There is no consistency, and they don't care.

The most recent time I flew was the first since before 9/11. On the way out, the lines were huge, but it was uneventful.

On the way back, the screener refused to let me walk through the arch wearing a nylon passport pouch around my neck. I had worn it outside my shirt on the way out (to make it easier to get at the passport), but this guy insisted that I put it on the conveyer belt to go through the X-ray machine. I politely declined, saying that the only things in the pouch were cash (a few hunded bucks in 20s), my passport, and a credit card, and I wasn't letting it out of my sight. He insisted again, louder, and I just said "no". He then looked at me for a few seconds without saying anything, then told me to take it off of my neck and put it in my pocket. I did so, and then he let me step through the arch. He then told me to take it back out of my pocket so he could hand-search it, even though the metal detector had come up with nothing. He ignored the passport and credit card, but counted the cash. He didn't examine any of the bills, he just counted them.

This sort of petty harassment has nothing to do with terrorism.

One lady at the same gate said that she had a run-in with them, and they "neglected" to return her driver's license. When she went back to ask for it, they denied having it- smirking the whole time, to make it abundantly clear she'd never see it again.

I turned down a job recently that would require some travel just for this reason- I don't want to deal with it, and I hope enough people will just refuse so that it might finally dawn on someone that you just can't expect good people to pay serious money to be treated like convicted criminals.

If that takes more airlines going out of business, so be it.