Ah, well, she clearly hasn't been trained in the new technology yet. @:-)

You and I, not being TSA employees, might foolishly assume that someone could just tell the checkpoint staff "we're installing these new wobulators to scan passengers for soylent green" and that would be that. But that just shows how naive we are.

Let us never forget that this is an organization that had to train its staff when they changed the rules from "shoes in the bin" to "shoes on the belt" (and back again) (and then round in circles for a while). This is an organization that trains (and retrains, and re-re-trains) its employees to recognize a Nexus card. An organization that is still re-re-re-training its staff (except for the person in your photo, apparently) that photography IS allowed at the checkpoint. Most importantly, this is an organization that delayed allowing little pointy things through the checkpoint because it had to allow weeks to train its staff to allow little pointy things through the checkpoint. (By which time the policy had been attacked and cancelled.)

So no doubt over the next 6 to 9 months, the staff in HOU will get the appropriate training on what the heck those things are.

And you will feel so much safer, because the next time you ask, she won't say "I don't know. " She'll say "I can't tell you."