Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve been critical of the Transportation Security Administration’s absurdly inefficient and largely worthless airport screening procedures for five years now.

Although always hopeful, I never thought that it was realistic to dismantle the TSA entirely. Sadly, it’s become yet another governmental jobs program with its own vested interests lobbying for its existence in perpetuity.

Nevertheless, I remained hopeful that something could eventually be done to constrain the TSA’s seemingly unfettered capacity to make airline travel an mostly miserable experience.

So, the recent groundswell of opposition to the TSA’s latest  outrage in screening procedures – as summarized in this Art Carden/Forbes article (see also pilot Patrick Smith’s Salon op-ed here)- has been an unexpected but welcome movement. I mean, really. How many more TSA outrages such as the that  John Tyner chronicled will have to occur before politicians who oppose constructive change will be at risk of losing their jobs?

As airlines brace for the possible negative impact that the TSA agents’ boorish actions may have on the upcoming holiday travel season, David Henderson notes one of the unanticipated consequences of the TSA’s chilling effect on airline travel:

.   .   . let’s remember the stakes. It’s not just our privacy, our dignity, and our right not to be sexually assaulted. It’s also about our lives. People who decide to drive rather than take a short-haul flight will face approximately 80 times the fatality rate per mile that people on commercial airlines face.

The TSA is killing people.

Moreover, beyond the infantile behavior of TSA agents, the wasted time and expense resulting from these procedures is appalling. Michael Chertoff, the former head of Homeland Security, promoted the supposed benefits of the new scanners when he was in office, and now he is a lobbyist persuading TSA to buy them!

As with the overcriminalization of American life, the TSA is another symbol of a federal government that is increasingly remote and unresponsive to its citizens.

Is this a trend that can be changed? Perhaps the curious case of the TSA will answer that question.