This is public property, the airport, yes? Is there someone swearing to my crime, as the Bill of Rights requires?? Or am I in fact innocent until proven guilty?

I'm with Thom Hartman & Norman Goldman on this: the entire process is pathetic Security Theatre.

Some of the many reasons this is so flawed:
a) there is no protection from actual terrorism better than stopping aggression in foreign (and specifically Muslim, let's be honest) lands. Canada does not have the 'terror threats' we have. Neither does our other N. American neighbor. Hmm. Why is that? Maybe because they aren't funding Egypt or the continued conflicts of Israel? Maybe because they aren't killing civilians (via policy OR via arms) in Iraq and Afghanistan?
b) the sloppy non-FDA approved xray machines are a danger to much more than you or I: the fact is these poor non-unionized TSA employees are getting irradiated all day (and passengers, of course, are getting it too). Why are they not wearing the radiation detection badges that Every Other Xray Worker in the US has to wear?
c) ineffectual: Did you see the story about the german student who snuck THERMITE through security, along with the means to ignite it? Thermite will fawk up your plane ride a lot more effectively than a gun.
d) Gross and a health hazard: the TSA employees are not required to change gloves between gropes? WTF. The STD that the skirt-wearing skank has earned SHOULD NOT then be smeared on my 8 yo daughter's body.
e) arbitrary and subject to bigotry and sexism: already there's people accusing the TSA workers of singling out well-endowed/shapely/handsome passengers for pat down. Have the TSA workers been screened for sexual crime history or been through sexually-qualified psych evals?

MORE than anything, I wanna know why we aren't using the Trace Portal Machines instead, like they have at the Statue of Liberty, that detect -with science mind you- if you have been handling anything that could be a terror danger:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffer_Machine

thx cedar! (Also add pundit Mike Malloy to that list with Goldman and Hartman - he's been hilarious about it )

Seriously: Trace. Portal. Machines. You just walk through, too, no shoes off/arms up BS.

Someone needs to follow the money and find out why the backscatters were approved and who's profiting most from it. If we're seriously still at 'war' with terror, then these guys are War Profiteers.