by TChris

If you've flown out of LAX recently, you've probably wondered why you have to stand in a ridulously long and slow-moving line just to hand your checked luggage to a TSA employee before moving to another ridiculously long and slow-moving line to be screened before you can enter the boarding area. You may be longing for the good old days, when the counter agent simply tossed your checked luggage onto a conveyor belt, and you may be wondering why TSA isn't screening your luggage when it comes off the belt instead of clogging the lobby with more slow-moving lines.

The answer: it seemed like a good idea at the time. But it turns out that the long wait in line doesn't assure that your checked bags are actually screened.

Because the machines were installed under tight timetables imposed by Congress, they were squeezed into airport lobbies instead of integrated into baggage conveyor systems. That slowed the screening process - the machines could handle far fewer bags per hour - and pushed up labor costs by hundreds of millions of dollars a year. At busy times, bags are sometimes loaded onto planes without being properly examined, according to several current and former screeners.

The mismanagement of security isn't limited to airports. The NY Times reports on the billions of dollars Homeland Security will need to spend to correct the security problems that weren't solved by the billions of dollars already spent.