Opinion Forum

Just Following Orders

April 15th, 2011

Despite all the silly fuss made by old fashioned prudes about the somewhat intimate TSA search of a six year old girl recently, we needn’t worry. According to Blogger Bob at the TSA, the TSA person was just following orders. Ja wohl, meine Damen und Herren.

A video taken of one of our officers patting down a six year-old has attracted quite a bit of attention. Some folks are asking if the proper procedures were followed. Yes. TSA has reviewed the incident and the security officer in the video followed the current standard operating procedures.

So, evidently were these equally ~~meretriculous~~ meticulous screeners:

To set our feeble minds a bit more at ease, Blogger Bob noted that

With that said, you may have read recently that our Administrator is looking into ways to move past the cookie cutter approach to screening. Recognizing that terrorists are willing to manipulate societal norms to evade detection, TSA has been actively assessing less invasive screening methods for low-risk populations, such as younger passengers, while still maintaining a high level of security.

The blog entry cited in Blogger Bob’s comforting post does not mention small children except perhaps (?) tangentially:

One point to keep in mind as we think about these issues is that it’s important that we not create a system that would allow a person seeking to do harm to spend several years creating a “clean” background to gain access to a club that guarantees a “right” to expedited screening.

What we hope to do is figure out how to gain more knowledge about the people who are traveling to potentially provide a more streamlined screening experience at the checkpoint.

One possibility would be to have willing passengers provide more information about themselves. A recent example of using identity-based screening would be the decision Administrator Pistole made to change way we screen pilots. It just makes sense that the person who has been cleared to control the plane should not need to undergo the same level of screening.

Continue reading this article at The PJ Tatler »

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: children, grope, intrusive, kids, pat-down, screening, security, terrorist, TSA
Categories: Life, News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

2 Responses to “Just Following Orders”

Tom Carter | April 15th, 2011 at 7:55 am

This is outrageous and a really sad commentary on the extent to which we’ve been cowed by Muslim terrorists. We have to get away from our irrational fear of profiling and start focusing on the real threat. Granted, Muslim terrorists aren’t above strapping bombs to little children, but no rational person could consider either of these children to be a threat.

You can hear the little girl saying in the background at the beginning of the video, “I don’t wanna get into my clothes.” Heartbreaking.

Tom Carter | April 18th, 2011 at 4:01 am

I read something recently that made me think about a very important point. If you think about it, TSA is doing a great job. If you don’t think so, answer me this: How many airliners have been blown out of the sky by six-year-old girls? None, that’s how many; none. TSA’s vigilance is obviously paying off.

Reminds me of an old story:

There was once this quirky guy who always had a bit of a strange light in his eyes. We’ve all known someone like him. Every few minutes, he would clap his hands together loudly, look around, and smile with obvious satisfaction.

Finally, a fellow asked him, “Why do you clap your hands like that very few minutes?”

The guy answered, “It keeps the elephants away, of course.”

The fellow said, “But there aren’t any elephants here!”

The guy responded, “See?”