The Whole Body Scanner only looks for anomalies not weapons or explosives. The faster and cheaper WTMD in conjuction with ETD can do the same job. Throughput would improve with no loss in security.

Remove those checks that serve no real security purpose (ID, shoes, water, body scanners).
Replace body scanners with random ETD/ETP.
Make screening staff actually work rather then stand around playing on their phones. (My last time through JFK T8, I counted 8 staff operating 2 lanes, while another 13 TSA staff stood around the checkpoint area doing absolutely nothing useful.)
Stop looking for items that have no relation to their job, eg drugs. TSAs job is to search for and prevent WEI from entering the secure area. food, water and drugs are not weapons or explosives.
TSA knows weeks to months ahead how many flights will be operating from a given secure area at a given time. They should roster staff accordingly.

Most airport security checkpoints around the world need 3-4 people to run each lane. There is no reason whatsoever that TSA needs as many staff as it does to run so few lanes.

https://www.tsa.gov/travel

Just because a rule isn't properly enforced at one time, or at certain locations doesn't mean that it shouldn't have been. Plenty of info on the above pages links to get all you need to go through security.

The link you provided is not showing rules.

Care to cut and paste all the TSA rules? It would be welcomed.

To address your earlier complaint, where on your linked page does it say that cell phones (which do not have enough metal to set off the metal detector) cannot be in your pocket when going through the metal detector?

Still looking for the rules, enforced or not.

My cell phone certainly does. Evidenced last week when my lane abruptly switched from "Precheck" to "Precheck Lite" (while IN THE LINE at the appointed moment that precheck "closed"), and I had to scramble to get my laptop and freedom baggie out immediately in front of the belt, forgetting my cell in the process.

Not directed to me, but here's one:

Here's another:

That last part of the second rule is good, because it defines "interference with the screening process" in an appropriately limited way - you can't block the movement of the clerk.

But is either of those rules actually followed or enforced, and when you ask a clerk about these rules, do they admit that they are in fact rules?

OH, found another rule!

Does anybody know if that rule is followed or enforced? Stacey Amato? Anyone?

Please note that neither of the rules on 3-1-1 exemption or breast milk adds this to their narrative:

What does a WEI look like on an xray compared to water you might believe is water or cheese or peanut butter or tooth paste etc?

Yes get rid of TDC.

If there is an x-ray question then visual inspection/ETD should resolve the issue. Freeing up the worthless TDC would add people to screening duties.

The clerks misinterpret this rule all the time. It means the TSA as an agency has the final decision, but the clerks think it means their decisions, based on ignorance of the rules, establish new rules. Those rules I quoted are the rules, and if clerks got fired for violating those and other rules, screening would be faster and smoother. There's no rule that says TSA clerks can conspire to falsely imprison a passenger and deliberately cause her to miss her flight, and it shouldn't have cost the taxpayers $75,000 to get the TSA to admit that.

I think you are referring to Amato TSA fiasco. What burns me is that in one video there is a TSA suit, which suggests some management type, standing outside of the glass box and doing nothing. That person should have been terminated on the spot along with all other TSA employees at that checkpoint.

Flying out of OAK to SXSW saw fully staffed and fully pax-empty PreCheck, while I waited in the longest, slowest line I've ever been in. Clerks uncommonly courteous though.

Flying back from AUS, saw fully staffed and fully pax-empty PreCheck, airport chock full of pax, but lines were small and moved quickly. Clerks as efficient and courteous as I've seen anywhere including overseas.

The solution has been discussed on the TS&S board ad nauseum, ad infinitem, ad miralkirkum, for the last six years, almost on a daily basis: pre-9/11 screening coupled with additional use of ETD swabs, removed prohibitions on liquids, gels, and aerosols, re-allow small sharps, and for the love of all that is holy, strip the badges and paramilitary trappings away from the screening workforce and dress them in polo shirts and khakis. Also: Publish the entire SOP for screening instead of making it SSI - ANY rule that a passenger must follow should also be clearly published, and followed to the letter by TSA itself, to provide 100% consistent treatment and behavior at every c/p, in every airport, regardless of size, location, workforce demographics, time of day, or phase of moon. Hallelujah! Holy $#!^! Where's the Tylenol!?

I've forgotten my phone and had it alarm the WTMD. Of course, this was way back in the early 2000's (around 2003 or 2004), so the WTMD may have been an older, more sensitive model. Or my little LG VX6000 flip phone may have had more metal in it than modern smart phones, but I doubt it.