Does it really take this long to screen a child (TSA)?

[demmiblue]

Al Jazeera English‏ Verified account @AJEnglish

This child was patted down by a TSA agent for 2 minutes. Don't think that's a long time? Watch until the end.

Link to tweet

How fucking insane is this?!

[kimbutgar]

1. That TSA guy is a perv

there is no reason to do such an evasive pat down unless the TSA guy enjoyed it.

[dalton99a]

10. Yep.

[Ms. Toad]

11. That's a standard pat down. Been through it at least a dozen times.

I opt out of the 3-D peek-a-boo scanners, which means that I get a pat down nearly every time I fly.

(I'm not defending why they searched this particular child, or even whether it is appropriate for someone who opts out of the scanners - just clarifying that it is not out of the ordinary. For women, it includes a u-swoop around each breast.)

[True Dough]

2. No

That is just WRONG! That video should be reviewed by the TSA agent's supervisors and he should be fired, IMO. Hell, he should even be charged.

Totally inappropriate. It's bringing plenty of attention to the TSA for all the wrong reasons.

[Warpy]

5. He was probably showing off for his supervisor

and demonstrating a full patdown of a "suspicious" adult passenger on a child.

[demmiblue]

13. Apparently, the TSA only has one type of pat down now for everybody...

when they used to have five options:

While few have noticed, U.S. airport security workers long had the option of using five different types of physical pat-downs at the screening line. Now those options have been eliminated and replaced with a single universal approach. This time, you will notice.

The new physical touching—for those selected to have a pat-down—will be be what the federal agency officially describes as a more “comprehensive” physical screening, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman.

Denver International Airport, for example, notified employees and flight crews on Thursday that the “more rigorous” searches “will be more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact than before.”

“I would say people who in the past would have gotten a pat-down that wasn’t involved will notice that the [new] pat-down is more involved,” TSA spokesman Bruce Anderson said Friday. The shift from the previous, risk-based assessment on which pat-down procedure an officer should apply was phased in over the past two weeks after tests at smaller airports, he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/u-s-airport-pat-downs-are-about-to-get-more-invasive

FFS.

[True Dough]

18. Someone deserves a demotion!

Whoever reduced the options to one should have to undergo that screening every morning before coming into work and again before leaving for home. Get a good feel for that ridiculous decision!

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. Let's not overlook the worse part...

Parents are allowing their children to become used to invasive and controlling systems.
It has now become normal for those "in authority" to search kids, in airports, in schools, even at sports games.

I find that extremely disturbing.

[Ms. Toad]

29. There haven't been multiple levels for opt-outs

That's the same pat down I've always had as an opt out for the peek-a-boo scanners.

[Ilsa]

31. This kid had already been thru the nudie-scanner.

They groped him again because he had a laptop in a carry-on.

[Ms. Toad]

32. I'm not justifying it -

I'm just moderately surprised that this seems new to people.

I never ask to be screened in private (I'd much rather have the public witness any indiscretions), but perhaps most people do ask to be screened in private so it hasn't been as visible as it was to me since I go through it a couple of times a year.

[democrank]

3. This is so wrong.

I couldn't let my child go through that.

[Starry Messenger]

4. I hate that airport.

It took us 4 hours to get back through the border from a flight from Mexico, and then they swabbed me for explosives.

[demmiblue]

21. I don't know which airport that is, but I can't even imagine how hard it would be...

for the elderly, those with disabilities and families with small children. Gah!

Does it take long to get swabbed and on on your way?

[Starry Messenger]

23. Dallas Fort Worth

No, it doesn't take long. It's just kind of public and everyone stares at you and you wonder if there is in fact some chemical on you that would set off the sensor. The whole thing is theater anyway.

[lies]

6. Just a symptom

Of the fear Americans live in.

Travel outside the US and this shit does not happen.

People should've stood up to years ago, but now it's probably too late.

[RKP5637]

7. Americans often don't pay attention when it's happening to others, as we march toward a dictatorial

police state.

[likesmountains 52]

9. Not true..

I just experienced a very, very aggressive pat down in Amsterdam and I am a 64 year old woman. I am not excusing the TSA BS..but we are not the only ones.

[lies]

15. On a flight to...?

I literally fly between European countries all the time. Never ever ever get anything other than metal detectors.

[likesmountains 52]

19. Flying from Cape Town to Atlanta..change of planes

[lies]

39. Yes

Last stop before going to the US. That's the bad one.

Fly internally in Europe as a Europeans and they basically just wave you through.

It's the going to America, for American travel, search that's rough.

I hear that frequently.

But if I fly from eg Dublin to Berlin there nothing but an xray of my bag and walking through the metal detector. Add America to the itinerary and its the aggressive nonsense.

Pure fear.

Sure the cops dont even carry guns in lots of Europeans and Asian cities.

[jberryhill]

35. The most aggressive airport pat-down I ever got was in Frankfurt

The second most aggressive one was in Barcelona.

Upon leaving Colombia, passengers can be subject to random abdominal x-rays.

[lies]

40. Going to...?

Because if it's going to America, then yes.

Internally in Europe there's no aggressive anything that I've ever seen.

It's like the metal detectors at schools and sports, police with military weapons, heck, citizens with military weapons, etc etc.

None of that exists in most of the rest of the first world... And sure even US TV is endless ads for security companies, or prescription drugs, or other things to 'keep you safe".

That's not what living anywhere else is like.

[jberryhill]

41. No, sorry

As you are likely aware, flights to the US from Frankfurt and several other airports receive a secondary security check in the gate area. The flight in question was a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to London. It was an entirely European itinerary on a European carrier. Flights departing many foreign airports to the US utilize gate areas which have secondary checks specifically for that purpose.

