You should do some research before you say such things. Bruce Schneier is one of the most knowledgeable, analytical, technical security experts in the world, and has been so for over two decades. His work in cryptography is unsurpassed. And his criticism of the TSA is entirely consistent with my experience with the TSA, and the experiences of many others.

I stand by my claim that shoe removal requirement is ludicrous. It symbolizes the TSA’s inability to perform relative risk assessment *from the point of view of the traveling public*. It fails to take into account the inconvenience and time lost to all of us, in return for which we get “protection” from a highly improbable and low-impact event. It also fails to take into account the heightened sensitivity of air passengers to unusual behavior on the plane, and the fact that we’d pound the snot out of an attempted shoe bomber. In fact, isn’t that what happened to Reid?

By “Long term, we need to fix that,” Schneier may be suggesting that the property right in data about a person should be held by the person to whom the data pertain (drawing on Cheryl’s phrasing).

While the statement may be appealing on the surface, it leaves a large range of issues unsettled and I think it is unlikely to be the best division of rights. I’m more in favor of the current status quo division of rights, which I take to allow both parties a (non-exclusive) right to any data they collect about the transaction. Of course, parties should be free to negotiate other allocations of property rights in any data collected from prospective transactions.