Stopping a terrorist attack may be somewhere in TSA's charter, and may be their justification for funding, but I seriously doubt it is their goal. If you look at what they do and how they do it, their goal is to institute a bureaucratic nightmare to convince passengers it is better to pretend to be safer than to expect the TSA to be accountable for its wretched existence.

There are reasons not to give a college freshman a pen, piece of paper, and a forum. This is one of them. Not that he's come to the wrong conclusion. He's right that the TSA is a harmful, thuggish waste of money, but he manages to make enough logical errors on the way that he might actually think his reasoning is sound. To wit:

- ... $1.2 billion per year is only justified on a cost-analysis basis if there is guaranteed to be a terrorist attack every two years and the TSA is able to stop that threat. That's a little like saying that maintaining an army is only justified if you're guaranteed to use it in a war.

- There are low-cost and less invasive alternatives to stopping terrorist threats ... He's on more solid ground here, but he would have been better off listing a couple of them.

- The goal of the TSA is to stop a terrorist attack. Indirectly true, as long as that's its stated mission.

- Thus, the attacks on 9/11 were more than just 3,000 dead Americans; it was a nationally significant event that has shaped American policy for years, causing leaders to take us into two unjust wars and a nebulous mission to stop terrorism worldwide. Not sure what "two unjust wars" has to do with the TSA, but being a freshman Poli-Sci major, maybe he felt a professional obligation.

- By comparison, cancer kills 3,000 Americans every two days but curing cancer is much less of a national priority than stopping terrorism. "If we can put a man on the moon..." This is probably the biggest howler, as if curing cancer could be accomplished by the Government bashing away at it with poorly-trained poltroons.

Mr. Dan Morgan-Russel might have been better off building on the first quoted paragraph; he was actually making a little sense at that point. Instead, he had to have an exegesis right out in front of everybody. Hopefully, he's able to blush.

Not sure what "two unjust wars" has to do with the TSA, but being a freshman Poli-Sci major, maybe he felt a professional obligation.

Actually, I think I can see where he was going with that. 9/11 is used to justify the TSA by the sheeple and government. They use phrases like "Do you want another 9/11?" as a way to scare us into compliance. They also used 9/11 as justification for the war. So, while I think it's a little misguided, I can see the parallel he was trying to draw.

take us into two unjust wars

Whoa, wait, what? I'll allow that you can argue against Iraq, but what about the Afghanistan mission? Particularly once the Taliban government basically said "no" to our demands they turn over UBL? unjust? seriously?

The only unjust thing about that was the whole notion that we could somehow bring that region of the world into the 21st century, and we pissed away a lot of blood and treasure in the attempt. Afghanistan in 2015 is going to look an awful lot like in 1999.

Oh, and the TSA mission? that's easy: it's to grow the size and breadth of the TSA. That's their primary mission. If they happen to be effective in any secondary missions, that's just a happy outcome.

There really was no way to justify the TSA even on 9/11. Al-Qaeda used the expected in an unexpected way.

The expected prior to 9/11 was a hijacking that would land, the hijackers would demand a boatload of money and a trip to a non-extraditable country. The U.S. government would either negotiate or use special forces and it would be over.

Flight 93 found out that this was not the case and caused the plane to crash.

There have been numerous cases since 9/11 where passengers have acted out and the fellow passengers have subdued them. That is because the hole was used and the paradigm has now shifted.

The same thing will happen if there is ever a Beslan situation. Then we will have armed teachers and guards in schools everywhere. The situation is already changing because of Sandy Hook. Many are calling for gun control, but other states have gone to their legislature and schools and are implementing free extended training for school personnel to carry concealed and to get the victim target zones dropped in the public schools.

I agree that the piece could have been more coherent, but he was aiming at a population that rational thought rarely occurs anyway.

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
B. Obama, at colorado college CS, 2 July 2008

Looks like he's got it. VIPR checkpoints allow the TSA to function as the US Federal Police Dept. And that's being charitable, since GRU fits better.

Nice thing about being a TSA agent - you can just take whatever you want from our luggage and then sell it on FleaBay:

http://rt.com/usa/tsa-stealing-from-travelers-358/