Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are security theater and they were only put in place because the guy in charge of what scanners were allowed at US airports happened to have a financial interest in the company that made the millimeter wave scanner. Yup. I have been to many airports in Africa and SE Asia that have only a metal detector, manned by someone who barely cares enough to stand there, and no one has successfully committed an act of te…
To be fair, the threat model of those countries doesn't include terrorist hijackings. You will surely experience a thorough screening in Israel or Frankfurt. Every major U.S. airport I've been to in the past 5 years has had ample bottle filling stations.
I think Israel is special, because they use behavioural profiling on you as well.
I've been through Frankfurt on an inter-EU flight, and we were put into the priority lane because things were quiet. The priority lane only had (has?) a metal detector, no body scanner.
So if the body scanners were really about security, why would they have a lane that allows you to bypass them completely?
I once flew from Frankfurt to Barcelona without anyone checking my passport (I am not European but have a valid residence permit for an EU country). Did online checkin and printed my boarding pass. No checked luggage, and automated boarding pass scanners at the gate. So yeah, really thorough...