I don't know that there's anyone anywhere who can actually demonstrate that the enormous costs, material and nonmaterial, we are paying are buying us any additional safety. The argument "if it is necessary to make us safe" is pure speculation. Saying it does not prove the necessity.

But even if there is some tiny return in the existence of the preventive programs, I think it beggars belief that BLANKET searches would pass a cost/benefit test relative to targeted searches. I truly believe that a desire for the appearance of "fairness" is all the blanket searches are about. They are "keeping up appearances", and they spit upon anyone who complains that "keeping up appearances" justifies the wholesale undermining of our civil rights protections against overweening government power. It is time to stop caring so much about "appearances" and start caring that we make efforts that deliver some benefit.

Agreed.

What's even more ridiculous is in our desire to seem "fair" and not discriminate against any particular group, we are in fact doing just that. These blanket measures have a disparate impact on many of the disadvantaged groups in the US, such as women, the elderly, and people with medical conditions and cancer survivors, etc. So in practice, there is no fairness.

Yeh, well, there's a whole cohort here that believes unfairness to everyone is somehow a morally superior practice. Only equality matters. If only the whole POPULATION could be tortured, torture would finally be acceptable.