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Comment by FigurativeVoid | Hacker News Reader

It's absolutely security theater.

And remember the median number of flights taken by an American in a year is zero. The majority of the population is never affected by it, so they can happily vote and support anything that makes them feel more secure or like they're helping, with no downside they ever feel.

> the median number of flights taken by an American in a year is zero.

This doesn't sound possible to me. Do you have a source?

It means that less than half of Americans fly each year. Sounds very likely to be true. How many people fly at least every other year?

A few times a year I end up in a TSA line where one TSA person is shouting instructions to everyone, and 20 feet away the next is countermanding those instructions and seems exasperated that everyone is doing the wrong thing.

It's such a bad joke.

A few years ago I went through an airport that had a dog checking everyone. The handler was struggling to get the dog to do his job, people were not being checked, dog / puppy just wanted to play.

This is the thing that irritates me most. If I get in one line, I don't have to do anything. If I get in the other I have to unpack my laptop, take of my shoes, accessories, whatever.

Once there was a woman in front of me who asked why we take our shoes off and the response was "Once someone put a bomb in there shoes."

1. I don't love remedies to problems that happened once.

2. We had an international pandemic once... by your logic shouldn't we always mask at the airport?

Probably yes, even before the pandemic. Packing thousands of people into a tight space is a great way to spread disease.

Post-pandemic it's become a highly political thing now and depending on where your at you may get some unfriendly looks.

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