Suppose you were the kind of person who really hates people. What would be the best job suited for you? How about applying for the position as head of airline security for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). There, you could devise a system like the following.

You would:

Hire people who wanted to be drill instructors. They can then order passengers around as if they were recruits in 'boot' camp.

Constantly demand that passengers show their IDs before boarding, even though you're aware that IDs are easily forged.

Require people to wait in long lines, even though you know the precise number of people traveling through each airport each hour.

Force physically challenged people who are confined to wheelchairs or having implants or pacemakers to go through unnecessarily lengthy, degrading, embarrassing and intrusive physical inspections.

Take away harmless personal items, such as tweezers, hat pins, sewing scissors, etc., while, in the meantime, leaving people with items that are much more lethal in trained hands.

Hassle small children, elderly women, infirm individuals, and young attractive women by forcing them to go through difficult body motions and inappropriate touching.

Finally, waste taxpayer monies by hiring uneeded personnel to ask the same questions over and over or simply allow them to stand around doing absolutely nothing.

You might be thinking that what is described above could not possibly happen in a society that calls itself free and democratic, but unfortunately every day millions of Americans are subject to some or all of the above if they try to fly.

People are being abused by agents of their government because those charged with our security fail to distinguish between security and control, fail to use cost-benefit analysis when designing systems and procedures, and are ignorant or insensitive to civil liberties.

Friends of mine who fly on a regular basis have found most TSA personnel to be polite, but they have also seen a number of TSA personnel who seem to enjoy abusing their fellow citizens. Airlines often have a legitimate need to know who is flying on their planes to account for their frequent flyer and other discount programs. But, in a free society, the government should not monitor innocent citizens' movements and require them to provide IDs.

Yes, the government may want to track criminals and terrorists, but all required IDs can easily be forged, and the terrorists on 9/11 all had IDs. (It's interesting to note that even the new high tech IDs are being forged in dorms on many college campuses. One of the world's leading experts on security and encryption has even argued that IDs are "not only a waste of money" but may, in fact, exacerbate crime.) Being required to show an ID won't deter a committed terrorist. It is unnecessary and it harasses innocent passengers.

The TSA tells you that you should show up two hours early because their security lines might be very long. However, TSA management knows exactly at any given airport at any given moment how many passengers will show up. Should they desire to do so, they could have enough security gates and personnel so that 90 percent of all passengers needn't wait more than five minutes. If 2000 people have to wait an average of 30 minutes to go through security and if the average value of their time is $10 per hour, the cost of people standing in the security line is $10,000. The cost of additional security stations to greatly shorten queuing times is far less than the passengers' time costs.

Most passengers would not be in the least concerned that the man sitting next to them may have a Swiss Army knife in his pocket. But they should be concerned that someone might have brought on board a chemical bomb or put a bomb in the cargo hold. TSA steals small metal objects because such objects can easily be found using metal detectors. However, they ignore equally more dangerous objects (in trained hands) which are made of plastic or other materials that are not easily detected or are too personal (e.g., belts and bra straps).

If TSA would use sensible cost-benefit and probability analysis, they would put more resources into bomb and chemical detection and allow the passengers to have their pocket knives and sewing materials.

In summary, the TSA and all other law enforcement agencies should be required to subject every rule, regulation and procedure to strict cost-benefit analysis, as well as review by civil liberties experts. That would provide better security at lower cost, with far less harassment and intrusion.

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