Over at the Post’s Wonkblog, Dylan Matthews wonders why we don’t just get rid of the TSA entirely after taking a commuter flight not subject to the TSA’s loving embrace.
In short: there’s little to no evidence that the TSA has saved a single life in stopping terrorism. While it may have prevented specific plots, that energy just went towards other plots and attacks. Yet the costs of the TSA are immense, and we’re not just talking about hiring all those people to feel you up at the airport, or even the super expensive naked scanner machines. It’s the costs to all of us — the public who travel. The fact that you have to get to the airport hours before your flight, stand in a very long line to be scanned or felt up and generally humiliated — that’s a massive waste of time and productivity for everyone, for apparently no benefit at all, other than security theater.
He’s not wrong.