Pedantics. The suggestion that full body scanners and effective pat downs provide no (or little) additional security over the status quo is difficult to believe.
I'm guessing the same people critical of this policy criticized the previous one for being easy to circumvent.
Of the zero successful terrorist incidents in the last quarter-billion US flights in the past 9 years, how many would this technology and procedure have stopped?
How much money do we need to spend to prevent these zero events from occurring in the next 9 years?
And how much did extra was spent on preventing the third of a million motor deaths that occurred during the same period?
There is a huge lack of rationality in the middle of this issue for far too many people. The spending and procedures are way out of proportion to the risks, quite apart from how poorly allocated the spending is. The guy who used to run the TSA (Chertoff) now works for the guys selling these machines.
So we should keep security the same until something terrible happens? Or should we continue to improe security based on new information and technology?
What's irrational is to assume because nothing has happened in the last 8 years (successfully anyway) that our current measures are adequate for the next eight.
Part of the problem is the lack of overall risk assessment. The OMB has pointed out that the TSA does not have way to judge how best to spend resources. As a result, we have ever increasing levels of passenger screening (focusing on the same threat model is like "keep security the same", right) while we still after 9 years don't have things like 100% cargo inspection (remember, the printer cartridges were flying as cargo) and no screening of ground crew.
The irrational part isn't that we assume our current measures are adequate. The irrational part is the changes we're making have no rational basis, little public input, and any public objections are responded to with "we can't go into the details in public because it's too sensitive," which is a very non-democratic answer to something which affects so many people.
Actually, they provide less security when used to replace, rather than supplement metal detectors. You can conceal a (sheathed) knife or (very small) pistol within your anus, with lube, patience, and some not inconsiderable discomfort. Neither will be detected by body scans, though they would be apparent to metal detectors.
They are superior only in the very specific case of explosives or ceramic knives concealed under clothing.
