I fly SYD - LAX at least once a year. A few years ago, it was no bottles, shoes off, grope from local version of TSA at SYD. In my recent flight, no bottle r

I fly SYD - LAX at least once a year. A few years ago, it was no bottles, shoes off, grope from local version of TSA at SYD. In my recent flight, no bottle restriction, no shoes off, no groping. A couple of small signs talking about liquid amounts but no sign of enforcement. I suspect that periodically the TSA tries to force higher screening on other countries, but for the most part the airlines/airports want to skip the cost (and aggravation for it's customers), and so get lax about it. Someone has to pay for extra floorspace for extra screening on US flights, as well as extra staff, facilities, equipment. When airlines will drop one meal in a flight to drive down costs, adding costs like this to flying has to hurt someone, somewhere, whether it's the airline or the airport. I'm guessing they don't forward the invoices to the TSA. When you think about it, it's a net losing situation for the USA, because they can't possibly force every single country every single day to keep up the standards. And without a blanket coverage on the standards, the cause is hopeless because any wrongdoer is just going to pick an international flight to do the business.