This is good and bad. Loosening up on the prohibited item list, shoe carnival, SSSS is all for the good. The throwing star thing goes a bit far, but no one is going to hijack an airplane with archery equipment (which competitive archers are probably loath to check in as baggage)

Exempting congressmen is a terrible idea. They need to be treated as ordinary citizens are. Same with federal judges - if they get a case in front of them dealing with screening in some way, the experience of having gone through it themselves is valuable.

The top secret clearance thing is very strange. Have they started issuing ID cards to show active clearances? When I worked for the government, that was certainly not the case. Some federal agencies don't even call the clearances by the same name (i.e. DOE's Q clearance), although there are equivalencies.

If I was a pessimist, I'd guess that the bad stuff will be approved and the good stuff will be rejected. I'm hoping for a pleasant surprise....

Lets all hope Bart is right.