The idea behind many of those actions may have been to make people feel safe. Part of leadership is addressing peoples' concerns and to maintaining regular order. I don't think the goal is 100% safety and security. I think it was more along the lines of "We see and understand that you're worried about terrorism. Look at all the things we're doing to deal with that problem". And if it makes people feel better...it worked.

Now sure, some people will look at pages of facts and figures about death statistics. But a lot of people will think "I had to wait in line for a long time at the airport while they did security stuff, so I must be safe." And that's the job of government, to deal with problems that are on the minds of citizens.