Given its failures, does the TSA approach justify the $140 billion national investment? Clearly not. Yet there is no reason to think that the only alternative to the TSA approach is multiple terrorist attacks. There are three things that could be done now to reduce lines and increase the effectiveness of airport security.

First, a degree of competitive discipline must be introduced into the TSA. The agency has become a bloated bureaucracy, with all that entails. A 2007 study found that private screeners performed better than the nationalized industry that is TSA, but the TSA suppressed the results (and was heavily criticized by the Government Accountability Office for doing so). By giving airports a genuine ability to opt out of the TSA program and to use qualified private screeners instead, the TSA would be forced to get its act together.