diff --git a/sys/kern/kern_auth.c b/sys/kern/kern_auth.c
index 396b6167970d..e370758a80d6 100644
--- a/sys/kern/kern_auth.c
+++ b/sys/kern/kern_auth.c
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-/* $NetBSD: kern_auth.c,v 1.17 2006/08/20 15:05:14 christos Exp $ */
+/* $NetBSD: kern_auth.c,v 1.18 2006/09/02 20:10:24 elad Exp $ */
 
 /*-
  * Copyright (c) 2005, 2006 Elad Efrat <elad@NetBSD.org>
@@ -701,6 +701,10 @@ kauth_authorize_action(kauth_scope_t scope, kauth_cred_t cred,
 	if (cred == NOCRED || cred == FSCRED)
 		return (0);
 
+	/* Short-circuit requests when there are no listeners. */
+	if (SIMPLEQ_EMPTY(&scope->listenq))
+		return (0);
+
 	/*
 	 * Each scope is associated with at least one listener. We need to
 	 * traverse that list of listeners, as long as they return either