I definitely went through 6 or more security "things" on Saturday. I don't know that I'd call them security 'checks', but...
Firstly walking into the airport, where all bags are X-rayed and all passengers go through metal detectors (#1)
Next in the check-in line a lady checked my passport, and checked that I had a US visa. I'm not going to count this as it was cursory at best.
Then the usual checks before check-in, where they scanned my passport, asked some questions, etc, and then finally put the first of what would become 3 stickers on the pack of my passport. (
#2 )
Next check-in, but no real security stuff there.
Then off to security (#3) and immigration.
At the gate there were 2 separate checks of who-knows-what where i gained passport stickers number 2 and 3. The second check was very cursory for me, and I think was actually the equivalent of
#2 above for connecting passengers (#4 and
#5 ).
Then, whilst lining up for the physical checks they collected everyones boarding passes (in groups of about 10 people) and went off and did something with them. I'm not sure what, but given how long it took them to return it obviously wasn't just crossing them off a list. (#6)
Then the full shoes-off, bags open, explosives swap checks (#7)
Maybe that's 4, maybe it's 8 - depending on what you count. It does mean I had to line up 11 separate times (including immigration, everything above, and then dropping off my electronics at the gate) from when I arrived to the airport to when I boarded the plane. In fact, the only place I didn't have to line up was to actually board as they had already boarded everyone in the gate area by the time I got through the lines!