The consequences of another terrorist attack far outweigh the consequences of going through the airport security line, but many air travelers seem to think otherwise. Their protests over the full-body scanners and enhanced pat-down searches present at several dozen United States airports has swayed the Transportation Security Agency into testing new software that will purportedly make the security process less invasive.

The new software, installed into the body scanners at three airports on Feb. 1, removes the clear, detailed images of naked human bodies that were partly the reason for the public outcry, replacing them with cartoonish figures. The software also allows travelers to see the image at the same time as the TSA employee screening them: a green screen when they’re cleared, a red line across the screen when a metal object appears.

While these changes are likely to appease travelers—at least the ones objecting to airport security because of privacy issues—the TSA is forgetting that it serves travelers best by keeping them safe from terrorist threats, not by keeping them happy. These threats, homegrown terrorism in particular, are on the rise, according to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano’s Feb. 9 report to a House security committee. So the TSA shouldn’t be fixing old technology for the sake of better public relations. It should be trying to explore new ones.

After all, how else is the TSA supposed to find a bomb in the britches of a would-be terrorist? The X-ray machine and the metal detector used before the body scanners and enhanced pat-downs were not able to notice the plastic explosives that the alleged Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had strapped to his underwear when he boarded a flight to Detroit, Mich., on Christmas Day of 2009. His bombing attempt, which failed only because the explosives didn’t detonate properly, is largely the reason the TSA implemented the body scanners into 78 U.S. airports over the following year.

These cartoonish scanners might not stop terrorist acts before they happen, either. Because no one since Abdulmutallab has tried to blow up a plane in U.S. skies, there’s no way—short of a terrorist getting through security and taking down a plane—of knowing whether the scanners are truly capable of doing their job. That’s why the TSA looking into alternative means of securing the skies is so vital. These other kinds of technology have the potential to bolster airport security, as well as make it a more favorable process to U.S. travelers.

In the meantime, the body scan technology is the best option for the TSA to use and for travelers to accept. Many have trouble accepting it, though, because they don’t see the point of everyone, even grannies with knee transplants, giving virtual peep shows to strangers. But forcing all airplane passengers to go through body scanners is necessary for two reasons. First, if the TSA screened only random people for explosives, it’d most likely face accusations of racial profiling. Second, just about anyone could be a terrorist these days.

As Napolitano said in her speech, U.S. intelligence agencies have noticed that terrorist groups inspired by Al Qaeda are recruiting people who, like Abdulmutallab, don’t look or act like terrorists to instigate attacks on U.S. soil and sky. Consequently, the threat of an attack is as high as it has been since Sept. 11, 2001.

So, until the day the TSA brings in new security technology to enrage travelers, the granny with the knee transplant will have to keep stepping through a body scanner. It’s the only way to ensure that terrorists won’t hide explosives in their underwear—to ensure that, next time, they don’t even make it on the plane.