I always find this anti-TSA rhetoric hilarious.

You do realise that EVERY country has a TSA equivalent with almost exactly the same policies and procedures. And yes some of it is security theatre but most of it isn't.

This doesn't agree with my experience at all. I've had flights in the US, England, Spain, Bahrain, the UAE, Japan, and China, and the US is by far the most invasive and tedious.

I think it's unique to the US that you need to take off your shoes, thoroughly empty all your pockets and take off your belt, get scanned by the new RapiScan things, and throw away your bottles of water (well, I've experienced that in some of the other countries, but not all).

I'm curious what other people's experience are like. Taligent's comment caught me by surprise because my international airport experience has almost invariably ended with, "wow, that was refreshingly painless. I wish the US was still like this".

My experience was the same. I flew in India, China, Australia and UK last year, and I didn't have to take off my shoes or worry about liquids (except they would so secondary screening for liquids in the boarding areas on US bound flights).

US however was the only place where I could leave my 11" Air in the bag.

I live in Spain and do domestic flights quite a lot (although, high-speed rail is looking better for me every day… 2h30 from city center to city center vs a 1h20 flight plus the train from and to the city, rail is sometimes better), and I always follow the same procedure: take off my watch, empty my pockets, remove my belt, get the tablet/laptop out and put everything in a tray with my backpack on top of it.

I've been asked several times to remove my shoes when those shoes were 'high' shoes, ie. covering a bit over the ankle. Now every time I fly I make sure to have the right shoes, and start removing stuff before arriving at the checkpoint. It does't take long to get past security (I've done under 5 minutes), but still I have to get half-naked and often checked. And it's annoying. HSR (and leaving the VIP lounge, already included in the ticket which has a very reasonable price, ten minutes before the train leaves) is so much better. And just walking past security without having to get half-naked, that too (get your bag through the X-Ray to see if you're carrying something huge and dangerous and that's it).

Actually, it is all theatre. Here's a recent comment with lots of citations that sums it up: http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/zjxc8/passenger_not_al...

That comment is kind of pointless.

Millions and millions of passengers are screened every year and so of course there are going to be lots of stories about airport security making mistakes. What you need to show is actual statistical evidence which I haven't seen any to date.

And of course it isn't just theatre. In 2011 over 1000 guns were confiscated by TSA and I am sure everyone can agree that guns do not belong on a plane.

You've left out vital context: how many guns were confiscated in 1999 or 2000, before the new security procedures? Also, of the guns confiscated at airports, how many were detected because we took our shoes off, gave up liquids, or had an electronic strip search performed?

I flew out of Mumbai shortly after the 2011 bombings. They didn't make me take off my shoes or take my water bottle.

The stuff that happens once you're on the plane is fairly universal, but the stuff that happens at the airport security check certainly isn't.