TSA, Congress to review screening procedures after pat-down of 6-year-old girl

[The Northerner]

The Transportation Security Administration and one of its sharpest congressional critics are vowing to review air passenger screening procedures for young children amid an uproar over a video of a TSA screener giving an enhanced pat-down to a 6-year-old girl.

The child’s mother, Selena Drexel, said on Wednesday that her family was in the New Orleans airport last weekend returning to their home in Kentucky when the pat-down occurred. A TSA agent is seen in the video brushing the back of her hand along the child’s back and carefully inspecting around her waistline.

The incident, recorded and posted on YouTube by the girl’s parents, prompted critics to label it as another example of TSA’s aggressive security tactics.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a leading critic of the agency’s passenger screening policies, called the incident “another example of mistreatment of an innocent American at the hands of TSA.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tsa-congress-vow-to-review-pat-down-of-6-year-old-girl/2011/04/13/AFZD9LYD_story.html

[subterranean]

1. Yeah, I saw that video.

I wonder what criteria they use to select a six-year-old for an "enhanced pat-down"? Is there any criteria? Or is it totally random? :shrug: I suppose that information is secret.

[LisaL]

3. Of course it's secret. Otherwise terrorists could figure

out how to avoid enhanced screening. Dah.
:sarcasm:

[Poll_Blind]

6. Bingo! This really is the $64,000 question.

Now, I watched the video and I have to say that the TSA agent performing the pat-down appears to have done the "enhanced pat-down" perfectly and professionally.

The real question is...why is the TSA giving an enhanced pat-down to a child?

Because if this sort of thing is truly random, it's absolutely fucking ridiculous. Really. If there was some sort of probable cause, I'd like to fucking hear what it was.

I don't think it's psychologically-appropriate for a stranger to touch a child like that unless there is some goddamned good reason for it.

PB

[jberryhill]

7. It is random precisely because of the 4th Amendment precedents in this area

There isn't "probable cause" to even use a metal detector at an airport.

A metal detector is itself a search.

This poses a dilemma. Either you eviscerate the Fourth Amendment to nothing, or you say that, as an administrative proposition we are going to send everyone through the metal detector. The "administrative search doctrine" was developed to apply in situations like airport searches and sobriety checkpoints. You can search everyone or a statistical sample of everyone. What you cannot do, under the Fourth Amendment, is to select people for searching based on hunches, race, how they are dressed, age, etc. Because when you start selecting people for search based on less than either reasonable suspicion (Terry v Ohio) or probable cause, THEN you have thrown the Fourth Amendment out the window.

[Sonoman]

8. My neighbor's daughter is six years old and has Downs Syndrome

She gets the total treatment every time.

Sonoman

[CreekDog]

15. Because TSA gives the total treatment to the different and the disabled

feel safer yet? :eyes:

[gateley]

2. It's the TSA that needs to be held accountable -- and those (including Obama)

who are promoting the x-ray or frisk policy. I saw the video and I thought the agent didn't like it any more than we did, but she had to do her job. We've put those people in a damned if they do, fired if they don't position. America. :eyes:

[villager]

4. actually, if enough agents refused to carry out the on-the-job fondling

things would change in a hurry.

But, you know, "we were only following orders."

[gateley]

9. It would take a concerted, wide-spread effort for them to do it as one. I think

you're being a bit harsh on people who are desperate to keep their jobs assuming they just shrug it off with "only following orders". She may have felt awful doing it. What would you do if you were in her position?

[villager]

11. well, all things being equal, and me being me, I would refuse to do it

...if I were in her position. Or I would have waved the girl through.

Saying "I have to do wrong things because everyone else is" is just another excuse.

Which brings up the question: What would you do?

[gateley]

12. I think that I would have told my supervisor I didn't feel comfortable doing it,

and if I was threatened with my job, it would depend on my situation. Single mom, if it was job/not feed my kids, I'd do it as unobtrusively as possible, and talk to the little girl trying to calm her and I'd also talk to her mom. If I didn't have to worry about supporting anybody else, I'd walk. But we don't know what situation that agent is in -- it's not a cut and dried, right/wrong decision, IMO.

And again, I think you're being too flippant about the "excuse" when we don't know if that's this particular agent's attitude. She could have thrown up on her break. OR, maybe it didn't bother her, but we can't pass judgment on all people without acknowledging that there are individual circumstances that contribute to a person's decision. Even me, one person, I realize depending on what I had to lose, who was depending on me, would determine my actions.

[villager]

13. well, good start, considered answer. It's not being "flippant," btw.

It's ultimately how things change - when those charged with propping up a sclerotic, dehumanizing system decided finally... to stop propping it up.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. It's not our fault if Americans have no appreciation for the theater.

Security Theater, that is.

[gateley]

10. The good thing is that they're going to "review" and I hope to God that means

"change" their policy.

If they didn't, seriously, what would keep a terrorist (local or foreign) from packing their kid w/explosives and offering up both their lives for "the cause" (whatever that may be.

On the other hand, I think we're the only ones concerned w/airport "security" -- I think the 'real' terrorists have moved on. We're late to the party as usual.

[Nye Bevan]

14. A 6 year old girl, traveling home to Kentucky with her family, after a vacation in Louisiana.

I can't think of *anyone* who is more likely to have explosive devices in their pants.

[OneBlueSky]

16. hey . . . all those de-frocked priests need work too, ya know . . . nt

:sarcasm: