New Delhi, March 22 -- For the roughly 50,000 people screening passengers and luggage at airports across the United States every single day, the past five weeks have amounted to an extraordinary ordeal. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers have been reporting for duty - standing at conveyor belts, operating body scanners, managing queues - without receiving a single dollar in return. Their first zero-dollar paycheck arrived in mid-March, the consequence of a government funding lapse that began on 14 February, when Congress failed to agree on financing for the Department of Homeland Security.

The human cost has been immediate and visible. More than 300 TSA officers have already left the agency since the shutdown began, ac...