Skill level of new air marshals in doubt: The government has cut training for federal air marshal applicants and put new hires on flights without requiring the advanced marksmanship skills the program used to demand, USA TODAY has learned. [...] TSA officials acknowledged Thursday that they no longer require applicants to pass the more difficult shooting test that some argue was the program's critical requirement. The government considers the marshals, who fly incognito, a critical deterrent to hijackings. Current and former marshals say the advanced training helped prepare them to fire accurately in the close confines of passenger jets. They and others within the TSA say agency officials, under pressure to meet congressional deadlines for hiring, are lowering standards to get marshals aboard more flights quickly.

Oh, good. I feel ever so much more secure now, don't you? No fear at all that incompletely trained people might, oh, say, puncture an airline wall because they hadn't been trained to fire accurately enough. (Or, more worryingly, might accidentally puncture me.)

The TSA says that it's not true. The current and former air marshalls say that it is. I think, somehow, that I believe the people who are, shall we say, testifying against their own interests. After all, it may not be terribly difficult for people in the TSA to figure out who some of these current and former air marshalls are, especially if they've been vocal about this problem within the agency itself.