Because if he hadn't, you'd conclude that the detector registered falsely. The fact that repeated tests had the same result confirms that the detector is working (or, at least, that it's consistent).

It's an emotional argument to soothe their conscience by asserting that there was a legitimate reason for this to happen.

If you want to see a major part of why the TSA is still molesting, you don't have to go searching for mythical sheeple in far away states - just look at a third of the comments in this thread.

As much as I agree with your first sentence, I find your second offensive with the use of "sheeple." It's a tired perjorative that makes you look like you belong on some tinfoil covered forum.

Eh, that's why I prefixed it with 'mythical'. There isn't one large group of clueless people that need to receive a message - it's that propaganda is so incessant that for every topic, it overloads a significant fraction of critical thinkers and tricks them into supporting that broken system because they crave simplicity.

Also, I had a tinfoil covered basement once. It was pretty sweet.

Ah, my mistake.

I need to rewatch "Conspiracy Theory." I loved how his apartment was rigged.

Most airports have layers of ETDs: Quick and "convenient", but slightly more prone to false-positives at screening, and then expensive, slower machines for secondary screening. In a similar way that a breathalyzer positive might yield a blood test.