> My point is that security can never be strict enough to catch someone who's truly motivated and funded, without making it impossible to admit people at a reasonable pace, and the current rules don't really help with that except for cutting down on the riff raff terrorists.
This is the classic HN developer arrogance and oversimplification, but let's accept this as true for argument's sake. It turns out that "riff raff terrorists" are the only ones we needed to stop as there's been no successful bombings of Western airlines in 25 years, and there have been foiled attempts.
The existence of master locksmiths (and door breaching charges) doesn't mean you shouldn't lock your door at night.
Literally none of these were foiled by the security circus we all have to go through.
If anything, they are evidence that serious attempts are foiled by intelligence services long before the perpetrators get anywhere near an airport, and the others were just incompetent idiots.
Nonetheless, I hope you recognise that incompetent idiots beget more incompetent idiots, if they think they'll get away with it. You don't want e.g. a spate of bank robberies, by idiots who've heard that rubbing lemon juice on your face makes you invisible to cameras. It doesn't matter that they'll get obviously get caught, the problem is a spate of idiots attempting bank robberies (because they're filled with confidence they'll succeed) could easily get people killed.
I don't like security theatre either, and clearly the whole thing is a job creation program and an excuse for vendors to sell flashy scanner devices. But you need visible deterrents, even if most people know they're theatre.
They also act as reassurance for idiots who wouldn't fly otherwise. Idiots' money spends just as well as clever people's money, and there's a lot more idiots out there than clever people.
Because we live in a society with a free press, we have the chattering classes asking "what can we do about this threat?", and government is expected to respond. People don't like to hear from the politician "you're idiots, we don't need that, you are no less safe if we do nothing", they like to hear "we're doing XYZ to address this threat, how clever and wonderful you all are, dear citizens, for recognising it. Your safety is my top priority", then we get the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
This is the classic HN developer arrogance and oversimplification, but let's accept this as true for argument's sake. It turns out that "riff raff terrorists" are the only ones we needed to stop as there's been no successful bombings of Western airlines in 25 years, and there have been foiled attempts.
The existence of master locksmiths (and door breaching charges) doesn't mean you shouldn't lock your door at night.