Actually security is not one of the higher priorities of their responsibilities. Top priorities are: Groping passengers, seizing cash, identifying valuables to steal from luggage, union business, insulting passengers, destroying packages, etc. are high priorities with security being incidental and not all that essential.
Is everyone forgetting the real purpose of TSA - to turn low skill, low paid private sector employees into federal civil service union members. Wonder how many voter registration presentations the average TSA troopie has had to sit through in 14 years?
Once that goal was accomplished, it’s amazing there was any energy left over to achieve their 4% success rate.