Actually, I'd disagree with this. My mom, who doesn't travel much and gets a little news from locals & CNN, had NO idea about the detail of the scanners or the invasiveness of the pat downs. She had no idea that "touching junk" was actually part of the pat down, even though she did hear about the don't touch my junk guy.

Also, she did not hear (and I am not seeing it widely reported) about the GAO report that said it's unclear whether the NoS could have even detected the underwear bomber, nor is she hearing about the many other security experts that think it's unlikely that neither the NoS or the new pat downs would have detected it.

The TSA is not saving anyone from the underwear bomber, but hardly any of the general public seems to know that.