Here are some reasons off the top of my head: 1. Security Theatre: if the goal is security, you shouldn't be able to pay to receive less scrutiny (the baddies

Here are some reasons off the top of my head: 1. Security Theatre: if the goal is security, you shouldn't be able to pay to receive less scrutiny (the baddies aren't poor). I realize TSA aren't the only guilty party here, but they are able to inflict more suffering than most. 2. Nonsensical Rules, like how they treat nail clippers and water as threats to national security, and after the shoe bomber everyone has to take off their shoes, but after the underwear bomber we… still keep our underwear on? Laptops out but a pile of tablets can stay in the bag? "Randomly" selecting elders and children for enhanced screening? 3. Lacking accountability: as stated in sibling comments, the agency has little incentive to do their job efficiently, and with usually only one local airport, people have few alternative methods of travel. 4. Ineffectiveness: lots of normal people have unwittingly snuck banned items through security checkpoints. And as has been much publicized, pen test teams have managed to make fools of the checkpoints many times. And it's not like all those fancy scanner machines and employees are cheap. So at significant cost to the US taxpayer, TSA checkpoints slow, inconvenience, annoy, and degrade travelers while providing little actual security, only the theatrics of such. We would be safer without them.