No arm of the government has taken more grief from Atlantic writers, more often, over a longer period of time, than the Transportation Security Administration. Naturally I think that the criticism -- from Jeffrey Goldberg, from me, from Bruce Schneier and others in guest essays -- has been perfectly reasonable and fair. But it's conceivable that TSA officials would disagree. Recently John Pistole, the new (since July) Administrator of the TSA agreed to an interview. Two days ago, Jeff Goldberg and I went to his office and spent a little under in an hour in an on-the-record interview.

The transcript of the discussion is here, and Jeff Goldberg's initial account of the session is here. The transcript is long, and later today I'll say more about some of the points Pistole made (and finessed) about what the TSA is trying to do.

For the moment, a bit of atmosphere. Jeff Goldberg and I allowed 20 minutes for the taxi ride from the Atlantic's office to the TSA office near National Airport; arrived in eight; and loitered for a while as government contractors, with badges, waited to get cleared into the building. When our turn came, naturally we had to go through a security screening -- standard in government buildings these recent years. There were familiar rubberish trays, just like at an airport, with a conveyor belt to send them through an x-ray machine. (Disappointingly, the screening was by a contract security service, not by TSA's own blue-shirts.) "What do I have to put in the tray?" I asked. "Pretty much like at the airport," the young woman doing the screening said.