Everyone hates the TSA

The TSA is now as unpopular as the IRS, according to an AP poll, and quite rightly so. Only FEMA is more hated.

Cory Doctorow's comments get at the heart of this:

How does any of this make us safer? Take away our liquids, leave us with our laptop batteries. Screen us before we get to the terminal -- but leave hundreds of people bunched up in the security queue, in a handy, bomb-friendly knot. Short of knocking us out and tying us up, they're not going to render us harmless.

But the point has never been to make us safe, just to make it look like they are, and to make us paranoid about what might happen if we don't carefully examine every person's Ziploc bag of toothpaste and shampoo, if we don't harass and humiliate every person who wants to get on a plane.

I'll know the madness of the Bush years is finally over when I can wear my sneakers through the checkpoint again, drinking a bottle of water. I think it'll be a long, long time, though.