Keeping the skies safe?

The newest lapses in airport security were revealed in testimony before Congress.
From the Washington Post
From USA Today

This is from the Post article:

TSA Administrator Kip Hawley minimized the threat posed by the GAO’s homemade bombs, which were developed with a national laboratory and a Washington area law enforcement agency and videotaped blowing open a car trunk and door in a test. He said the TSA is oriented toward defeating attacks powerful enough to down airliners.

“We can’t be squeamish and say, ‘Oh, my goodness, they brought some firecrackers through and put it in the trunk of a car.’ We need to stop all things, but we have to focus on what truly does us harm,” Hawley said. “I mean, my pen can do ‘severe damage,’ “ he added.

What a charmingly flip answer from the head of TSA. The small exception here is that they weren’t firecrackers. It was an explosive device powerful enough to blow open the trunk of a car. I have to assume that that would do some major damage to a plane.

Now do I expect them to catch everything? Of course not that would be silly. But TSA, it seems to me, has been slow in upgrading security at airports especially in the area of new technology. It just seems to me they always seem to be playing catch up.