We recently went on a international trip: Washington, DC to London, London to Rome, Rome to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to DC. In four flights I was singled out "randomly", they said, for special screening and my wife once. We are white, native US citizens, in our mid-seventies. If there is a demographic less likely to be terrorists I would like to know what it could be.

The bad part was that after singling me out they did a disinterested, half-assed assessment and in one case a supervisor and an agent got into a shouting match about why I was selected. I used to get crazy about such stuff but my new persona is to travel in a self induced trance that ignores every inconvenience and insult until I reach my destination. By doing this, I save a lot of wear and tear, possible internment or even death.

TSA is designed to train flyers to "shut up and get in the cattle car when we tell you to."

It so much easier and safer to harass people who are unlikely to actually be terrorists.

As one who did personal body searches for a living in a law enforcement prison setting I became very indignant when I was singled out for their humiliating thorough pat down. Clearly the TSA official doing the search was a poorly trained fool who had no business doing such searches. I could easily have gotten all sorts of things past the fool. As an aside, doing those pat down searches is a lousy job.

as an airline pilot could not agree more...

TSA exists to enforce compliance. The compliance is on behalf of both the flying passengers and the actual TSA employees. Thinking, for employment with the TSA, is not a requirement; more to the point, the employees are meant to follow their orders and have no independent deviation from their directives.

My bags have gone through the screening hardware with two or more quarts of fluids and nobody stopped me. This is in context of a water bladder in a backpack for hiking adventures. Water bladders are not on their list of 'things to check.' Consider the water and soda bottles that are taken by TSA. What happens to these potential chemical weapons or explosives? They are tossed into the rubbish can ... located right next to the TSA agent and passengers. Again, thinking is not a qualification for employment with the TSA.

I always "Opt out" and go through the pat-down instead of the scanners. Can anyone share the long-term (20+ years) effects of being subject to those scanners over the course of 200+ flights? I Opt Out. During the opt out, they never check the bottom of my feet. I could have contraband or worse taped to the bottom of my feet. But they have no interest in looking there. The reason? That check is not on the list. Compliance is the order of the day.

The TSA is really a sponge to sop up a lot of people with low-life (stand around in a uniform, follow simple vapid procedures, keep an eye on the clock) jobs while offering a nice gov compensation package and the opportunity to vote Democrat. It is also a means to enforce compliance on the traveling public.

TSA offers nothing more than a theater of security while soaking in the toxic mix of insolence and delays. It is government at its finest -- large scale waste wrapped in the uniform of fraud.

Or simply allow passengers to be armed on flights. 9/11 could not have happened then.

My handicapped wife, in her 70s and in a wheelchair, can't go through a scanner due to computers in her body, so she always has to endure the insulting body groping process. The last time we went on international travel, an overeager female TSA thug declared she had "failed" the groping, and had to be taken to a private room for a strip search. Fortunately for us, a senior TSA member was watching on CCTV, and called to tell her to knock it off and let us go.

Under the gestapo mentality of some TSA agents, had I raised the slightest objection, our passports would have been confiscated, and we would have been held until a background check confirmed we were not on a do not fly list. The stupid thing is that we're on the TSA pre-check list, noted on our boarding pass, which is supposed to mean we're trusted passengers who shouldn't have to go through their indignities.

Don't you mean "Rogue"?

Agreed. Allow the individual airlines to screen their own passengers and take complete responsibility for who they do business with and how. You can be guaranteed that security would be the Israeli approach: a few well-constructed questions asked by trained personnel. There has never been an incident flying into or out of Tel Aviv for good reason, yet passengers are through security in minutes.

"Rouge" government agency? Or rogue government agency? At first I thought that "rouge" might be an error, but since it's a shade of red (and since Commies are reds), perhaps TSA really is rouge.

I am curious whether either of you, coaldigger or freedomforall, have been vocal on any social media (other than this forum) about TSA, either positiive (ha!) or negative?

I know that, if she is to be believed, Amy Alkon gets groped at pretty much every opportunity, and she is highly vocal both on her own website and on Facebook (perhaps others) about her dislike of TSA. However, she is an attractive female, so her experience may not be typical. I'm just wondering whether TSA reacts to negative comments in this way.

A pig with makeup is still a pig.

I did not look at the video. (Videos take time, and I am in a library, where the time is limited). But even if they have to do patdowns, can't they have men pat down men and women pat down women?