Charles Mann visits the airport with security expert Bruce Schneier and a fake boarding pass. What he finds is a lot of security theater and not much security.
"The only useful airport security measures since 9/11," he says, "were locking and reinforcing the cockpit doors, so terrorists can't break in, positive baggage matching" — ensuring that people can't put luggage on planes, and then not board them — "and teaching the passengers to fight back. The rest is security theater."
(via df)