Christopher Hitchens in Slate sums up well the folly of the TSA's reactionary and pointless policies, and their inevitable conclusion (cavity searches).

He also points out that if you read the writings of Al Qaeda, it's clear that the way we're handling our security and reacting to each of their (failed) attempts is exactly what they want, and they're loving it.

The authors of this propaganda show a natural talent for psychological warfare. It is, one might say, "part and parcel" of the campaign they slightly unoriginally call "a thousand cuts." But the simplicity of that scheme is as self-evident as its cunning. By means of everyday devices and products, plus a swelling number of human volunteers willing to die and kill, they can strike at will and even afford to taunt us in advance. While we pay salaries to thousands and thousands of dogged employees to glare suspiciously at shampoos and shoes and toners, the homicidal adversary discards those means as soon as they are used and switches to another.

The summary is this, and it's spot on: "The enemy is inventive and imaginative. Our response is neither."