I think you're misguided here. I certainly do understand the viewpoint that this security theater is harmful (and agree, actually). But lets be honest: The TSA has nothing to do with "Scaring the sheep" and everything to do with "Politically acceptable jobs program".
Way too many soldiers coming home from our senseless oversea wars? Great - put them to work "Guarding" our airports. Super convenient that all states have airports that will "need" these jobs, so it's easier to pass than targeted jobs programs that would actually be useful.
By the way, shepherds don't scare sheep, wolves do. Shepherds corral sheep. Sheepdogs harass sheep, triggering their herd instincts by raising the specter of the wolf in their minds. Sheepdogs are used by shepherds in order to herd sheep to where the shepherd wants them 'for their own protection' and his use.
But to make the point less metaphorically, the intention isn't to scare people, but the effect is to herd people efficiently, by reassuring them through fear. The fear we feel when we have our hands in the air like criminals to be screened is transferred to the fear we assume those who would harm us must feel and we assume the deterrent affects them, too. The dog that nips our heels will surely chase off the wolf. That effect (efficient management) is itself desirable and so the preservation of that effect becomes another motivation of the system.
I do know that the job requirements are basically:
1. US citizen
2. High school diploma
3. 18+ years old
4. Pass drug/background screening
For the pay, the job requirements are very low. They also follow the "Veterans preference" practice during hiring. This is actually pretty typical across many government jobs (See https://www.usajobs.gov/).
My experience with trying to apply to these jobs (admittedly second hand, watching my wife apply to meet grant-related conditions) is that if you're an honorably discharged veteran, your resume goes into bucket #1, and if they can fill the position from that bucket, they won't even look at bucket #2, which is public applications.
https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/features/2015/12/01/tsa-looks...
Who is this administration?
How do you see digital health passports as having infinitely more possibility for govt mischief? Right now TSA has the ability to treat you like a criminal if they think you looked at them funny.
The health passport "mischief" seems more along the lines of "you don't have vaccine X, so you can't board the plane." While potentially problematic, that's kind of the end of it. It becomes a no-fly list, but one where you can actually control your status on it.
Putting that aside, it's fairly obvious given the human taboos concerning disease that if you have a mechanism for flagging a person as non-compliant with a health policy, that person is effectively tagged as diseased by implication. This is a convenient way to unperson members of a political class who are non-compliant with the policy (e.g., for personal/political/scientific/ethical/religious reasons). You needn't eliminate the enemy when their opposition to your power is embodied in their non-compliance. You merely need to make them compliant to eliminate their opposition.
However the comparison to TSA is not apt. TSA threat model is: One "terrorist" (though I'd call them "premeditated mass murderers") executing its plan is the total failure. For the vaccine requirements, the threat model is much different. Even if you just don't bother with any of this stuff on %5 of flights, it will still have a great impact in reducing the frequency of aerospace super-spreader events.
Sars-CoV-2 infects a lot of people every day, whereas there are many, many days in a row where no terrorists bother to board a domestic flight.
[0] https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/michigan-father-wrongly-...
But, the less obvious reasons surely include maintaining the function of the huge TSA security apparatus put in place after 9/11. The stated function of the TSA is to protect passengers from attack. The unstated (and unacknowledged function) that has perpetuated the practice despite every traveler hating it (and its obvious futility), is to intimidate travelers and provide a convenient mechanism of crowd-control. Step out of line (literally) and you will be treated as a potential criminal. There needn't be an official policy to do so, the benefits of the system ensure its continuance via other (stated) motives, not least the profit motive of the supporting economic interests. The upshot is that travelling via plane in the past 20 years is one of the many small lessons for living in the security/surveillance state. You must obey. Moreover, we see the logic of the security/surveillance state incorporating this convenient control mechanism by now restricting (or implicitly threatening to restrict, which is even better) the travel of domestic antagonists of power. If we had discontinued taking off our shoes, the symbolic effect of dispiriting and weakening the public (literally making us vulnerable in our unshod feet) would be unavailable now. Why would the administration willingly relinquish such a useful tool for managing the population? Of course it wouldn't. It would we more amazing if it had.
Now, we will likely add further controls on travel in the form of digital health passports with infinitely more possibility for government mischief. When/if the pandemic ends, do you believe the passports will be discontinued?