Expert: TSA Screening Is Security Theater

(CBS) Even as Transportation Security Administration officials beef up airline security with expensive new technology, a prominent security expert, Bruce Schneier, who has advised the TSA, tells 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl the TSA's efforts are largely "security theater" - a show to make passengers feel safe.

Schneier says truly effective security starts before the airport, with intelligence on terrorists, in a report to be broadcast this Sunday, Dec. 21, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

"'Security theater,' It's a phrase I coined for security measures that look good, but don’t actually do anything," says Schneier, referring to the security measures that irritate airline passengers every day and that have cost billions of dollars.

That assessment angers Kip Hawley, the Bush Administration’s outgoing head of the TSA. "This isn’t theater. This is war," he tells Stahl. Hawley argues that all the security and especially the technical improvements have made people safer. ....