I had the same problem, flying from Hawaii, a few years ago. They wanted to do a “wipe test” on my laptop. I said sure, but I want to see the calibration sheet for the spectrometer. She gave me a very puzzled look. The gal called her supervisor and I told him the same thing. He told me to have a safe flight.
If some prankster wanted to really screw things up at an airport, all he would have to do is discretely spill a bit of gunpowder on the carpet at the airline check in line.
Suddenly ALL the bags would cause the alarms to go off.