TSA Has 95-Year-Old Remove Her Diaper For Screening

wjcofkc writes "The Transportation Security Administration stood by its security officers Sunday after a Florida woman complained that her cancer-stricken, 95-year-old mother was patted down and forced to remove her adult diaper while going through security. 'While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner,' the federal agency said. 'We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure.'"

Comments

PROFILED

[rainmouse]

Clearly she fits the terrorist criminal profile.

Re:PROFILED

[RogueWarrior65]

Well, ya know, she might be trying to knit an Afghan. *rimshot*

Re:PROFILED

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly she fits the terrorist criminal profile.

Terrorists aren't complete morons.

A white, pregnant Catholic Irishwoman doesn't fit the terrorist profile either.

And yet, there was a bomb in her luggage, placed by her Jordanian fiancee:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindawi_affair

Re:PROFILED

[Volante3192]

And to that I say... 'so?'

People die every day, and in the US it's more likely to be from bee stings than terrorist activity.
Yet we've determined to spend billions to make that a zero percentage. What about those terrorist bees!?

Re:PROFILED

[Anonymous Coward]

So you saying someone would hide a bomb in this woman's DIAPER without her knowing it? :)

Re:PROFILED

[hedwards]

This.

We shouldn't be granting exceptions we should be scrapping the program entirely. 9/11 would not have succeeded had the airline industry not been so cheap as to not pay for the kind of reinforced doors that had been in place in planes flown in other parts of the world. Additionally, had we not banned knives on planes, it's unlikely that the plot would have succeeded either as the terrorists would have been outnumbered.

It's astonishing to me how many people think that another 9/11 style kamikaze jet liner attack could happen that way given the awareness that the hijacker hostage deal has changed and that being quiet no longer guarantees that the situation ends in the inconvenience of being flown to Libya or Cuba. At this point, they're going to just bomb the security check points like they do in other parts of the world, much easier to succeed doing that and definitely enough bloodshed to keep people terrorized for years to come.

Re:PROFILED

[Mr. Foogle]

Terrorists aren't complete morons.

This is true. Which is why TSA has never caught one.

Perhaps we should re-think this whole airport security thing.

Re:PROFILED

[rubycodez]

Terrorists use eight year old kids as vessel for their explosives

Your basis for this is that airplanes are falling out of the sky like hail from children rigged to explode? or that the TSA catches all kinds of children wired to blow? Or, are you a coward living in fear, willing to give up your rights to not be molested and humiliated by TSA who have never, ever caught a terrorist?

Re:PROFILED

[wile_e8]

This.

We shouldn't be granting exceptions we should be scrapping the program entirely. 9/11 would not have succeeded had the airline industry not been so cheap as to not pay for the kind of reinforced doors that had been in place in planes flown in other parts of the world. Additionally, had we not banned knives on planes, it's unlikely that the plot would have succeeded either as the terrorists would have been outnumbered.

It's simpler than that. 9/11 succeeded more due to the mindset at the time than anything that wasn't allowed on planes. Ten years ago, the standard operating procedure for a hijacking was to give in and deal with it on the ground. The 9/11 attackers went after the flaw in this plan, which assumed the hijackers weren't suicidal. Today, even if we didn't have reinforced doors and still banned knives on planes, any would be hijackers with box cutters wouldn't make it two steps up the aisle before half the passengers would take them down.

Re:PROFILED

[fuzznutz]

I'm not sure if I would mod you funny or troll..

The security theater is all about control. Do you think for one second that the administration could have gotten away clean with wireless wiretapping if not for the security theater drumbeats and foolish sycophants claiming they are doing a great job protecting us? We (the US citizenry) are being slowly inundated into total surveillance, control, and servitude by the minions of the government who just can't get enough of that security theater.

Re:PROFILED

[Runaway1956]

Boxcutters are only a credible threat in a population of thoroughly cowed citizens. A nation that teaches children that "it is never right to fight" can expect their children to grow into pansies who are bullied by anyone, and everyone who grows up fighting.

Boxcutters. Yes, of course, in the hands of a trained killer, ANYTHING will become a weapon. But, that boxcutter is simply not a weapon of choice among killers, because it's so easy to defend against. Presuming, of course, that the target has a mindset which permits him to think in terms of defense and offense.

Could've been worse

[Zerth]

At least they didn't break a colostomy bag seal.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/TSA_chief_apologizes_to_traveler_with_ostomy-109990494.html

Independent review needed

[RogueWarrior65]

I love how the TSA says that they reviewed the case and gave a pass to their own people. IMHO, there needs to be an independent review board for bullsh*t like this. That aside, I think the woman should have put a plastic turd in there just to piss them off (you know, because a real one would be gross).

Re:Independent review needed

[Dunbal]

Apparently you're only allowed 3 ounces of poo.

Re:Independent review needed

[cheekyjohnson]

IMHO, there needs to be an independent review board for bullsh*t like this.

In my opinion, the TSA needs to be eliminated completely. They don't appear to be doing much good, violate peoples' privacy, and even if they capture a few 'terrorists', I don't believe that forcing innocent people to be searched is worth it (especially considering the low chances of terrorist attacks in the first place). More security on the planes themselves (such as reinforced doors) is better, in my opinion.

