Well, at least he was honest with you. No different than a bartender being forced to ask a 70 year-old for ID proof that they're over 21. Someone in charge of policy has indeed determined that their employees are, as a group, too stupid to apply common sense and make decisions based on their own judgement; so a set of unwavering parameters is instituted to take the human factor out of the equation.

As we all know, from the moronic Kip Hawley "interviews", that Kippie was "told by some scientists that volatile chemicals in amounts less than one quart would not pose a threat to aviation."; so the TSA then figured that if they limited the amount of liquids pax could bring on board to "as many 3oz bottles that can be stowed inside a 1 qt. ziplock bag with the zipper zipped, that the immutable laws of physics would then say that the total volume of liquid inside the bag could never be >1 qt."; and then they could hire anybody to do the checking, without having a degree in physics or mathematics; and we would all be safer for their efforts.