Folks, I’m inclined to agree with you that AP’s numbers are fishy. I just threw this poll out to see if anyone had any theories as to how they cooked up these figures or what the real numbers are.
The answer is pretty simple - unions. The NLRB has made it ok for the TSA agents to unionize. The timing of the scanners and the feel ups were scheduled to create the proper adversarial relationship between the TSA and the public.
The TSA has scaled back it’s random feel ups to speed up the process, they said, but it is really to avoid the complaints.