[COBOL2Java]

The TSA was created after the attacks, with the goal of replacing privately employed airport security workers with better-trained and higher-paid government employees.

This line is the biggest laugh of all. For the most part, it's the same people as before, only now they have a nice cushy government job with official looking uniforms so they can push grandma around any way they damn well please, and since they're now government, they can't be fired.

[justlurking]

In all fairness, I've found that once they get "in the groove", the TSA folks are a vast improvement over the previous security personnel.

I was delayed a few times when TSA took over security for a new airport and it took them a while to get "up to speed". But, the TSA folks have been much more "cordial" than the private security people hired by the subcontractors to the airlines (which paid little more than McDonald's).

After they have been around a while, the TSA folks may be no better. But at the moment, I find them to be more efficient and more reasonable.

[garbanzo]

I have never understood why giving the same people a new uniform would somehow magically improve airline security.