[gordner]

TSA Is a bloated, non functioning make work department that has yet to successfully protect anyone from anything, with poor hiring practices, terrible training and waaaaay too much authority. Shielded by law from having to produce any figures regarding how effective they may be, the only figure you can get is that 900+ officers have been arrested for theft since its inception.
A decision like this hurts all the more when you know enough about how airports operate to realize that all that front line security is just theater...nothing effective about it. A determined individual can get anything they like on board a flight with minimal effort. I have been called out to the gate five times this year alone to remove a razor blade from a flight that a passenger located when boarding. These are items workers leave behind by accident. The whole of passenger screening is to make the public feel there is a layer of safety to air travel and really nothing else.