If you take a look at his article, he makes a few basic arguments that at least some of the measures are targeted at keeping explosives off of planes and seem reasonably sensible.

For example, take the shoe check. Richard Reid came pretty close to blowing up a plane, but for a flight delay (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid_(shoe_bomber) ). He kind of prominently proved out an approach, and since the goal of the TSA is pretty obviously not having a plane blow up, they instituted a visible countermeasure to that approach.

So: I don't agree that every measure instituted by the TSA is completely ineffectual, at least in theory.

That being said, you do raise a good point about the allocation of resources. I have to admit having much less sense of what is and isn't being done on the cargo side, if only because I only experience air travel as a passenger.

Do you know much more about cargo security? What measures would you institute?

Bruce Schneier's got a pithy hard-to-argue with summary: "Cargo that is loaded on to passenger planes should be subjected to the same level of security as passenger luggage. Cargo that is loaded onto cargo planes should be treated no differently from cargo loaded into ships, trains, trucks, and the trunks of cars."

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/cargo_security...