This guy had to be brain-dead, or in a worse case scenario, he probably didn't even have a brain and therefore was working for TSA.
I am convinced we would do better with a voluntary draft for airport security screeners. We could have a small nucleus of full-timers, backed by part-timers who would be drafted.
I think law school students would be excellent candidates. They would have some idea of the theoretical conflicts of individual rights and public safety, and their educations would be expanded by excperience in a practical application.
They could do this as an on-the-job training assignment. Lawers, like doctors, have to perform a certain amount of internship, so why not make one of their choices the TSA. And they would probably get better pay and damn good on-the-job training.
A big problem with today's screeners is that the job is stultifyingly boring, leading to lax attention, and is tolerable as a career only by the brain-dead.
They could do this for a number of years which would be recognized as part of their pro bono cases. It would improve the system, save billions of dollars and do away with a vast horde of government parasites.
However, it would probably also make too much sense to be implemented.