TSA rituals don't make us safer: Opposing view

Changes to the Transportation Security Administration's rules have made it easier for fliers to get through airport security. Even with these improvements, the TSA should be abolished.

First, the TSA offers what security expert Bruce Schneier calls "security theater." The unnecessary and insulting rituals we go through when we board a plane don't make us safer. There are a lot of ways terrorists could hurt us without attacking a plane or attacking an airport. Schneier also shows that there are a lot of ways to do damage with things you can get through airport security.

Second, we're actually less safe because of the TSA. Driving to the airport is the most dangerous part of air travel, but we don't think that much about driving risks because we drive so much. By making flying less convenient and more expensive, the TSA has unwittingly encouraged more people to drive and, on net, put us in even greater danger.

Third, the costs of homeland security exceed the benefits. Political scientist John Mueller and civil engineering professor Mark Stewart have estimated that the money the U.S. is spending on homeland security would have to stop about four attacks on the scale of the failed 2010 Times Square bombing every single day in order to pass a cost/benefit test. This is unlikely.

Homeland security spending — which journalist Glenn Greenwald called "the decade's biggest scam" a few years ago — mostly seems to be a way to dispense political favors.

These reasons combine with two important principles of economics to deliver a crushing blow to the case for government-provided airport security. Resources are scarce, and people respond to incentives.

Taxing people and spending on homeland security divert money from more cost-effective uses, such as schooling or business-creating private investment. Making flying less convenient gives people incentives to drive, which is more dangerous than flying. Every time I fly, the TSA reminds me that we aren't good at thinking about risk. Terrorism is vivid but (fortunately) very rare. The money we're spending on homeland security would be better used elsewhere.

Art Carden is an assistant professor of economics at Samford University's Brock School of Business.