There have been lots of stories about TSA abuses throughout the agency's history. I wonder if some of the media outlets are going back through old tips and stories that they originally dismissed now that this is a hot topic. It seems that even on this board, many of the anecdotes being posted were actually discussed a year or two ago, but they are re-surfacing as a large crowd of people unfamiliar with the issues hear the stories for the first time.

I think what you are seeing now is a LOT of people coming forward with stories of abuses from the past few years. People who thought, "Oh it was just me" or "It was just one jerk screener" or "I'll be forbidden from flying if I complain" are now realizing that the problem is pervasive and is getting worse.

For the vast majority of Americans who fly less than once a year, travel is stressful and confusing. A bad experience at the TSA checkpoint is equivalent inconvenience to the flight being delayed or canceled due to weather or the display listing the wrong gate so you have to run a mile through a crowded terminal. If you fly on a regular basis, it is easier to differentiate between "stuff happens" and "a pervasive pattern of abuses and absurdities". I think that since FT is a board for frequent fliers, we are more alert to anomalies and abuses of the system, so searching back through historical threads in this forum will yield a lot of information.

But to answer your question, "what is normal?", every time an attack has been attempted, TSA responds with increased 'security' measures. Shoes and liquids were inconvenient, but I think that three things in the recent past have really upped the stakes:
1) The court gave some sanction to TSA's 'administrative' searches in US v. Aukai, and TSA has interpreted this as a blank check to ignore the Fourth Amendment.
2) The Christmas/underwear bomber gave TSA/DHS a black eye - there were more red flags on that guy than a used car lot, but he slipped through TSA's 'layered security'.
3) The Obama administration is afraid of looking 'soft on terror', so they are overcorrecting - ignoring/facilitating the increased encroachment on civil liberties. (I'm not 100% sure on this one, Obama also seems to have a fundamental belief that government should reduce risk for its citizens so that may have a role here.) In any case, he appointed Janet Napolitano, and I think most people on the TS&S forum would say the TSA has become noticeably worse during her tenure.

ETA: I think that TSA will moderate their current 'most offensive' behaviors until some of the political dust settles. For example, I opted out today, and received a very polite and professional patdown, back of the hands used around breasts, the groin check stopped when her hand brushed the top of my inseam - definitely no contact or pressure on my genitals. They were accommodating about letting me watch my stuff; they had me waiting outside the WTMD while they located a female TSO, and I asked if I could walk through to keep an eye on my stuff and they let me.

The only hassle was when a partially toothless TSO informed me that I shouldn't have been allowed to go through until they found a female agent, and "if they had known I was opting out, they wouldn't have let me put my stuff through the x-ray". It seems like there is always one TSO who feels compelled to get a few digs in while everyone else tries to be polite and professional. But I also think the toothless guy was correct: that TSA is trying desperately to avoid the 'double opt-out' scenario by describing the patdown thoroughly and obtaining 'consent' before you enter screening.