I was within 50 feet of an armored car guard getting his brains blown out. The perp was gone with the bag before anyone knew what was going on (except the bank employee who was in the act of unlocking the glass doors to take the delivery). To my knowledge, the murderer was never brought to justice.

I think we can agree that we have a problem with airport security. Maybe federalizing it would make things better, maybe it would not. I haven't heard any other well-defined suggestions, though.

Private enterprise is a wonderful tool, but there are some things it is not very good at. It is certainly not a magic wand that will solve all problems.

Your suggestion that they move the employees from the airport to the airline is interesting. I wonder, though, why the airlines would feel pressure to do a good job that the airport would not. Seems to me that Boston is getting just as bad a rap as United would have, had United been in charge of security. In other words: why didn't the market forces work in the current arrangement?

Something else about your suggestion: an aweful lot of security is currently in the hands of airlines. And there has never been a prohibition against airlines adding any security measures that they deemed necessary. These market forces have also always been in effect. Why didn't they work?