Schneier's argument (in 2007, quoting https://www.schneier.com/news/archives/2007/08/everything_we_know_a.html https://www.schneier.com/news/archives/2007/08/ev

Schneier's argument (in 2007, quoting https://www.schneier.com/news/archives/2007/08/everything_we_know_a.html https://www.schneier.com/news/archives/2007/08/everything_we...) was that: > “There have been exactly two things since 9/11 that have made air travel safer,” Schneier said recently over spring rolls at a favorite Vietnamese restaurant on Nicollet Avenue. “Reinforcing the cockpit door and telling people to fight back in the event of an attack.” After a brief pause, half-devoured roll in hand, he reconsidered. “Well, maybe three,” he said. “I’m on the fence about sky marshals.” Those two or three are not security theater, a term he uses for 'new measures that conveyed safety but accomplished little.' He gives an example of security theater - requiring people to throw out their cigarette lighters. When they could buy cigarette lighters once they pass through security. If those two or three things alone indeed caused the decrease in plane hijackings and bombings that you commented about, then the rest - dumping out water, taking shoes off, etc. - is very likely security theater.