Slashdot Mirror
TSA Pats Down 3-Year-Old
3-year-old Mandy Simon started crying when her teddy bear had to go through the X-ray machine at airport security in Chattanooga, Tenn. She was so upset that she refused to go calmly through the metal detector, setting it off twice. Agents then informed her parents that she "must be hand-searched." The subsequent TSA employee pat down of the screaming child was captured by her father, who happens to be a reporter, on his cell phone. The video have left some questioning why better procedures for children aren't in place. I, for one, feel much safer knowing the TSA is protecting us from impressionable minds warped by too much Dora the Explorer.
In Vietnam it was common to have children carry bombs to blow up troops. Pathetic, but common.
At Israeli checkpoints it is not unheard of to have children carrying bombs or to have explosives strapped to them.
There is no question that the scenario you have presented has already happened and needs to be dealt with in some manner.
The problem is that it isn't being dealt with in an effective manner because to be effective you would have to involve profiling and really delaying people while they were interviewed.
You could eliminate the "radical Islam threat" by simply having a guy with a plate of bacon at the checkpoint - you eat or you don't fly. The rest you could probably eliminate by checking luggage - they aren't looking for suicide just mayhem.
No, what they are doing isn't useful.
Yes, its ridiculous that we're being subjected to this kind of bullshit.
Yes, the fucking reporter should teach his fucking kid to behave and that throwing temper tantrums will get you a swift response. I promise you, my daughter would not behave like that in when she was that age.
The only thing truely evil about this particular video is the kids behavior. The TSA crap is bullshit, but theres nothing damning about the TSA here, its just a video of a kid throwing a temper tantrum because someone took her teddy bear away for 15 seconds.
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Reading the slashdot summary, my first thought was, "This has setup written all over it". I mean, the kid is throwing a tantrum, and the parent doesn't order the kid to be quite and walk "over there" (i.e. through the scanner) and you'll get your teddy bear back. Then, the parent "just happens" to be a reporter.
I'd almost be willing to stake money that the reporter set this situation up, perhaps even *coached* his 3-year old, to create the situation he wanted so he could get the video he wanted.
I'd also just like to echo the sentiment that someone else posted - if you accept that such searching is legitimate for *anyone*, then you must accept it for *everyone*. You cannot make exceptions, because as soon as you do, "The Terrorists" will figure it out and use a member of whatever 'exempted' groups you allow to pass screening. It doesn't matter if someone is an 80 year old white person, or a 3 year old baby, they can be exploited. In the case of babies, it not be completely implausible that a terrorist might use their own babies to smuggle something in through screening (after all, they don't have to put their baby on the plane that they're gonna blow up - they just need to get material in through screening; I wouldn't even completely put it past a real hard-line terrorist to sacrifice their own kid, although I'd find that scenario less likely than just using the baby as a mule in the airport).
As for anyone who is older, anyone could potentially be exploited - say a terrorist group kidnaps some old white church-lady-from-Ohio's (who you wouldn't suspect of ever being involved in terror) granddaughter, then tells the grandmother that unless she does exactly what she's told, her granddaughter will disappear forever and become a sex slave who's beaten every day for the rest of her short life, or murdered. I suppose some people might have the courage to resist the terrorists in that case, and tip off the TSA, but I bet there are some people who'd decide to try to 'protect' their granddaughter, even if that means other people die.
By the way, just by making the *decision* to exempt any group, you give the terrorists an incentive to specifically target that group. By not exempting anyone, you are protecting everyone to some degree.
We tried that, back in 1860... the Fed government didn't like it, not one bit at all...
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I don't agree with all this, but some people need to grow some fucking skin.
It's not like they blackjacked her and had a gangbang before stuffing her in the luggage compartment.
Seriously? She was shaking for several hours, and woke shaking the next day? Someone's got some deeper psychological issues in play than TSA "sexual assault"
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