I used to travel for work. 100ish flight segments a year all over the country, typically carrying two laptops - corporate and client.

In one airport, I had a TSA agent yell at me that I'm not allowed to bring two laptops through precheck in my bag. That they had to go through separately. I complied but asked if that was this airport's policy because no other airport seemed to care. She swore up and down that this was national TSA policy and I should know better if I flew so much.

When I look at the TSA's success rates in audits, I tend to agree with the claim that it is more a government jobs program than a security agency.

And, to be clear, it's a crappy job. Get up ungodly early to travel to a work site in the middle of nowhere to shepherd thousands of jumpy/tired strangers* through arcane procedure (possibly in a language that they don't exactly have a firm grasp of) in the hopes of catching the one-in-a-million who has shown up specifically with the intent to kill you and as many other people as possible (or so your training says).

All while gaining basically no transferrable skills.

*Also, a significant portion of these strangers are headed to destinations and experiences you could never dream of affording or having the opportunity to access.