Nine years ago this morning, it was a beautiful, crisp, sunny day. Just like it is today. Visibility was 20/20.I was in New York, over at the NBC studios, sitting in the green room of the Today show and about to go on the air.

Suddenly, Matt Lauer, then interviewing author Richard Hack, interrupted the interview as the director cut to a wide shot of the World Trade Center, the North Tower already smoking.

“It appears that a small plane has hit the World Trade Center,” he said.

I watched the screen, saw the amount of the smoke, and bolted downstairs to the control room. “Whatever it was,” I told the producer, “that was no small plane.” As I was standing there, explaining my reasoning, the second plane flew into the South Tower.

And America changed.

In the nine years since 9/11, it can be argued that America is now a safer place because we have not suffered any similar tragic attacks. But my argument is that the absence of an attack can never presume the presence of safety.

The events of 9/11 created one of the largest federal bureaucracies in history, the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration. And in nine years, despite all good intentions, both agencies have been fighting the last war, reacting to threats, and not anticipating them.

What’s worse, their reaction to threats has had no real basis in common sense, and has served to make our air travel experience an avoidable ordeal.

Remember Richard Reid, the shoe bomber? Yes, he was thankfully caught and subdued on board an American Airlines flight before he had the opportunity to detonate his sneakers. The TSA reaction? We now have to take our shoes off before going through the screening machine, and put the shoes on a conveyor belt.

Reality: If we took Reid’s exact shoes today and put them on the conveyor belt, the system could still not recognize plastic explosives.

When British authorities arrested a team of suspected terrorists and claimed they were attempting to mix chemicals onboard flights to make bombs, the immediate reaction was to ban all liquids, aerosol cans, moisturizers, peanut butter, jams, jellies, even breast milk on flights. I somehow suspect this was a conspiracy of pharmacies and convenience stores.

Then there was the underwear bomber last Christmas. The immediate TSA reaction? Passengers weren’t allowed to get out of their seats during the last hour of a flight. No carry-on bags were allowed of any kind. Not even books. You couldn’t even have a blanket on your lap.

I suspect that if the would-be bomber had sung “Mary Had a Little Lamb” before trying to detonate his bomb, the TSA would have then made it illegal to sing nursery rhymes.

The unspoken reality here as that true airline security happens BEFORE a flight. It has nothing to do with putting a few federal air marshals on selected flights. With few exceptions, they all sit in seat 3B, read Tom Clancy novels, wear Dockers and try to “blend.” Want better security on flights? Put air marshals in uniform and put them in the front jump seat, facing towards passengers.

Airline security has nothing to do with taking away tweezers. Or making us take off our shoes.

It really has EVERYTHING to do with training your front-line security personnel to think intelligently, to make decisions based on intuition and street-savvy discretion. Sadly, the TSA doesn’t do this. Instead, they take their front-line screeners and turn them into nothing more than robotic morons.

Before 9/11 airport and airline security was nothing more than a psychological deterrent against truly disturbed people. Since 9/11, security has been an attempt to make people who don’t fly very often feel better. but those of us who do fly very often KNOW better. This isn’t security. This is bad interactive theater. As the comedian Lewis Black says, they might as well hire mimes to do this job.

On international flights, security personnel are still asking robotic questions, which any would be terrorist can handle, even if English is a problem. All the terrorist needs to know is Yes, Yes, and NO. Why? Because we’re always asked the same three questions: Did you pack the bag yourself. Has it been with you all the time? Did anyone give you anything to pack in your bag? Yes, Yes, and NO, and you’re good to go.

Once again, moronic.

Don’t even get me started on the shipment of air cargo and the U.S. mail in the bellies of the very planes we fly.

And so, on this ninth anniversary of one of the darkest days in America’s history, the government can certainly be proud of the numbers—no fatal attacks at U.S. airports or on U.S. airlines.

But we should not feel secure that the people in charge of our security are really thinking ahead of the game. The fact remains that most terrorists are not well organized. And they’re stupid. And, thankfully, we’ve been lucky.