Baby, 18 months old, ordered off plane at Fort Lauderdale airport

[Ichingcarpenter]

Source: WPBF channel 25

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - EIghteen-month-old Riyanna has been called a lot of things: cute, adorable and now ... a suspected terrorist.

She was called that on Tuesday night at the Ft Lauderdale Airport. She and her parents had just boarded a JetBlue flight when an airline employee approached them and asked them to get off the plane, saying representatives from the Transportation Security Agency wanted to speak to them.


"And I said, 'For what?'" Riyanna's mother told only WPBF 25 News on Wednesday. "And he said, 'Well, it's not you or your husband. Your daughter was flagged as no fly.' I said, 'Excuse me?'"
Rihanna's father was flabbergasted.
"It's absurd," he said. "It made no sense. Why would an 18-month-old child be on a no-fly list?"

Riyanna's parents, who asked not to be identified, said they think they know the answer to that question. They believe they were profiled because they are both of Middle Eastern descent. Riyanna's mother wears a hijab, a traditional head scarf. That's why they have asked to remain anonymous. They said they're concerned about repurcussions. That said, they are both Americans, born and raised in New Jersey, just like their daughter.

Riyanna's parents said once they were taken off the plane, they were met by TSA agents and made to stand in the terminal for about 30 minutes."We were put on display like a circus act because my wife wears a hijab," Riyanna's father said.


Suspected Terrorist Picture






Read more: http://www.wpbf.com/news/south-florida/Baby-18-months-old-ordered-off-plane-at-Fort-Lauderdale-airport/-/8788880/13038550/-/fhxhp7/-/index.html

[LibDemAlways]

1. Just more TSA bullshit. Millions of taxpayer dollars

flushed down the toilet in a government sanctioned effort to harass and intimidate ordinary travelers. Would-be troublemakers are, no doubt, laughing their asses off.

[Prometheus Bound]

5. That would be billions.

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/06/30/what-is-the-true-cost-of-u-s-airport-security/

[Bozita]

2. Sure looks like a terrorist to me!

[braddy]

7. It is such a tough call

18 month olds are so hard to read.

I remember interrogating one once and I asked her, "honey, are you a terrorist?", well let me tell you! Her answer was barely coherent, it was almost gurglely gibberish, I could tell right then that she was barely fluent in speaking our language.

Naturally I turned her over to my superiors.

[newfie11]

14. LOL LOL LOL

[hlthe2b]

16. I'm told waterboarding doesn't work on them--they just scream their language and pee all over you...

Heavens I'm tired of the insanity.

[Suji to Seoul]

3. Newest crime in the United States of Police: BEING BROWN!!!!

[elleng]

40. Nothing 'new' about it.

[thelordofhell]

4. "The Diaper Bomber"

[AtomicKitten]

6. she will fuck your shit up

[MrSlayer]

8. She scares me to death.

Was her name the same as someone who actually needs to be on the list? You have to wonder how anyone can look at this and not immediately realize how ridiculous the situation is. I guess procedure is procedure but someone has to inject common sense at some point.

[DontTreadOnMe]

9. TSA doesn't work, it needs to be PRIVATIZED!

You didn't see this coming?

In Florida, (I read a report a few day ago that stated something like).. $180M worth of TSA screening equipment, that "we" paid for", is just sitting not being used... SEE.. the TSA doesn't work! And NOW the Republicans are arguing that the government should not be in charge of the TSA, that is should be privatized.

1. First you need to fool the public that we need the TSA, for OUR safety.
2. Then make sure it doesn't work
3. Then hand over a billion dollar "industry" to your friends...

WATCH FOR HOW MANY TSA INCIDENTS WE HAVE IN TE NEXT FEW MONTH WHERE THE STATE HAS A REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR!

[Auggie]

39. No -- it needs to be staffed by smarter, better trained, and better paid individuals.

[emulatorloo]

44. Notice how most of these "reports of TSA abuse" appear in wing-nut publications

I agree with your position 100%. This is about Republicans busting unions and privatizing airport security so they can enrich their donors.

This is an unpopular thing to say at DU. But you nailed it.

See also this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=118116

[boppers]

11. This seems absurd and offensive until bombs are being put into rectums, or sewn into dogs...

Oh, wait, that already happened.

