>Online security is poor for the same reason airport security is. Good security would take enough time and money to make the whole thing economically unviable.
Airport security in the US is poor because the policies are a series of politically convenient patches applied to a broken system. In Israel, where the threat of terrorism is far greater, their airport security is both much more effective and much less invasive. Why? Because it was designed to work, from the ground up. They don't hire legions of idiots at minimum wage or close to it to do their security. They hire ex-military and ex-mossad people to surveil travellers. They have highly-trained people who know how to spot potential terrorists, and multiple layers of security (usually just someone saying hi and engaging in light chatter) that catch the vast majority of problem people before they get anywhere close to an airplane.
The US system is expensive, invasive, and ineffective. That doesn't mean airport security in general is doomed to fail, it means the US is incompetent at it.
Airport security in the US is poor because the policies are a series of politically convenient patches applied to a broken system. In Israel, where the threat of terrorism is far greater, their airport security is both much more effective and much less invasive. Why? Because it was designed to work, from the ground up. They don't hire legions of idiots at minimum wage or close to it to do their security. They hire ex-military and ex-mossad people to surveil travellers. They have highly-trained people who know how to spot potential terrorists, and multiple layers of security (usually just someone saying hi and engaging in light chatter) that catch the vast majority of problem people before they get anywhere close to an airplane.
The US system is expensive, invasive, and ineffective. That doesn't mean airport security in general is doomed to fail, it means the US is incompetent at it.