I think what annoys me most about this is that it represents an intrusion on everyday life, and that it's not universal. I don't mind the searches at the airport. Air travel is something of a rare event, and so naturally comes with (for me, anyway) rare dangers. And everybody at the airport gets searched, or is supposed to, anyway. But I take the subway every day of the week, which means that it feels as if the searches are suddenly intruding upon ordinary existence- as if they were poking into my car, assuming I still had one. And like I said, they're not doing it to everybody. They're doing it to people with backpacks and large bags, and they're doing it at random among those people, so far as I know. That's no way to inspire a feeling of security. That's how you inspire a feeling of 'we're doing something token, and it's inconveniencing you, and it's intrusive, and you can't do anything about it unless you feel like walking to work, so HA HA BITCH YOU'RE STUCK WITH THE LINE AND THE SEARCH AND THE INTRUSION now turn your head and cough'.