Oh, the whole airport security thing is theater, no question. It's a charade that does more to leave passengers with the illusion of safety than it does, say, prevent an airport employee from sneaking weapons through the back door.
So yeah, it's a pain in the ass inconvenience for the 10 billion non-incidents to compensate for the one incident. Even if you use a probability-weighted impact analysis, we're spending a lot of money and inconvenience for little return. But I'd go after the shoe thing long before I'd go after the scan-my-nads thing.
Some kids can't even get into schools without having chest X-rays and TB scans. I can't even get into concerts without a pat down and wish I had the option to be scanned. Even kids can't get in some stadiums and events without a pat-down our search. But put it on an airplane, and people act like this was the first invention of this behavior.
Either get the scan, don't fly, or
shut up about it if you don't want the pat down. Some of the biggest crybaby pussies on this issue are on the opposite side than you think.
Of course, Sunday I'm flying to South Africa, where even the scans we do at stadiums in the U.S. are against the civil rights of the constitution there.