Bruce Schneier notes that a new study concludes that airport security isn’t helping:
A team at the Harvard School of Public Health could not find any studies showing whether the time-consuming process of X-raying carry-on luggage prevents hijackings or attacks.They also found no evidence to suggest that making passengers take off their shoes and confiscating small items prevented any incidents.
[...]
The researchers said it would be interesting to apply medical standards to airport security. Screening programs for illnesses like cancer are usually not broadly instituted unless they have been shown to work.
Of course, the TSA has things completely backwards and doesn’t seem to realize that confiscating millions of lighters from innocent people is a security failure:
“Even without clear evidence of the accuracy of testing, the Transportation Security Administration defended its measures by reporting that more than 13 million prohibited items were intercepted in one year,” the researchers added. “Most of these illegal items were lighters.”