There was much rejoicing last month when the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that it had canceled a contract with Rapiscan to supply hundreds of all-seeing body scanners for airport security.

Did this mean that the nonsense of stripping and exposing ourselves every time in airport security was at an end?

There was also perverse happiness when John Pistole, the TSA administrator, refused last year to testify before the House of Representatives aviation subcommittee on the curious grounds that it had no jurisdiction over his agency. Leading blogger Christopher Elliott listened to the general excoriation of the TSA and wrote that "The TSA as we know it is Dead."