That's what scares me the most. We can put up with the less intrusive (if you can call it that) scan, but in their opinion, they can say additional screening in needed. In a perfect world, they are just doing their job. But this screening stuff reeks with privacy violation for the sake of safety.
And that's only if they bother to follow their own rules and guidelines. Unfortunately, the TSA is a fairly ineffective organization, with poor leadership and reactive, rather than proactive policies. Combining this with the fairly high annual turnover of front line employees (20%), the use of 'secret' procedures, and the attraction that wearing a uniform and being in a position of coercive authority over others has for certain people, and you have a recipe for a disaster where that front line contacts the public.
Most police and sheriff departments follow IACP guidelines in psychological screening as part of hiring new officers, as hiring the 'wrong' person can be a serious problem for a department from a morale, legal, and public relations angle. That is, you really don't want to hire someone who wants to be an officer for all the wrong reasons.
The TSA doesn't apply quite the same standards to it's
hiring practices (no psychology screen beyond the aptitude test). As a result, the organization is attractive to the folks that are drawn to wearing a uniform and being in a position of authority over others. These folks get hired, along with some other perfectly fine folks, and put on the front line in contact with the public.
The TSA does track violence in the workplace as of late 2007. Now, you'd think that with all those millions of passengers that you'd see the odd violent episode break out.
(Agency spokeswoman Kristin) Lee said attacks and threats against screeners are “rare” and the database has records from about 240 incidents. Most are screeners in conflict with other screeners. About 30 incidents involve people such as passengers or airport workers attacking or threatening screeners, Lee said.
Seven out of eight incidents are between TSA employees.
TSA has
hired quite a
variety of
interesting folks. These folks
may not behave as well as one might expect. One might try to say that a few
bad apples can be expected in any organization, but that's really just a case of slothful induction, as the organization is inadvertently designed to be a magnet for such people.
The most dangerous people you encounter during your aviation experience may be the ones in TSA uniforms.
...
Later, dentist looks in her mouth, says she's fine...no teeth pulled, no xray needed... 
