"What if Congress had accepted the recommendation? Hardened cockpits would have made impossible the 9/11 attacks in the form they took. If so, instead of being grateful to the Gore commission, we today might well mock hardened cockpit doors as a classic example of government waste—of looking in the wrong directions for threats that never came. The better security works, the less we appreciate the need for it. The more effectively we are protected against harm, the less gratitude we feel to our protectors."

This argument would be much better settled if these were the measures adopted. Instead we get the TSA. Regulations like "don't open cockpit doors" or "make things bullet and knife proof" are much less intrusive and freedom-protecting than the TSA or other behavioral traps.