On Wednesday morning, I queued up at the assigned gate at Dulles Airport to board a flight to India. I was distractedly checking work emails in the line, so it took me a while to realize that the routine boarding pass scan at the gate was actually something different.

“What is this?” I asked, when I got to the front and saw what looked like a newfangled camera.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent did not reply to my question. Instead, he just told me to stand and look ahead, she…