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TSA Defends Pat Down of 4-Year-Old Girl
cosm writes "With public outcry against the TSA continuing to spread, the TSA is defending a recent episode in which a four-year-old was patted down while kicking and screaming at Wichita Airport in Kansas. From the AP article: 'The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl who became hysterical during a security screening at a Kansas airport said Wednesday that the child was forced to undergo a pat-down after hugging her, with security agents yelling and calling the crying girl an uncooperative suspect.'"
No shit! I honestly don't know of ANY 4 year old that's going to be graceful and cooperative about being taken away from a family member and groped. Sorry, this isn't some sicko loli fantasy. This is real life with real people, and some real perspective needs to be acquired here.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's not making the likelihood of attack decrease, it's just moving the crowd (target) out of the plane and into the queue for security.
Could we please shut down this joke of an organization? How many stories do we have to hear like this? Frankly, if you touch my daughter and yell at her like this I'll have you arrested for indecent liberties with a child, abuse of a child, and I'll do whatever I can to have you listed on every sexual predator website I can find and basically I'm willing to destroy your life. If a parent acted like this they'd be arrested and the kids taken away. But because "Floyd" watched a 15 minute instructional video, he gets a cardboard badge and the ability to make up any rules he wants and doesn't have to tell anyone what the rules are.
The TSA... where the agents are pedophiles, the supervisors are thieves and the ones pointing out flaws in the system are unemployed.
It's been said before but it bears repetition, the TSA is security theater, that's all. And all paid for with our tax dollars. We are a nation of sheep.
No shit. I can promise you right now if anyone ever did that to my daughter they wouldn't be breathing for long after. TSA, cop, a judge, The Pope, The Queen, I don't really care who it is they would be dead before they hit the ground. Duress is applicable when it's your child being attacked and molested.
the agents are pedophiles, the supervisors are thieves and the ones pointing out flaws in the system are unemployed ...and the architects are multi-millionaires.
I don't see how my civil liberties are being violated when boarding a plane; everyone should have the same equal protections and confidence that each and every passenger is not going try and hurt anyone on the plane
You don't see how civil liberties and privacy are being violated when you're forced to be patted down and searched when trying to travel?
If you're so scared of terrorists, never leave your house. There is no right to feel safe at the expense of everyone's freedom and privacy. Not only that, but increased cockpit security and civilian awareness of the consequences of plane hijackings is more than enough.
I think the terrorists have gotten more then they have lost. We live in fear, giving up our rights and freedoms in order to gain the illusion of "security". Then again, this is a police state's wet dream - a passive, docile, and accepting population who never question. (Meaning population as a whole, we know there are plenty of individuals and small organizations that do question the state.)
Don't dream it, be it.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
I travel a lot less than I did before TSA showed up. I grew up in an age when "nobody can touch you there without your permission, and if they do, you fight them. You kick, you scream, and you keep fighting until you get help".
Todays parents have to teach their kids "nobody can touch you there without your permission unless they have a cute little patch on their shoulder. You can fight the priest if he does it. But not the people at the airport. You can't even call for the policeman who's standing 20 feet away to help you. You have to let them do it". I loved America when it was free. I'm looking to emigrate.
Explain to me again, who are the terrorists?
Parody from pre-2010: My First Cavity Search: Ages 6 and up.
Reality in 2012: Four year olds. Four year olds, dude.
After 9/11, we're all terrorists now.
This +5 Insightful communication operates at pretty much the same level as my dogs' communication when they see a stranger out the front window. The bad news: you're not as tough as you think you are. The good news: you're probably not as reckless and violent as you want to think you are, either.
Here's hoping it's all fantasy, and you don't actually have a daughter to expose to these kinds of "Insight".
Do you have children? I'm guessing not. When someone grabs at your child wanting to touch them all over, adrenaline and rage take over all cognitive function and I doubt any TSA rentacop has reflexes to reciprocate.
And if you by chance do have children and lack this primitive, important instinct then something is seriously, seriously wrong with you
I would respectfully suggest what the girl was having was not a tantrum; perhaps more like a panic.
You think they don't know that? The TSA is not some collection of informed rules being constructed by reasonable minds -- it's a wrecking ball whose only mission is "protection at all costs" and all decisions are being made by people who fear losing their jobs more than they fear a terrorist attack. When advocating for rehabilitation instead of punishment is a "soft on crime" position and advocating a responsible global policy of power protection is a "soft on defense" position then advocating for a reasonable set of security procedures at checkpoints is "soft on terrorism." We can't just try to /teach/ the TSA. That's impossible at this point. We need something that shows the people that the TSA /is/ terrorism if we want to rein it in. At least, that's the world we live in right now.
