As with all matters regarding governments and corporations, they will take as much power as we are collectively willing to give to them. When they hire TSA personnel from who knows where, many from the former private security companies, and pump them full of false notions concerning the American public and flight crew members it created a situation where friction is inevitable. TSA folks right off the street, are given power over flight crew, which in many locales have their own reason to hate you (mostly because of your success and their failures up to now), and bingo. Plus the kicker here is that to start, they make more that new hire pilots and will get a pension funded by the taxes that you and I pay!

The confrontations should happen but with TSA supervisors, and written complaints. Yes everyone here is absolutely right about the utter stupidity of many of their procedures and bans, but the place to take the fight is up the chain. We also have associations that are working hard to change the system and make it a real security system.

I witnessed an American Captain that handed out 4th Amendment Cards while being wanded, and he recited the 4th during the process.

"Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

All I am saying is be careful. Right now they have all the power and are fairly ingnorant people without much education from my experience. My crew and I were once told while being wanded in BOI that this is what we got for "crashin them airplanes and killin them folks!" I asked for a supervisor, and they could not produce one, and they had no complaint/incident forms either. However I did file one online which never got a response. This was in 2002. I have seen pilots held for an hour or more after a confrontation so be careful and take an incident like this to a citizens organization that deals with this stuff.