The only thing TSA should screen for is bad attitude

Having spent a while last week hand building some loud speakers from wire, glue, paper (or plastic) and some magnets it occurred to me that there are many other things you could easily hand build from basically unrecognizable parts. While I was winding the speaker coils with wire laid out across the floor I started thinking about tasers or some other high voltage potentially lethal weapon made from little more than basic electronic components you might find in say, a laptop, and a minimum of the "sharp pointy" or "volatile explodey" type stuff TSA is usually looking for.

Not that I have any intention to take stuff on a plane but I'm constantly amazed at how easy such things could be done, and how TSA is basically like a dog chasing a gopher from hole to hole, and that homeland security is really just a myth, albeit a very expensive myth, put there to make us feel better.

No really what TSA need to be scanning for is bad attitude - they let air marshals and pilots on board with guns - what they did there is carefully screen those holders for bad attitude. Then they could let all the guns, knives, homemade weapons and tasers on board and no one would ever use them because they don't have bad attitude - heck we could even let little old ladies take knitting needles back on planes again!

Even then it is possible some person could devote his/her life to attaining a position of trust and then do something bad. There's not a lot you can do about that - supposedly trusted people go bad and do bad stuff all the time, heck sometimes it is not even a conscious act, they just go crazy.

In the mean time while they are inventing the "bad attitude" scanner (see "The Truth Machine" for a fictional study of effectively the same device) perhaps they should just arm everyone, or send everyone naked, or send everyone anesthetized - you get to choose.