The key with the knives guy in Chicago was that after private security caught his two knives, they not only let him thru but the security guys were reported to have kept the knives for themselves. This was 6 or more weeks after 9/11 and neither public shame nor threat of losing business for the owners kept these dorks from petty theft accusations. Enough.

Will Fed employees do better? I dunno. Will they cost more-$2.50-$5.00 a ticket ain't much, is it? Can they do worse? Hard to see how.

At this point, the only arguements are political. Government isn't the enemy, we'll see if can be an efficient friend.

The only thing I guarantee is that for $30,000 a year, we'll have more alert, more dedicated, more attentive people than we did at $15,000 a year. And the open-market folks will (if they're honest) be the first to state and admit to that.