It’s time to end TSA’s strip-and-grope protocol

What will happen, he asks, after the first time a terrorist smuggles a bomb on a plane inside his rectum or in a breast implant?

There was a time, not too long ago, when that would have been a comedian’s witty one-liner. Now, it sounds more like the future rushing upon us.

If you’re one of those who has basically decided that any indignity is merely the price of safety, consider that so far, it has been airline passengers and on board crews who have prevented tragedy … not the federal government.

It’s time to return the responsibility for flight safety to the airlines and the passengers — who have thus far deployed the only effective countermeasures anyway. It’s time to end the TSA’s strip-and-grope protocol before it becomes so commonplace and accepted that we forget it was ever objectionable. In the memorable words of President Obama (on another topic), it will become “the new normal.”