Screening Protests Grow as Holiday Crunch Looms
nytimes.comAs any security expert knows, a chaotic checkpoint is a security problem. "If terrorists can anticipate that, it gives them an opportunity" to try to evade various layers of security by creating an incident for diversion, Mr. Pistole said. "And what would this do for travel plans for Thanksgiving? Are people going to miss flights because there are long backups, because other people are protesting?"
This just sounds like fear-mongering. Even if people miss their flights, it's the TSA that should be blamed not the protesters.
It's all fear mongering, and I would not be surprised if the "enhanced" pat downs are just an intimidation tactic to get people to use the scanners without complaint. The timing of the rollout of the new pat down methodology seems like a response to the negative feelings about the scanners.
Various TSA agents have explicity said off-record that the patdowns are an attempt to force people to use the backscatters.