TacomaRain - I agree completely. And it's just another reason why a brand new federal agency was such an incredibly stupid idea.

Has anyone here ever been to a properly staffed post office? Every time I'm there (all too often at 4:45 pm) I see a bunch of counter positions vacant and 25-100 people waiting in line. Does the USPS have centralized scheduling? You would think so after visiting the post office.

Of course, I'm guessing it's done by former USSR central planners who were thrown out of work.

We can argue forever about whether the former contract screeners missed prohibited items or cared about the security of US jeliners. We can argue forever about whether the TSA and its 48,000 (current number) employees have actually improved safety in the air.

One undeniable fact is that the airlines got the job done with about 28,000 people, many of them part-timers. As you know, there are lots of peak periods and plenty of slow periods. The contractors were not keen on paying people to stand around during the slow periods, so they didn't.

Sure, they weren't screwing around looking at about a billion checked suitcases each year in an impossible needle-in-haystack search for nonexistent bombs, but then again, neither were the 55,000 TSA employees for their first few months on the job. They were all standing around checkpoints.

Another reality is that I never waited in long checkpoint lines prior to Idiot Mineta's post-September 11 rule changes (ie, no 2d chance, dig, dig, dig for inoccuous new prohibited items, having 2 or 3 people staring at each xray monitor, etc).

Most of the time, I simply walked up, placed my carryons on the belt, walked thru the WMD (I didn't need anyone telling me how to walk thru it, BTW), grabbed my carryons, and walked away. Sometimes there were a few people in front of me, but not very often. It typically took a couple minutes.

I could even exit security at my whim and return with no worries, even at LAX T-4 (American Airlines terminal).

Now, LAX T-4 often requires a 30-45 minute wait. Sometimes (really early am or late pm), there is no line. That means I show my BP and ID a couple times, and about half the time get the full treatment because they need to look busy.

Problem is, being a US government agency, it is highly unlikely that the TSA will stop micro-managing from headquarters any time soon. Probably never. And that's why I'll celebrate when our failed experiment in Transportation Security is over and the agency is disbanded.