Security guru Bruce Schneier has an Op/Ed at CNN pointing out that pretty much everything you see labeld “security” at the airport is strictly for show, and has no operational value at all.

And he makes a strong case:

…TSA’s response to Abdulmutalib’s attempt makes one thing clear: We must stop pretending the TSA is making us safer. […]

So what has the TSA done in response to the attempted attack? They’ve told airlines to make passengers stay in their seats during the last hour of flight. They’ve made it verboten for passengers to hold anything in their laps, again only during the last hour of flight. Perhaps most hilariously telling, they’ve forbidden pilots from announcing when a plane is flying over certain cities and landmarks.

There is no other way to interpret it: The TSA is saying clearly that they can’t prevent terrorists from getting explosives on airplanes, but by god, they’ll make sure those planes explode only when the TSA says it’s okay.

I want our government to prevent terrorism and to make flights safer. But we are spending billions of dollars and man-hours to fight a threat that is less likely to kill a traveler than being struck by lightning. In the last decade, according to statistician Nate Silver, there has been “one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown [the] equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.” (Sadly, this does mean that in the future we can expect one out of every two round-trip flights to Neptune to be hijacked.)

The TSA isn’t saving lives. We, the passengers, are saving our own. […]

I don’t want to die on an airplane… But I also don’t expect the government to protect from the literally endless possibilities and threats that could occur at any point to end my life or the life of the few I love. It’s been nearly a decade since terrorists used airplanes to attack our country, and last week’s attempt makes it clear that the lack of terrorist attacks have nothing to do with the increasing gauntlet of whirring machines, friskings, and arbitrary bureaucratic provisions, but simply that for the most part, there just aren’t that many terrorists trying to blow up planes. Because god knows if there were, the TSA isn’t capable of stopping them. We’re just one bad burrito away from the TSA forcing passengers to choke back an Imodium and a Xanax before being hogtied to our seats.

President Obama, don’t let this attack—this one attack that was thankfully stopped by smart, fearless passengers and airline staff—take us further in the wrong direction. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way. Americans of all stripes and affiliation standing up to say, “This isn’t working. We gave you our money. You’re not making us safer.” We appreciate the attempt to make us safer and acknowledge that it came from an honest attempt to protect American (and the rest of the world’s) lives.

But it’s a failure. It’s wrongheaded. It’s a farce. Tear it down. Put the money towards the sort of actions at which our government excels, like intelligence. The failure of the TSA leaves us no choice, but it’s okay. The American people are ready to take back the responsibility for our own safety. Really, we already have.

Last year, according to my year-end statements from various airlines and hotels, I spent about 81 nights in hotels (68 of them in one Hyatt in Kansas (plus 2 more in other Hyatts); 5 more in other KC hotels; 3 at a Sheraton on Phoenix; and another 3 or so at random hotels for family events), and took about 65 flights — which was enough to secure both Elite status at Continental and A-list membership with Southwest.

No wonder I’m tired.

As usual, he’s completely right. A key quote:

For years I’ve been saying this:

Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.

This week, the second one worked over Detroit. Security succeeded.

True.

So a numbskull would-be terrorist tried to set himself on fire aboard a US-bound Northwest jet yesterday, as you may have heard. My favorite part of the NYT story:

As investigators from around the world worked to determine how the suspect managed to get his explosives past security on a flight that had departed from Amsterdam with passengers who had originated in Nigeria, airports were consulting with the Transportation Safety Administration to impose stricter screening measures.

They need an investigator for this? Nothing the TSA does to your average traveler would catch the materials this guy brought on board unless he was unlucky enough to be singled out for individual screening — PLUS he boarded the plane either in Europe or Africa, not the US. There’s no big mystery.

Rest assured, though, that the TSA will use this as an opportunity to add even MORE useless security theater steps to the airport process with precisely zero increase in actual security.

Update: The new idiocy is here, and it makes zero fucking sense. JeffreyP has more:

This is a profoundly stupid rule, even dumber than the rule that prevents passengers from carrying an unlimited number of three ounce containers of liquid aboard airplanes. The rule is not intended to protect passengers; it’s intended to protect politicians, to inoculate them from criticism the next time a bad terrorism incident occurs in the future. There are rules in place to prevent this kind of thing, right?

But it’s utterly absurd to think that these airport security rules will never prevent a single act of terrorism. (What’s to prevent the bad guy from doing his thing one hour and one minute before the plane lands?) What these rules will do, though, is to eternally memorialize every half-cocked would-be terrorist who manages to stick something flammable into his shoe or into his pants. And that is precisely the terrorists’ objective.