I hate to wreck your heroic fantasies - but all over the world, at different times, brutal regimes have broken families, murdered children in front of their parents eyes, raped people ... all in front of their watching powerless partners who could do bugger all. Heroic resistance of individuals is something that works only in Hollywood movies. Even in fairly recent times some so called "civilized Western" countries were still stealing children form their families for political reasons (eg google for stolen generation in Australia). It has happened in the past, is happening now, and unfortunately will probably still happen in the foreseeable future - and not just in bogeyman countries with third world dictators.
The USA has started on a downward spiral into a totalitarian regime with no regard whatsoever for human rights or life. I am not sure whether they are past the point of no return where simple and peaceful measures such as elections could still change something - but in any case, should the TSA molest your child, you will most likely be powerlessly sobbing while their henchmen hold you down, and afterwards probably ponder in jail what good your token resistance did while your child is raised in some state orphanage.
but I'm a business traveler and know how these things look.
You're defending the molestation of a four year old girl because the government thought she was a threat to national security because she wanted to say goodbye to her grandmother. This is one of those McCarthy era moments where I have to ask, do you have any sense of decency or shred of humanity left in your body? Or do you really believe that molesting children and the elderly makes you safer? Even if we pretend that's true, why in the hell do you find that acceptable?
The threats we should accept as the price to live in a free and open society are tiny in comparison to the injustice of living in a militarized police state. Giving the government more power to molest, imprison, search, and detain people with impunity are the real dangers to our democracy, not the memory of a single terrorist attack 10 years ago. We have locks on the cockpit doors. We have Air Marshals in the cabin. We can retain some reasonable security checkpoints. But when your society tells you that it's acceptable for an adult to put their hands all over a child because they are a threat to national security, you can be damn sure you don't live in a free and rational society.
I also travel for business, and I would rather die in a terrorist attack than live in a police state where people who want to travel are subject to molestation.
I'm not denying crashing a plane has a strong psychological impact, but a few things to consider:
- Hijacking a plane is no longer possible thanks to locked doors in cockpits. Unless the terrorists somehow manage to smuggle a blowtorch on the plane, they can't take control of it. Of course this wouldn't stop bombing a plane, but the psychological impact is not much greater than bombing the line-up at the airport security (like happened in Russia last year).
- Protecting planes is nice, but as you say there are other targets out there, some of which probably have much stronger psychological impact than a plane.
How about bombing a mall full of Christmas shoppers? I'm sure this would really hurt Americans - finding out one of their most precious holidays, a holiday about peace and generosity no less, is not safe from terrorism.
Or how about shooting a school full of children? Considering how little schools can do to protect against students shooting their classmates, what could they possibly do against a couple of trained terrorists with automatic guns?
- By protecting planes so much and making people feel safe, you increase the psychological impact an attack on another target would have. If terrorists blew up another plane, Americans would be shocked but would also think "we knew planes weren't safe, no surprise really". Now if terrorists bombed a very different target, even one that normally would have a small psychological impact, Americans will realize they aren't safe anywhere - not in the street, not at work, not at school, not at a baseball match, not at the store, not on the highway, not at the theater, not in public parks... And this realization that no place is safe will be the huge psychological impact. Many say Americans became paranoid after 9/11 - I hope we never see how paranoid they'll be once they realize they're not even safe in places they go to every week.
So at least for this reason, not going overboard with safety and just telling Americans "there's no such thing as perfect security, deal with it" you might reduce the risk of another attack. Less confidence in safety = less surprise = less psychological impact = less incentives for terrorists to do another attack = lesser risk of an attack.
- There's also the question of whether or not another terrorist attack could occur. 9/11 was a first in the USA since... forever. First time a plane was destroyed like this. It's been 10 years now, without any other serious attempts (the underwear and shoe bombers were poorly organized, definitely not as serious as 9/11. They also occurred when the USA was invading Iraq and Afghanistan, so it's not clear if those attacks were anti-USA or just a form of warfare for the terrorists. And anyway, the TSA did not help against this at all).
