Re: Follow the money
If you make security, however fake, then someone will pretend its real and build a security empire around it. Zapper Drone training, certification, special operators, registration etc etc etc. All trying to deflect away from gun-control.
An example of this: Schiphol airport bought the porno scanners, and the swab testers for its security scans. So now security uses them on everything. Absolutely everyone gets their naked body scan, and almost everyone gets their bags swabbed.
Last time I went through (and it will be my last time), a kid's bag went through x-ray, and placed on the "to be inspected side", of which about 60% of bags were being sent, at least 1 bag per person. A security operative opened the bag, pulled out the suspicious item (several pads of post-it notes), and insisted on swabbing them anyway, new gloves, wipe wand with cleaning swab, change gloves, fit pad end to swab, swab, place in machine, wait,....
It takes them 2-3 minutes to get each passenger scanned, so even with 10 lines, they cannot fill a jumbo jet in an hour.
If they didn't have the swabs, they would simply put the post-it notes back in the childs bag, but because they have this tech, they insist on using it.... for security. Build their little empire.
Likewise the next mans bag, he left a drink in there, one of those clear plastic drink-can things. When he realized, he apologized and reached to put it in the bin, but no, security has a new drinks scanner, and insisted on scanning it.... wait.....
We arrived at 7:20am, for a flight 11:10 and barely made it through, lots of passengers did not, they closed the gate, unloaded their baggage and we set off half an hour late. Barely making our connection.
Schiphol was not busy, but it fails to function as an airport for those people now.
You make "security" measures "for the children" and mal-intents will build their mock security empire around them.
Schiphol airport sells a fast-pass now, its called Privvium or something similar, you get to jump the security que for around 230 euros/year. So perversely they have an incentive to make the system worse and sell more security fast-passes.
Just before security is a large holding pen where people are all bottlenecked together, a large target for any terrywrist. You wait for hours in a large packed group. Oh, and no toilet there.
In asian airports (Bangkok, KL, Singapore), they *sample* suspicious items through the scanners. Reasonableness prevails. Airports still function as airports, but not so Schiphol.
I guess UK is having the same problem as Schiphol from the news.