I was originally writing this as a response to conroe64 below, but it deserves to be its own comment.

Yes, the days before 911 were the good old days.

I have an older brother that didn't live with us. During the holidays, he would fly in and we'd go pick him up at the airport. On many separate occasions, the family would all wait at the exit gate for family and friends to get off. Can you even remember the experience of having a hundred people all patiently waiting for their loved ones to get off the plane, or being one of those people to exit the plane and to have all of your loved ones waiting for you right there?

One time when my brother was leaving for home, we were able to go with him on the plane and I got to sit in the pilot's seat. Soooo many buttons. For some reason, I still remember there being a little button with a Christmas tree on it. No idea what it was for.

So to your other points: modern airport security would have done NOTHING to prevent 9/11. Those guys didn't carry guns or large knives on board. They didn't hijack planes with water bottles and belts. They had fucking box cutters. You can't kill everyone on board with a box cutter. At worst, you can severely injure a couple of people, and by that point the passengers rise up and strangle your ass.

What allowed those planes to be hijacked is that pre-9/11 the universal experience of being hijacked was to do what the hijackers said. That was what we were all told, because up until then that's what happened. Hijackings were a way to make political statements, not necessarily to kill the passengers. You might end up in Cuba, or held on the tarmac for ransom or something.

What would have stopped 9/11 is if the public had a different mindset, being "take these assholes down at any cost". That's the mindset we have today.

There were a few fatalities back then. The Lockerbie Scotland incident was a bombing. It wasn't even a hijacking. The perpetrators were hanging out in Libya. In fact, that bombing was sponsored by Gaddafi. We didn't invade Libya in revenge for that.

The fact is, 9/11 happened. It was horrible. It brought to light that some changes were definitely needed in airport security, but it also brought to light that the passive reaction to hijackings was something that needed to change. The reason this is all fucked up is that we had a lame-duck president and government who over-reacted. If they had handled the incident responsibly, rather than initiating 2 wars that led to no capture of Bin Laden (remember, it was under Obama that the fucker got taken out), then we would be in a very different world today.

The TSA is a left-over remnant from a horrible event that happened 12 years ago. It was an over-reaction due to the climate of uncertainty and fear that existed at the time. Like all snakes set loose in an environment with no natural predators, it has gone on to swallow multiple government departments and their budgets and gotten so fat and dangerous no one is willing to fight it.

Its time to stop this bullshit, dismantle the TSA, set the various government agencies back on their own that it absorbed, start arresting these high-school dropout alpha fucks the TSA hires when they molest people and children, and put something rational and sensible in place.

Do we need airport security? Yes. Do we need this bullshit TSA theater we have now? No.

The next time you're flying and you're mistreated, make a scene. Ask the 10 people around you to record the interaction. You will likely miss your flight. Accept that. Its unlikely you'll be arrested as long as you don't hit anyone, you'll just be escorted from the airport or made to catch a later flight. Be rational and stand up for yourself like a human being with dignity.

We NEED everyone to start doing this, to make this into an issue. Stop being passive. Its an inconvenience now, but its the first step in making it better. Years down the line, you'll be proud of what you did. And you and your kids won't have to deal with this shit anymore.

I know I will.