Based on the following threads (and hundreds more on FT and other blogs) and numerous news stories, I would say that the TSA is infested with thieves, criminals, and incompetents:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/searc...rchid=14111962
http://current.newsweek.com/budgettr..._screener.html
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/03/...hefts-per-day/
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/pract...cked-bags.html
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/b...Bw7NFkRxVF5l0M
The last article I read said that TSA/baggage handlers steal around 5,000 items per day at US airports, including guns, which are then stored in "secure" areas until their shifts end. Knowing that these bozos can get anything in or out of a secure area should give a logical person reason to doubt that any of the Kabuki dance done in view of the public actually contributes to our safety.
I would pay special attention to this thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/pract...e-devices.html
An intelligent and motivated terrorist cannot be stopped.
Yet the risk of dying from a terrorist attack is around a thousand of times lower than your risk of dying in a car accident--Why, pray tell, doesn't our coddling government ban cars to protect us then?
You have an 8 times greater risk of being killed by the police than being killed by a terrorist.
You have 50 times greater risk of being struck by lightning than being killed by a terrorist.
Life is full of risks! Society cannot protect everyone all of the time from every threat, whether natural or man-made.
Surrendering our freedoms to a non-accountable government agency on the false promise of increased safety is a fool's gambit.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759