I guess most people know, at a gut level, that the way TSA is operating is preposterous, but can't quite explain why.

Let's look at what would happen if your local police department tried to ensure public safety, law and order operating under the same "standard operating procedure" that TSA is embracing.

Hypothetical: Police are told that a Black man in his fourties robbed a local bank. (We could say white, asian, middle eastern or norweigan for that matter)

Police, like TSA, locks down the community and proceeds with "absolutely no profiling" door to door, frisking and interrogating CHILDREN, OLD LADIES, ASIAN MEN, BLACK TEENAGERS, whites in their twenties, bedridden, crippled, other cops, etc. to try to process everyone in the town to RULE THEM OUT, ONE BY ONE as the bank robber.

This ties up every one of their officers who are unable to spend their time actually pursuing the person who robbed the bank (who gets away) and utterly infuriating the residents who are told to expect further such invasions of their rights without warrant or probable cause daily, under the new SOP, as other crimes occur. They are told,"hey, if you don't like it go live somewhere else".

THAT in analogy is what TSA is doing wrong. It is easier to see the STRATEGIC fallacy when you propose the local police operate the same way as TSA.

Actually it is worse than that. It is as if the police are searching everybody in town looking for the NEXT bank robber.

Been making that same point for some time. In a time where taxpayer's money seems to be forfeit for ANYTHING to which the magic incantation "security and safety" is attached, the feds are wasting BILLIONS with methods that are monstrous overkill. They are hunting ants with cruise missiles.

The only flaw in your analogy is that no one actually committed a crime at the airport.

In some communities, crime prevention is an important activity.