Other sources say ...

[bigjocker]

Other sources say they found some shit

Re:When I'm a U.S. citizen traveling domestically.

[Volante3192]

Yep, and thanks to them, they got to pull off a one time only ever event. Plane hijackings stopped becoming a legitimate terrorist tool as soon as the first tower was hit. (Who came out of 9/11 as the biggest heroes? United 93.)

The fact is terrorists are NOT stupid. They know they can't pull this off again, but they're having a hell of a time laughing at us pissing ourselves to soaking levels every time someone drops a penny at a security line.

Your pussy nature has let them win, exactly what you think you're trying to prevent.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so damn depressing.

Want to live?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't diss bees. They work very hard and then we steal their honey. Also, they don't sting unless they are in mortal peril, or if their hive is threatened. Bees are very docile. Appreciate them, they deserve it.

Obligatory car analogy: people die in car crashes every day. Most of them could have easily been avoided. We don't try to do that, because we feel we have the right to behave how we want in our car. Freedom and all that. Drunk drivers think it is ok to drive when intoxicated, even if they are told it has a higher risk. We still use our mobile phone in the car, even if study after study proves it is rather dangerous. Some cars aren't really fit to be on the road, but does that stop us?

But somehow we feel we should have our genitals groped on the off chance there might be a non-savoury passenger aboard. Even when the drive to the airport is several orders of magnitude more dangerous.

We are a stupid lot, really.

Re:When I'm a U.S. citizen traveling domestically.

[BasilBrush]

The fact that 3000 people were killed on 9/11, ten years ago is not justification for every single action which has the label "anti-terrorism" attached to it.

In the US around 35,000 people are killed every single year as a result of road fatalities. If the same paranoia were applied to this much larger figure, speed limits would be e.g. radically cut and there would be mandatory alcohol and drugs testing before each road journey.

There's a balance to be made between risk and liberty/inconvenience. And the one that is currently being made in air transport security is ridiculous.

Couldn't care less

[L4t3r4lu5]

America is on my No-Fly List, and has been for a good long while.

I can simulate the air travel experience in my own room by pushing my desk chair all the way up to my desk, putting a couple of boxes in front of my legs, and watching DVDs from 8 years ago on repeat. For that added authentic experience, i'll invite two fat sweaty nerds to sit either side of me and flick peanuts at each other. The icing on the cake really is the 45 year old balding rent-a-cop sexually assaulting me at my bedroom door.

Seriously. Never going to America again.

Re:Couldn't care less

[wvmarle]

I'm with you.

I've never been to the US, I'd love to see the place, but this whole flying nonsense is keeping me away from it. Having go through a watered-down version that's in place in the rest of the world (though EU is following the US closely) is bad enough. No interest to visit the source of that.

It's a pity, really, that it has to be like that.

Why did they let her on the plane at all?

[BetterSense]

If they really thought she had explosives...would they have let her on the plane? Of course not.

A lot of people seem to miss this simple point through, I guess, conditioning.

By letting the old lady get on the plane, they admit that they are extremely confident that she is NOT a terrorist and whatever was in her pants is completely harmless. Otherwise they would never let her on the plane. And this goes for all the people who have their play-doh, baby bottles, cheese, etc confiscated. If TSA had even a small reason to believe those things were actual explosives, you would not be flying that day, no fucking way. I mean, what do they do with the supposed possible-explosives they confiscate? If they are possibly explosives, shouldn't they put them in some explosion-safe location and have a bomb expert examine them to determine the danger? They don't do any of that, because they known goddam well that the baby bottles and cheese they confiscate is perfectly harmless. They just confiscate it anyway, because they are thugs and they can.

If I try to get on a plane and they honest-to-god find explosives on me, and honest-to-god think that I'm going to blow up the fucking plane, do they just let me leave the line, dispose of my explosives, and then get back on the plane? Of course not. They would never do that. Honestly, I don't know what they would do--I don't think they would know what to do with a real bomb or a terrorist if they actually caught one--but they would probably shut the whole terminal down, call the bomb squad, and arrest me. The fact that they do none of those things when the confiscate my cheese is proof that they know I'm harmless, but they steal my shit anyway. In this case, they knew that this old lady was harmless--you know this--but they just bullied her anyway, because they are thugs and they can.

Re:This is why profiling works.

[the_raptor]

It is absurd to pat-down or scan ANYONE boarding a flight. A bomb carried on a person in such a way that it would be detected by this screening is entirely incapable of bringing down an air-plane. It could kill people but that would probably work better in the security line then when seated in an aircraft.

And yes profiling works (to a degree). The problem is that by profiling you alienate that group from society and from law enforcement. It has been proven time and again that the only way to stop ethnic crime is by the police forging strong ties with the community.

George Orwell was an optimist.

[h1q]

When I read 1984 as a youngster I was shocked at the telescreen, the minutes of hate, the ever-shifting language and designated terrorists, and the frightful Room 101 ways of dealing with questionable comrades.

At some point with water-boarding, elimination of due process and habeas corpus for designated humans and spying without warrants, we have now fulfilled Orwell's nightmare of a despotic totalitarian system of politic and thought. And we aspire to further degradation of the human spirit.