten comfortable with the idea of government flunkies going through their luggage and possessions. After all, the government says that its all for our own good and government knows best.
One starts to wonder whether the purpose of the TSA is to conduct sociological research into just how much the American people are willing to tolerate from their government if they’re told it’s for their own safety. The results so far aren’t very encouraging.