Europe might also be a good indication: attacks occurred in Madrid and London in retaliation for those countries' involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Other countries like France were also involved in those wars and therefore at threat. Yet only these two attacks occurred, despite France, Germany and others not taking any particularly drastic security measures. The option and the reason to attack are there, yet it isn't happening. Maybe nobody really wants to attack that much?
The death toll of terrorism in the USA is small. In the 10 years since (and including) 9/11, more lives were lost to car accidents or smoking than to 9/11. The money and time invested in the TSA could have saved thousands of poor people from death by providing them with food, shelter or medical help. If the purpose is to save lives, focusing so much on terrorism is absurd.
And of course, the question remains: how many people will die from cancer due to the nude scanner? Probably more than terrorism could kill.
- Finally, there's the question of "is this the only option?"
Why are the USA at risk of attacks while other western countries, like those of Europe and Canada, are not? (I know a few attacks occurred in Europe, however these were in response to the war
if terrorists wanted bomb something, they'd do it AT THE GIANT CLUSTERFUCK SECURITY CHECKPOINTS.
9/11 really did change everything...
Really? Funny, but I can't remember a single example of a 4-year-old obviously American child traveling in the US with her grandmother who has ever blown anything up.
Your internet security comparison is spot on, however like most internet security people, you fail to understand that sometimes holes are OK. Plugging holes costs something. In the IT world, plugging holes costs money and sometimes makes other work impossible to do or more difficult, which costs time and money. We need to strike a balance, not provide impenetrable security at any cost. In this case, plugging holes costs you your privacy and perhaps your right to protect your children (Did they seriously say they wanted to take a 4-year-old girl to a private room WITHOUT a family member present?).
Just doing some quick googling, about 640 million times last year, a passenger got on a plane in the US and flew somewhere. Zero times they were blown up by a terrorist. If you extend that back 11 years so we can catch 9/11, that's ~7 billion passengers and 246 who were blown up by a terrorist. Well, crashed into something, and again, zero who were killed by 4-year-old American child terrorists.
Maybe I'm just not risk averse enough, but I prefer the 28,000,000 to one chance terrorists are going to take out the plane, or almost infinity-to-one that it's going to be done by a 4-year-old, over the much-smaller-number to 1 chance that my kid is going to be groped.
During all of this, literally hundreds of people stood by watching and did nothing. So I guess we did see the "true colors of this nation" as you said. It's the color of terrorized weaklings.
Quoted for fucking emphasis.
Actually, I am saying we don't need to screen 4 year olds.
Seriously as a culture, we have lost our minds.
The position is called checkmate.
Whilst it's easy to call all those people watching terrorized weaklings, look at the situation. If you intervene and actually disrupt the screening agents, your minimally looking at a felony. If they really want to get you, they'll tack on a terrorist charge, and then you're really fucked. It really is too much to ask for a random citizen to intervene when the position is knowing your whole life as you know it, will likely be over after that moment. You can call them weak, but the situation has become that extreme for anyone to interfere.
By that example, the Government has us all at checkmate. Yes it's absurd, and wrong, and unjust, but that's the hand we've accepted out of fear and nationalistic drumming during a time of mass post-traumatic stress. Our elected officials reacted, and we're now living with those results. Want it changed? Let your voice be heard, but not at the TSA checkpoint. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING good can come out of doing it there.
This B.S. about being so concerned little kids are "security threats" because of a potential to strap a bomb to their body is just that.... utter paranoia.
What I find extremely odd about all of this is the fact that so many of us accept this nonsense while in line to get on a plane, yet if similar policies were enacted in other public places, there'd be a huge outcry (primarily because it would suddenly be a regular inconvenience instead of a novelty). If we're *truly* concerned about this being an issue, we need to start searching all the babies and toddlers as they enter the grocery stores, movie theaters and sports arenas - and definitely at least pat down and wand everyone before they start to use a gas pump at a filling station! Huge potential for disaster otherwise, there.
At some point, I just want to grab some people by the collars, shake them, and yell, "Life is NOT safe, ok!?! Get OVER it!" Maybe, in some isolated case, one of the days, someone really WILL bring a 4 year old kid onto a plane with a bomb under his shirt. Ok, fine! That's horrible, but it MAY happen. Someone may walk outside on a stormy night and get struck by lightning and die, too. Someone else may get in their car to drive to work and get in a fiery multi-car collision, killing dozens of people. (Better odds of that than the baby/bomb scenario.) Should we just stay in bed all day and do NOTHING in public, to protect us from all these possibilities?
