A smarter TSA would be much more beneficial.

With the current system, every security step has been very much reactionary. We didn't have to take off our shoes until the Richard Reid incident. How smart is such a system?

Allow me to illustrate with a far-fetched scenario: a terrorist woman gets boob implants, except she puts HPE in her boobs rather thank regular silicon. Then she either attempts or is successful at boarding a flight and blowing herself up.

Guess what the typical TSA reaction would be - every woman travelling would be subject to boob inspections. Not very smart.

The TSA should be designed smarter, with layered security. Level One is the regular security screening. Level Two is a deeper level of security, where suspicious or random passengers are interviewed on an ad hoc basis by behavorioally trained specialists for a few minutes. If anything suspicious is discovered, then Level 3 security is activated, where that person is interviewed for a few more minutes by several people, until that person is cleared.

This would have the added benefit of allowing those who travel frequently to get to know the security people, and allow the security people to get to know the passengers better. Of course, privacy is always a huge concern, and consistent and scientific methods must be used so that people are not discriminated.

However, such a system would potentially tell the difference between a passenger who is nervous because he is going to a job interview, versus someone who is up to no good.

This means the TSA would have to pay good money for well trained behavorial specialists, and non-discriminatory training. But this system would make me feel truly safer than this show of reactionary safety measure.

Just my 2 cents worth.