I suspect I won't win any popularity contests with my comments, but some people should really get a grip on reality.
There are two separate issues here that some people are trying to merge into one. Don't get me wrong, as I am no great fan of the security screening that we as crew members are subjected to in many jurisdictions. It does seem ludicrous to take a bottle of hot sauce away from a pilot who can use his aircraft as a weapon if he or she is so motivated. And I may roll my eyes when I'm exposed to the minority of security officers who seem to take pleasure in giving us a hard time in front of passengers. But it is what it is, and it's been going on for the better part of seven years now. To whit, it's not like we shouldn't expect it to happen once in a while. The fact that it still stresses some people out concerns me, given that this is hardly the only source of potential frustration we can face on the way to the aircraft. There's a much greater chance that you'll be cut off by some knob on the road on the way to work, than there is that you'll be harrassed by security. And I can't recall the last time someone submitted an MOR for having been cut off on the way to work.
In other words, I am all for lobbying for changes to security procedures to reduce the amount of scrutiny we currently enjoy in some places. Here in Canada, where we have instituted a biometric ID process, we get the third degree far less often than we used to, and most of us like it much better this way. But to try to say that the security process is somehow unique in making us unsafe to perform our duties is muddying the issue at best. Life can be full of stressors, and it's our duty to either deal with them and move on, or to remove ourselves from duty if we feel we can't do so.