PS-I do have sympathy with your points and in fact feel the same way about many of them and I very much appreciate Old Ben's words of wisdom. Unfortunately, we are well past that point. That said, the overriding question to me is "Do I fell, and am I in fact, safer than before most of the security measures of the past ten years?" To me, the short answer is No, I really don't. I do have some security experience, and a good bit of experience working in DC. My problem is that the entire security apparatus that has been built up is almost entirely ad hoc. Much, if not most of it, pushed by the vendors of the equipment. To my knowledge, especially with airport security, there has never been a systematic study of the dangers faced and logical, workable means of ameliorating those dangers. Instead, security agencies have almost unfettered ability to do as they see fit and spend as they see fit. So, a guy is on a plane with a bomb in his sneaker that could not possibly damage a 747, and we take our shoes off at airports for the next 10 years.
I have a very good friend who is a recognized expert in security risk analysis. Dinner conversations with him are vary scary conversations. At the risk of giving the NSA something to analyze, pick almost any venue, event, or infrastructure and spend five minutes thinking about how you could quite easily cause an event of pretty major proportions. According to him, it ain't too hard.
So, yes, I want security, but I want it first and foremost effective, directed at true threats, and the least intrusive possible.
Sorry for the rant, this is just a little bug for me!