Of course security is better now.

Picking the fingernail clippers makes it sound ridiculous, but that is not all that is better.

Here are three more improvements that I think are very significant (I leave aside the hoohaw about IDs because I think that does very little)

1. you hear about it when someone gets a knife through security. Before, you never heard about it and it must have happened all the time.

2. screeners search carry-on bags more thoroughly, more often, now.

3. people at the gate are randomly (or according to profiles) selected for more complete searches, extra wanding, etc.

Absent a new federal workforce of 28,000 people, laws could have been passed requiring airlines to screen and x-ray all baggage by 2004, enforced by a few inspectors. Just like the safety of the US food supply.