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I just stumbled into this forum and find this discussion very interesting. While I'm not exactly thrilled with the airport security theatre experience, I think that there is firm legal footing for most of it.

The paragraph below is footnoted in a 1997 court of appeals decision, U.S. v. Aukai. (No. 04-10226, 9th Cir).

"The Supreme Court has not specifically held that airport screening searches are constitutionally reasonable administrative searches.   On three occasions, however, the Supreme Court has suggested that airport screening searches are constitutionally reasonable administrative searches.   See Miller, 520 U.S. at 323, 117 S.Ct. 1295;  Edmond, 531 U.S. at 47-8, 121 S.Ct. 447(“Our holding also does not affect the validity of border searches or searches at places like airports and government buildings, where the need for such measures to ensure public safety can be particularly acute.”);  Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 675 n. 3, 109 S.Ct. 1384 (approving of lower court decisions upholding airport screening searches where there was no reason for suspicion)."

A more interesting question (to me, at least) is the new "Behaviorial Analysis" pilot program, as it is not directly a search for weapons, so is different from physical or electronic screening.