TSA security application at Chicago Midway right now.

Don't you think like that! We do great work here! We keep these (waves at confiscated mustards in disgust)filthy mustards out of our airspace. What's a few trillion wasted man-hours and tax dollars, when we're preventing the possibility of a brown mustard gas attack?

I was actually at the end of the line and asked a TSA agent (one of the ones standing around) and he told me straight up that people were getting though screening in T2 in 15 minutes. This was right after some people told me they were in line for two and a half hours. I won't forget those people's reactions anytime soon.

One day he will die in the line, and his grandchildren will speak of the day they were asked to take off their shoes to leave the line. They will be scared of a world without a line. but they will be excited for such an adventure. Then they will be told that they need to declare their Grandfathers Ashes in said urn. They will then enter the new line to accomodate such a purpose.

Sounds like a good way to get the TSA neutered as well. Either the person making the decision sees how ineffective it is and removes funding or they dont and end up caving in. I can only hope that the American people eventually get fully fed up.This is crazy. There are hundreds of cases of TSA agents stealing from passengers but there is no reform, nothing. They just fire the employee and then hire another one who does it again.

They're also drumming up business for TSA Pre. I just signed up myself after they overhauled the security setup at MSP and tripled wait times in the process. Again they blamed staffing. But now there is an weeks-long waiting list for an appointment to get a TSA Pre background check at a cost of $80 per person. If you pass, you basically get to waltz through security with only a cursory check. So basically the TSA gets paid to not have to do their job as thoroughly in the future. And it's a bargain compared to waiting in regular lines of you fly on any sort of a regular basis.