Full disclosure....yes your Honor, I was a TSA screener.  (audible gasp from gallery and jury)   I joined from the very beginning of the TSA when it was disclosed that our local 'regional' airport would soon come under the purview of the TSA.   Since recently retiring from the Armed Forces after 23 years, this gave me a chance to get back into the game yet stay 'home'.  After going through the long, long, process of selection, then training, I was assigned with the rest of the 'original 110 screeners to our 'regional' airport.  On the surface, it seemed good and professional, the quality of this group was top notch, one I thought, I would love to have opened a business with because this whole group was a get the job done and get it right group.  First hiccup in the system was when another screener (and Veteran) and I were at the XRay machine and one of the 'new' managers for our airport group showed up.  He was going to start running 'test' of the screeners ability to find 'contraband'....you know dear reader, the dreaded finger nail clippers favored by terrorist....he was much younger than us, he himmed and hawed, looked left and right at the XRay machine, then finally turned to us and asked....'how do you operate this?' 
   At the end of the first year, there had been already a few who exited the employment of TSA, a few who had slipped through the cracks who found out....and a few who had vision and saw what was coming.  We experienced the mother of all testing fiasco's which resulted in a re-grading of many screeners who went from full time to being marked as part time workers.....another Fed Guv program gone bad.  This action resulted in a huge exodus of personnel.  A second 'crop' of screeners had been brought on board half way through our first year to augment the growing list of exitee's.  After the second year, working on the front lines, causing an elderly woman to 'cry' while 'doing my job', and all of the many 'changes' to protocol and policy, I too began to look outward for a new realm of employment. 
   Two fine points struck me.  One was that the TSA was becoming the most paranoid of organizations, where we were forced to persecute our own, family, friends, well known local business people, retired military Flag Officers, it did not matter...everyone was under suspicion of being a terrorist or possibly...being coerced by Al Qaeda in their homes to suddenly become mad bombers and boarding jets with nasal scissors or 007 walking cane gun.   Then there was those pilots and air attendants who flew in the previous night, then flew out the next day....really had to watch them.  Bear in mind....this was under the Bush Administration......where at the time, many of those mid level Guv Civil Servants who made up the TSA were Clinton years hold overs......
    At year three I found my freedom ticket in a new job.  By the time I left, nearly 70 percent of that original 110 screeners had quit and moved on with their lives for various reasons, most of them for the same reasons I had.  You can find stories such as mine probably at every airport that has TSA, I know, I've read many on a TSA Screener website.  Another little story I would like to relate to the incompetence of our entire system of security.  I was doing baggage checks near a Delta counter, I watched a white van pull up to the Delta area entrance in a 'no parking' zone.  A tall obviously 'muslim' male of Middle Eastern descent, middle aged got out, walked up to the counter line, waited for a few people,  got to the counter, then after a few minutes of what appeared to be tense discussion, walked away, met an older Muslim male, white beard, both of them wearing the white muslim garb we see them trekking to Mecca in,  they argued a bit, then got in the van and sped off.  While trying to do my job and screen a large load of bags from a lone line of people, with two other screeners, I asked myself as my head swiveled back n' forth....did anyone else see this over 6 foot 3inch besides myself and not think....hey maybe, no, it couldn't have been......not here, not under our noses......the cops weren't reacting to the van, my 'supervisors' weren't reacting, no other screener seemed to be reacting....their heads were buried inside of bags so I cut them some slack.....Delta counter agent didn't seemed fazed......I guess I was just profiling a bit too much that morning. 
    Which leads me to the recent rash of updated 'enhanced' pat-down personal space violations.  The TSA I see has gone way beyond paranoid into the realm of subjugation by circumstance, and the one size fits all solution.  This is Federal Government out of control, this is what the Founding Fathers warned us about, this is National suicide on steroids.  Sometimes you need an outside opinion from someone with experience.  Sometimes we don't see our own faults, until we end up sitting in an unemployment line, divorce court,  jail cell, hospital room, or psychiatric ward.   Then someone tells you that all the signs were there but we failed to see.  But now, hind sight, is 20/20. 
    We need to swallow our pride, step back, and ask Israel, okay, how do we do this like you whom has been successful.   And we need to tell the ACLU, CAIR,  Unions, and anyone else with a beef about real security....to go pack sand, because we're done making our Grandmothers cry, our cousins wet themselves, our young nieces cry at the thought of going through a check point.   Enough is enough. 
    Get the Israeli's help, downsize TSA to an just watchdog for private companies.  Use those 'naked' scanners and enhanced pat downs on those who warrant it.....but not as a primary method for all passengers.  Can we get something right for a change??