The main reasons for the TSA are: 1) politicians seen to be doing something 2) making the public feel safe flying again 3) because someone, somewhere is making

The main reasons for the TSA are: 1) politicians seen to be doing something 2) making the public feel safe flying again 3) because someone, somewhere is making a pile of cash from it 4) it's a good way to employ unskilled people Catching terrorists is likely to be one of the lower priorities. Personally I think that random thorough screening and randomly distributed flight marshals is a better deterrent than poorly screening everyone. It's always harder to evade a security threat when you don't know what it is or looks like. Another thing that annoys me is that people push for more railways on the basis that it is safe than flying. Railway in the last 10 years has had more crashes and more terrorist incidents than flying, and a determined terrorist can create massive havoc, fear and deaths from targeting trains, as was tragically displayed several times. But for some reason, you can still hop on a train with no screening. Go figure.