There was no justification for the shooting suspect, Paul Ciancia, to gun down three TSA agents on the job, killing one. Ciancia’s brutal rampage, though, should not obscure the fact that the TSA has perennially pushed many Americans to the breaking point.

In 2010, TSA speeded up deployment of its whole-body scanners in the wake of pervasive U.S. government security failures that permitted a young Nigerian to board a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with 80 grams of powdered explosive in his underwear. The agency claimed that the new scanners were necessary to protect against powdered explosives, but the Government Accountability Office warned that it “remains unclear” if the new scanners could detect such threats.