Paranoļa and nationalism...
...are close neighbours.
That's a reason to avoid joking about supposed american qualities/shortcoming when evaluating these non-sense regulations.
It seems to me that you can imagine Al Qayda last victory is they have made TSA, FAA, USA official lose all sense of realities, because they are afraid of a no-face ennemy, with no central headquarter, lose organisation.
The reason seems to be found in an unadequate security organisation, an excess of computer and a lack of manned intelligence services.
Just after 9/11 laws were passed in USA which are a danger for democracy....passed because Congress was frightened.
Now, after useless invasion and killings in Iraq, and the following increase of terrorist actions, they are more and more afraid, so they will lose control again and start some other stupid kind of policy.