Separating children from parents by strangers in an institutional setting should NEVER be allowed. I mean, Think Of The Children actually applies here.
Well, not exactly what you were asking for, but Hindawi packed the bomb into the carry-on bag of his pregnant Irish fiancee.
So it's not really a stretch to think that someone would be depraved enough to hide a bomb on their little daughter and sacrifice their mother in law. Same for e.g. the neighbor's little daughter and her grandmother. Illustrates nicely why racial profiling doesn't work, either.
Despite having a little daughter - if you have a TSA at all I can see why they might want to pat down a girl her age. However if they want to do that, it must be done in a humane way. Someone shouting at a little child in that situation needs to be fired and fined.
There are two problems leading to situations like this, firstly the TSA screeners have little more then a high-school diploma and a weeks training, because of this, management, in true government from, treats them like idiots. They give them no room for interpretation or leeway on how to respond to any incident their choices are control the situation and get the person to submit to the screening or let them slide and loose their job. Do we need some form of screening absolutely YES, is using unqualified staff and a bureaucratic policies they way to achieve this, the results speak for themselves. If they truly cared about security they would have higher qualifications for the screeners, and trust them to make decisions on the ground instead of micromanaging from Washington. The problem is not that the screeners need new rules that children should be treated differently, it's that Napolitano shouldn't be making these decisions in Washington for screeners in Wichita.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
And I agree with you. The rest of you of the paranoia seems awfully troll-ish and they should be put away or on Xanax.
If someone wants to blow you or some place up, they will. Period. You're dead so get your affairs in order and stop waving guns and police forces and armies around. Niet. Gone. Nada mas.
Fortunately, terrorism is NOT the norm. People don't really want to blow themselves up until they feel they're backed into a corner and have nothing else to live for. So, try a little empathy first. It would go a long way toward ensuring a safer, happier humanity instead of this "Well I carry a gun everywhere because it's better me than him." Are you fucking retarded? Try understanding why someone might flip out and start shooting up a post office, for instance.
I'll give you a hint: It has to do with desperation and scarcity mentality. There are WAY more than enough resources to go around, and if we actually had a society that valued something besides money and had a more interconnected one that actually has sympathy for people's situations, we'd have a lot fewer anxious, crazy people walking around. You! Hey you! Yeah, the one who bought that pistol that you got a conceal-carry permit for. Yeah, and you tell your friends it's your Constitutional Right? Yeah you. You know, if you got more hugs as a child, or hadn't been bullied to death in grade school, or had a friendly network of confidants who positively support you, instead of all the toys in your house that keep you "entertained" I'll bet you wouldn't need to walk around thinking you're some sort of badass who's going to hold out at the Ok Corral when the bullets start flying in Nowheresville, Suburbia.
Good lord, I'm so sick of selfish asshats walking around talking about security. You're the dangerous ones. You ARE CRIMINALS ALREADY. You've committed crimes of blowing someone away, without judge or jury, thousands of times in your head. You've made it real in your mind, so your reality is that one day it will happen and you want to be ready for what you actually think is an inevitability.
This security thing is just another manifestation of that mentality, and at the top sits a sick fuck who beckons with a finger and thousands can die, sitting at a little desk feeling smug and superior that,"I know what's best for everyone else."
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She was doing what all responsible people teach their children to do. Scream and run away if a stranger tries to touch you or take you away.
The child CORRECTLY determined that the TSA people seemed to be creepy and harmful.
Citation please? According to Wikipedia, the only terrorist group to employ this tactic is Hamas, even though Israeli security does screen women -- which rather invalidates the theory.
Israeli security uses racism which sounds like a better system than what we're using.
Look like a terrorist? Get a pat down. Look like a four yr old blonde blue eyed girl hugging grandma? No pat down
Mark me troll and flamebait all you want, but every time the TSA pat downs a little blonde girl the terrorist win again. They're using our morality against racism against us.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
As a daddy, no one touches my little girls there except a doctor for medical reason.
IF they do, they wind up on floor unconscious.
And if you feel it's okay for TSA to do such pat downs, how about teachers? neighbors? strangers? how about I pat down your wife....nice.
If it's not okay for citizens, it's not okay for the government who derives their power from the citizens.
Their job is theater.
The TSA has never once prevented an attack. Not once.
What they were created for can never again happen in our skies.
They are an agency created from a knee jerk reaction by scared cows, that is now looking to ever expand its power like all other governmental agencies.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?