Originally Posted by
14940674
but if intelligence is the key to airport security, rather than Full Body Scanners or pat-downs, shouldn't we incorporate our intelligence networks into the TSA checkpoints, at least somewhat?
Intelligence needs to be moved away from the checkpoint, not towards it. If you let a bad guy get to the airport and get in line for the checkpoint, the system has already failed. The bad guy can detonate his device or do his thing in the line to the checkpoint with equal or greater fatalities and damage as if he did it beyond the checkpoint or on the plane.
Take the vast majority of the $ that goes to TSA and divvy it up between CIA for foreign intelligence work and FBI for domestic (subject to all Constitutional restraints); use the remainder for a skeleton airport security operation consisting of metal detectors, hand wands, explosives trace swabbing, and baggage x-ray. You'd have a much safer and more secure commercial aviation system.