It turns out that AMBER alerts have actually been described in the same way as TSA procedures ("security theater") - they are "crime control theater" [1] becaus

It turns out that AMBER alerts have actually been described in the same way as TSA procedures ("security theater") - they are "crime control theater" [1] because if a child is going to be killed by an abductor, generally it happens within three hours of the abduction, and there is nothing law enforcement can really do to prevent that, they just cannot move quickly enough. > In fact, AMBER Alert is arguably an example of what could be called crime control theater. It is a socially constructed “solution” to a socially constructed problem, enabling public officials to symbolically address an essentially intractable threat. [1] http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/33/2/159.abstract http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/33/2/159.abstract "Child Abduction, AMBER Alert, and Crime Control Theater"