Some years ago I was flying home from a large European airport. Unbeknownst to me there had been a bomb threat, so the security check was turned up to 11.
The queue for the security check was enormous, thousands of people packed in a snaking queue filling up the place.
I've never been so scared flying as I stood in line looking at the doors to the parking lot, with nothing but people between.
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Isn't it time to disband the TSA? So the security theater? "... no more intrusive or intensive than necessary..." I would say waiting on lines for hours, even being required to show up hours before is more intrusive than necessary.
I stopped flying in 2003 as a direct result of the TSA. I used to fly everywhere with a mandolin, as it would fit into the overhead compartments and allowed me to participate in the music scene at my destination.
After the security theater was in full swing, I got stopped at a security checkpoint and was told that I could not take my spare set of strings onto the plane, because they might be used as a garrote.
Knowing that I hadn’t changed them for a while, I asked whether it would be okay for me to sit there and change them. They agreed. So I took 15 minutes and put the new strings on my mandolin. That appeased them, and I continued on my long journey home.
So, the strings were still allowed through… on my instrument. Where I could have removed them and fashioned a garrote just as easily as when they were new in the bag.
The terrorists won. I never flew again.