Who doesn't like a good TSA bashing?

Here's a fun little article from the Atlantic, ripping on the "security theater" of aviation security. It quotes and mentions Bruce Schneier quite a bit, whose blog is in the below-right blog list.

Anyone who travels extensively knows that everything in the article is perfectly true. The question is whether anyone has a better plan for how to do what the TSA does. The article is less a stinging indictment and more of a putting a spotlight on the obvious, which has to be done from time to time, I suppose.

Articles like these should also make everyone in the industry periodically rethink the efficacy and point of the systems they're selling and installing, which can't be a bad thing.

This is not security. This is a waste of time.

So USA Today has a much-noticed article about the TSA approving special cases that would allow travelers to go through security at airports without having to remove their laptops from their carrying cases. Basically, the cases would open and you'd lay them flat on the conveyor belt, with the laptop on one side and everything else on the other.

Supposedly, this is going to speed up security. It won't. It's a complete and total waste of time and energy, and the companies who are building these spiffy new cases are simply opportunists. I don't blame them for that - this is America, after all - but I'm certainly not going to let people celebrate them as helping out the weary traveler.

As someone who flies at least 20 times a year and never lets my laptop get more than a few feet away from me, I can assure you that it's not a hassle at all to take your laptop out of the carrying bag and put it in a bin. Most soft briefcases now have a handy slot just for your laptop, and all you do is slide it out of the slot, but it in the bin, put it through the machine, and then slide it back in. That's just as easy, if not easier, than opening a case, lying it flat, and then closing it back up again. Plus, the soft case can hold much more stuff than the specially designed "clamshell" case, so you'd probably just have carry-on difficulties with it.

Further, how is this "clamshell" going to speed anything up? As long as anything is going through a machine, nothing is sped up. All of the preparation is done while you're in the security line, a few people back from whoever is going through the metal detector. You're still going to have to put your shoes, jacket, carry-on, etc., through the x-ray machine, so there's no extra time taken at the bottle neck - when you actually pass your body through the metal detector - and once you're through the bottle-neck, who cares how long it takes to gather up your stuff? At that point, the line part is over.

The only ways the lines could possibly be reduced:

1. More screeners: If there's a metal detector for every 50 people in line, instead of one for every 500 people in line, things will go faster. Money and space issues mean we've pretty much got what we're going to get here. My local airport in Portland has a line out the door every morning, but it's simply because everybody has to pass through one of two security checkpoints and 10 flights all leave at roughly the same time. If you fly out at 11 a.m., you can show up about 20 minutes before your flight leaves and breeze right onto the plane.

2. A giant gateway that everybody could just walk through without having to put anything on a conveyor belt: Not as impossible as it sounds - companies like Brijot that do full body imaging can get pretty close to a solution for this, although the people manning the machines would have to be mighty alert and not let people get away from them by sprinting through or something. This won't happen any time soon.

3. People fly much less: With increasing fuel prices and airlines going belly up left and right, this will happen sooner than you think. Pretty soon, corporations will start cutting down more significantly on business travel and air travel for the middle class will go back to being a luxury few can afford. Less crowded airports means small security lines. Yay!

Look, I'm all for efforts like Clear and Flo that look to expedite things for a price. It's solution #1, and it makes the people who are desperate for speed foot the bill. I'll buy a membership as soon as the lanes come to Portland (which should happen in 2017 or so, I'm guessing, by which time we'll all be video conferencing anyway). But most of these other solutions, like making it so you can keep your shoes on, or your laptop in your case, or your jacket on your back, are just solutions aimed at whiney, annoying people who can't stand a little inconvenience for the sake of satisfying the masses' need to feel safer about air travel. None of them saves any time at all, really, and, anyway, I've stood in a boatload of security lines and not one has been more than about 15 minutes.

Who among you is so desperate for that 15 minutes back? What, so you can watch 15 more minutes of the Today show before you leave for your flight? So you can get 15 more minutes of sleep? Boo hoo. Just take your laptop out of its case like everybody else and be quiet. Or waste $100+ on the special carrying case if it makes you feel empowered.