You are simply wrong.

In Barcelona, the flight was from Barcelona to London. They took a lighter from me, even when US flights were allowing them.

I also got a very good going-over on a flight from Bangkok to Sydney on Thai Air. On that particular mess of a larger itinerary, I had flown from Philadelphia to Frankfurt to Cairo, spent a week there, then from Cairo to Bangkok, spent a week in Thailand, and then on to another meeting in Australia. The Bangkok to Sydney leg was not even part of a US-connected itinerary, and they were the ONLY ones who took my nail clippers.

Leaving Cartagena, Columbia on a flight several years ago, EVERY passenger was required to have security paw through their opened carry-ons in full view of other passengers (which led to no shortage of amusement, since many people on that particular flight had just concluded attending the same tech conference).

One of the more surprising aspects for American visitors to, say, Schiphol, is the presence of combat-uniformed personnel with full-auto weapons in the terminal.

[lies]

44. So. Weird.

Never seen anything like that.

I live in Europe and travel around it every month for work.

No idea.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

8. WTF? That was just obscene!

No way that child needed to be patted down like that! Even if TSA had a tip that this child might be carrying something (which is a ridiculous thought), that pat down was ridiculous!

[Ms. Toad]

12. I take it you've never opted out of the 3-d scanners -

or paid attention to the pat downs anyone who opts out gets.

That is a standard opt-out pat down.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

14. that's ridiculous on a child.

And, I have been patted down once before. I'm larger than that child, and my pat down did not take that long.

[demmiblue]

17. I opted out of a scan last year, and the pat down, though a little uncomfortable...

took about 20 seconds and was far less invasive.

This was at a major airport.

* As I noted above, they have apparently changed their protocol. It is ridiculous.

[Ms. Toad]

27. Same protocol they put me through every time.

Since the day they implemented the scanners. (Off the top of my head, I know I've been through it in Akron, Atlanta, BWI, Cleveland, Hartford, Pittsburgh).

Some are faster than others - but everyone I've had does the full front, back, firm bounce into the crotch twice (once each leg), pulling out the waistband feeling inside the band in both front and back, swipe around & under the buttocks and (for women) in a 3/4 circle around each breast and a swoop to approximately nipple level from the top down.

They announced a change in protocol, so I watched the video curious to see what the more invasive pat down they announced would amount to, but the protocol on the video is the same one they have always used on me.

[pnwmom]

22. It shouldn't be. You could have clearly seen if he had anything on under that t-shirt.

And what's the deal with the hands sticking inside the waist? I've never had that happen and I've flown at least once when the scanner wasn't working (small airport) so everyone got the pat-down.

[Ms. Toad]

28. Every single pat down I've had involved pulling out the waistband and feeling around it.

They're feeling for anything that might have been sewn into the waistband, and it is more likely to be palpable from the inside than through multiple thicknesses of the band.

[pnwmom]

36. Ew. Gross. n/t

[Ilsa]

33. He had already been tbrough the scanner.

His mom had him do the scanner because it involved no contact with strangers. He got pulled over because his laptop was in a carry-on, not out and placed in a bin.

What bugs me is that they should have just checked out the laptop since he had already been cleared thru a scanner.

[furtheradu]

16. Infuriating To Watch.

I don't tweet or do Facebook, sure want this to go viral..will try to get it to media.
This had to be traumatic for the child & his family. It was to ME, just watching.

[cwydro]

42. It's been all over the news media.

It's out there.

[furtheradu]

43. Thank You

This was the first I've seen of it.

[Foamfollower]

20. We just witnessed sexual assault of a child.

[pnwmom]

37. That's what I think. n/t

[ManiacJoe]

24. After being properly trained, it would easily take less than half that time.

The problem is that they are not properly trained. They are supposed to be searching for weapons. That form of search is not looking for weapons.

[EllieBC]

26. I saw this in a Sensory Processing Disorder group.

The child has SPD as well as ASD I believe and according to the article I read, this poor boy was very traumatized.

What people will allow so that they feel "safe" is outrageous.

[nycbos]

30. SNL on the TSA

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/message-from-tsa/n12941?snl=1

[tavernier]

34. I would have yanked my child away

and called a lawyer asap!!

But then I'm a grandmother and I don't give a shit. No one... I repeat NO ONE has the right to do THAT to my son (grandson)!! They had better have a good reason within the law!!!

[tblue37]

38. And then there is this one:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/another-terrorist-stopped-by-vigilant-tsa-officer-4-year-old-boy-in-leg-braces/

snip


4-year-old Ryan Thomas is developmentally disabled as a result of being 16 weeks premature and has to wear corrective braces. His ankles are malformed and his legs have little or no muscle tone. He only just learned how to walk, briefly, on his own, according to thePhiladelphia Inquirer.

But that didn't seem to matter to the Transportation Security Administration screeners at Philadelphia International airport.

snip

Ryan's father was breaking down his son's stroller to put it on the conveyor belt as his wife, Leona, walked Ryan through the metal detector. As expected the alarm went off and Leona tried to explain the situation, the paper said.

The screener replied that the boy would have to take the braces off and walk through the detector again. When Leona Thomas attempted to walk with Ryan she was told he would have to do it alone. She tried, calmly, to explain that Ryan could barely walk with the braces, let alone without them, but the compassionless screener was deaf to her pleas, according to the newspaper.

snip

I use a cane, which has to go on the conveyor belt. Always the TSA agent helps me make it through the metal detector since I could fall or lock up and be unable to walk if I don't have I cane.

I don't understand why some of those agents turn a simple situation into a bizarre mess when others--like the ones I have encountered--simply help the handicapped person make it through.