Dear TSA,

It’s been a tough week for you, TSA. The report that came out recently showed that 95% of the time you failed to find contraband items (including fake bombs and some seriously large knives) when members of the so called “Red Team” posed as passengers and tried their best to get items past you. My favorite part is when an alarm went off when one of the undercover agents went through with a fake bomb strapped to his back and then you failed to notice it on the pat down.

Now, many people are reeling from this information, TSA. But not yours truly. I fly all the damn time and I can assure you that I am in no way shaken, scared, or upset with this news. Before you start smiling and thinking there’s someone on your side, you should know that I’m saying these things because I already thought you were worthless. From performing invasive pat downs on toddlers (no, the other one) to really dumb rules about bringing liquids on planes (taking this through security isn’t allowed, but bringing all of these, at once, in my carry on is) I have never thought that the work you do has provided for the safety and security of the friendly skies.

Worse than that, you only seem to be capable of keeping a watchful eye on who’s bringing cheese and butter through the security line and completely fail to notice, say, the rest of the airport’s property. This brings me to the point, TSA: I know you’re worthless. I know you don’t prevent dangerous items coming through security any more than a really amped up metal detector would, and I know that taking off my shoes is just stupid. But I don’t think that matters.

I don’t think it matters that you’re not an actual law enforcement agency. I don’t think it matters that at any given time there are 30 TSA officers milling about while there’s only one security line open and 500 angry travelers waiting. I don’t think it matters that I once went an entire year with a forgotten box cutter in my laptop case and no one ever said anything about it.

It doesn’t matter because people need to feel like they’re being protected. They need to feel like something is being done to prevent some awful incident occurring on the flight they’re about to get on. They need to feel safe. Regardless of whether or not they actually are safe, they simply need to think they are. Why? Well, Agent K said it best. “People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it.”

So keep doing your thing, TSA. I’ll drop the $50 and get myself in the Pre-Check program so I don’t have to go through the ridiculous task of taking off my shoes. You keep employing hundreds of people to solidify all those Urban Dictionary definitions. With any luck, people that wear these will think they’re safe and not pitch a fit when you tell them they can’t take their Mountain Dew through the security checkpoint.

Love,

Elijah

P.S. In the interest of fairness, here’s your latest blog post detailing the stuff you actually did prevent getting through the security line. Of course, once you’re through the checkpoint there’s nothing stopping you from assembling a weapon from the things you can purchase on the otherside.