In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also contained a bottle of water. The screeners at Albany International confiscated the water bottle but missed the bomb.

Last October, the Star-Ledger newspaper of Newark, citing unnamed federal security officials, reported screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport flunked 20 of 22 tests, including failing to detect bombs and guns in luggage at checkpoints. The TSA responded to the report by launching an internal investigation in which federal employees were interrogated about whether they had leaked the results, the newspaper said.

The sweeping, judicially unchecked powers granted under the Patriot Act should neither have been created in the first place nor permanently renewed thereafter, and the Act - which also contributed to the ongoing contretemps regarding the replacement of U.S. attorneys, by changing the appointment process to invite political abuse - should be substantially modified, if not scrapped outright. And real, rather than symbolic, responsibility should be assigned for the manifold abuses. The public trust has been flagrantly violated, and meaningful accountability is long overdue. Officials who have brought into disrepute both the Department of Justice and the administration of justice as a whole should finally have to answer for it - and the misdeeds at issue involve not merely garden-variety misconduct, but multiple "high crimes and misdemeanors," including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He sees no inconsistency, just as we cannot see our own inconsistencies even though they are strikingly clear to everyone else," Tavris said. "He is protecting one of his own, but his reasoning is consistent with the way the mind works to preserve consistency."