Items of different density show up differently on the scanner.
An ace bandage or articles of clothing wouldn't look like an explosive.
Look at the liquid explosives plot - do you think the TSA screeners would catch any of that ? If you do you have a higher notion of their intelligence than I do.
I think you just have no idea of how the technology works and are therefore making incorrect assumptions about how such materials would be detected.
I'm trying to be polite, but your lack of understanding of how such things work combined with insulting the intelligence of the TSA screeners makes it difficult.
Knowing what to look for on the scanner does require some training so they can do it quickly with a minimum of false positives, but the screeners don't have to be geniuses because they get a lot of help form those who design the scanner use what information the scanner can gain about items along with pattern recognition and other algorithms to point out things for the operators to look at more closely.
As for abusing the scanners to look at people naked... Take a look around the airport next time you are there. Personally, I wouldn't want to see the vast majority of passengers naked, and while some are pleasant to look at, the novelty would wear off pretty quickly for the vast majority of people, and they have to do their jobs relatively quickly to keep the line moving.
If it becomes obvious, it will get noticed and can be addressed. The other TSA agents aren't going to be amused by some idiot holding up the line and causing a stir among passengers to look at particular passengers.
There will inevitably be a few idiots that will prove to those around them that they need to be fired, there always is even if their is a reasonable employee screening process.
There will be far more complaints by self important travelers than there will be actual problems.
The media will latch onto complaints and minor problems and make them sound like they are horrible and unacceptable trespasses on people's rights and dignity. They always do.
I flew from San Diego to Phila last year with a male friend. We were pulled aside to have our bags checked out for further scrutiny - 2 middle-aged WASPs. Our bags were checked in San Diego by a man who barely spoke English. The man spent 2 minutes on my friend's bag. When he checked my bag he held up my underwear to the light to look at them, ran them thru his hands a few times, felt up my bras and other underwear, and ignored obvious items like a hair dryer and an electric toothbrush. He spent over 10 minutes on my bag, dropped some of my stuff on the floor, and made a mess of everything - all in full sight of the public passing by. I complained to an airport security supervisor that the guy must have been trained at Victoria's Secret - I certainly felt the guy was getting his jollies on fondling my underwear.
That's VERY unusual. After they decided to do additional screening on you and your bags did they use the explosive detection equipment and did it happen to turn up something the felt they needed to investigate more?
This usually involves rubbing the bag or items in the bag with a cloth patch and then having equipment analyze the patch for traces of chemicals that may indicate the presence of explosives.
If the contents of your bag came in contents with some chemical that was getting flagged by the explosive, and if that chemical got on your clothes they could have been trying to figure out if some form of spilled chemical was causing what was being flagged, or if they needed to tear your luggage apart looking for a bomb, or call the bomb squad.
In the absence of that, I don't know how there could be a valid reason for them fondling underwear, and if that is the case you may have run across someone in the TSA that needs to be fired.
The TSA screens millions of passengers a day. Problems are extremely rare considering the volume and the number of employees, but if you do run into a TSA agent that does something inappropriate, make a complaint and make sure that you provide details and names.
Get the picture ? Pretty soon they'll just have us leave our clothes in our checked baggage and fly nude.
I travel a decent amount, and some of the people I work with travel a lot. While you may have had a genuine bad experience that needs addressed, the TSA deals with millions of passengers daily, and the screening process generally goes smoothly and quickly.
We are no safer with any of this crap - we need profiling like El Al does.
El Al is an airline, not an airport or airport security agency.
Israeli airport security do use profiling as one of the many tools they use to increase security.
They also screen passengers and luggage more throughly than we do on top of their more through profiling, so you're argument doesn't make any sense.
They also have well trained people who ask passengers questions and try look for signs of deception or nervousness in how they answer. They have additional screening procedures, and they use different screening methods to detect some things.
But they don't skip the process of trying to detect banned items, they add additional screening methods on top of it.
I have good reason to be skeptical of TSA employees - I encounter quite a few on my travels.
And yes, I know El Al is an airline - all airlines used to be responsible for airport security before the TSA came along, remember ? The difference is, El Al feels free to do what is necessary to keep their passengers safe, whereas the TSA feels the need to be politically correct and profile only those who statistically have never carried bombs aboard airlines - you know, children and grandmothers. Tell me - what is the reason my 16yo blonde very cute daughter gets physically searched every single time she flies ? Every time. You may think I lack intelligence on the technology, but I think you lack intelligence on the type of personnel who man the security areas as well as their inane procedures.
If TSA scanning personnel miss identifying things in carryon luggage now, what makes me think they'll be any better with any other piece of equipment ? If you say the software is better, why is it not better on the things they do now ? I'll tell you why - it's the same reason the FAA is still using 30 yo radar software at some airports - it's a government procurement problem as well as a lack of attention to priorities.
I never said we shouldn't add detection capability - that is your misunderstanding. I said the type of personnel that is now employed by the TSA is incapable of using it effectively. Good intentions don't trump ability, and the will to screen those who actually intend or are likely to cause us harm is notoriously lacking at our government agencies.