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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.'"
I'm normally as anti-TSA as they come, but I actually think that this patdown was more reasonable than the title suggests. From what I can gather about the facts, first the little girl went through security. Then, while the grandmother was waiting to get a patdown, the little girl ran up to her grandmother and hugged her. That seems like it would be a pretty damn good way to pass off contraband. I mean, I understand that this WAS a four-year old girl getting a patdown, but you have to remember that this four-year old girl was traveling with an adult who had control over her. It's not hard to imagine scenarios in which terrorists use children as mules. I think that this case is an example where the TSA actually did their job properly - some TSA agent noticed something that to the untrained eye would have been an ordinary hug, but very plausibly could have been a pre-planned ploy to sneak contraband into the airport. Maybe the TSA could have approached the child more reasonably and given her more time to cool off, but overall I think that a patdown was justified.
Whilst the story in itself is deeply distressing, so are some of the comments from the Washington Post's article on it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/grandma-tsa-agents-forced-crying-4-year-old-to-undergo-tsa-pat-down-at-kan-airport-after-hug/2012/04/25/gIQAojLohT_allComments.html?ctab=all_&#comments One prime one being: "In this case, however, the child had completed screening but had contact with another member of her family who had not completed the screening process. This absolves the TSA entirely. I do not want ANYONE (muslim or christian or young or old) passing through a checkpoint after making contact with an unscreened passenger."
We know that Muslims use children as bombs so it is a legitimate worry