Agreed, although it's hard to prove a negative in terms of any kind of "attacks stopped" figures. This seemed to be the mantra of the previous administration for the various laws/agencies/programs that were instituted as a result of 9/11. "Hey, we haven't had another 9/11 style attack, so what we're doing must be working." One assumes that increased scrutiny, rules, what have you, of TSA would be inherently more difficult to get contraband items (or people) through airport security. While we're all familiar with the "we snuck this through TSA" stories in the media, perhaps a more useful comparison would be the number of legitimately suspicious items/people intercepted before and after TSA's emergence.
Now, I'm as frustrated as the next guy about their apparent incompetance, but I suspect that they ultimately do more good than harm in terms of providing a level of security. If they can figure out how to get their agents to start treating passengers like human beings instead of cattle, well... that would be progress.
Brett