[TalkingDog]

23. It is security theatre. Otherwise they would have flagged the parents and not the kid.

Any cursory reading of the way other countries handle airport security shows that this kind of bullshit is absolutely unnecessary with as good a success rate and often times better.

So stop propagandizing for them please.

[boppers]

55. Ages are not on the list. Nor are the parents of everybody on the list.

Also not on the list: their siblings, grandparents, children, grandchildren, etc.

If any country had a name pop up as being a passenger on a no fly list, *AND* the passengers in their party were dressed in fundamentalist religious garb, they would be questioned more than if neither were true.

That's a no-brainer.

[ManiacJoe]

58. If you are on the list, boarding passes would not have been issued.

There are no children on the list, according to the government.

[boppers]

59. IIRC, It was a soundex match, so it passed initial scrutiny.

No children are on the list. There are names on the list that seem similar to other names.

Let me break it down for you. Say a child named Aymin al-Zawaheree got passes for boarding a plane. No exact match, so they would be allowed to board, but might be flagged.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, however, Is an internationally wanted fugitive. Same name, different spelling.

So, somebody might see that the names don't match *exactly*, but want to check anyways, and asked to question the passenger. Turns out the passenger is a child, no problem, lets all move on with life.

At this point, the passengers could point out the obvious, and get back on a plane, and go on with life, or decide they want their 15 minutes of fame, and make a news story out of it, and we can now all make an issue of it on a web forum.

[ManiacJoe]

60. They should not have been taken off the plane in the first place.

Everyone involved knew that the "problem" was the child, thus they all knew that there was no problem.

You did a good job at describing the process, but all of that gets taken care of at the ticket counter before the issuing of the boarding passes.

[justice1]

61. somebody = TSA

[Lydia Leftcoast]

63. We've become a nation of scaredy-cats

A person is less likely to die in a terrorist attack on a plane than in an "ordinary" crash.

This is theater designed to turn us into compliant little subjects, and the harassment just gets worse and worse.

When I flew two months after 9/11, they made me take the file off my nail clipper. Like I could actually stab someone with something that has thick, rounded edges?

We can't carry liquids because some idiots in London who didn't even have passports and therefore couldn't have gotten on a plane even DOMESTICALLY in the UK were thinking about making bombs by combining liquids.

We have to take off our shoes because some idiot tried to set his shoes on fire (and was stopped by a fellow passenger).

We have to be scanned or groped because some idiot (whose father had warned that he had terrorist tendencies) tried to detonate his underwear.

We'd better hope that the next step isn't some idiot who sticks a bomb up his ass.

[boppers]

64. "some idiot who sticks a bomb up his ass"

Already been done, though not via an airline flight, it was an Al-Qaeda land assassination attempt. A couple years back.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-5347847.html

Security protocols did not change, however, as there isn't any real solution for this one yet, short of everybody going through full body X-ray (not the lightweight back-scatter kind).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. You know, I'm not any more worried about that than about

plane malfunctions or bad weather.

There are many ways to die, and to get everyone hysterical about terrorism as if there's one behind every tree is just an excuse for authoritarianism.

[boppers]

67. I look at it from a slightly odder angle...

What is so insanely entitled, disconnected, bizarrely confused, about "Americans", that they are so easily terrified? Is it a form of socialized cowardice? A lack of self reliance?

When did we start being scared of our own shadows, and why?

[Gormy Cuss]

62. Secure flight requires providing DOB when buying the ticket so the age was known.

Secure Flight should have prevented the flagging of a toddler. Either it failed or TSA flagged the family for some other reason such as the mother's garb.

What is Secure Flight and what does it do?
Secure Flight is a behind-the-scenes program that streamlines the watch list matching process and identifies individuals who may pose a threat to aviation. The Secure Flight Final Rule shifted pre-departure watch list matching responsibilities from individual airlines for domestic flights and from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for international flights to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Secure Flight program. Secure Flight improves the travel experience for all passengers, including those who have been misidentified in the past.

As of November 2010, 100 percent of covered domestic and foreign airlines with flights into, out of, and within the United States are now covered under Secure Flight – fulfilling a key 9/11 Commission recommendation. Secure Flight continues to work with the airline industry to deploy to airlines implementing new service or adding additional flights covered by the Secure Flight Final Rule.

What information is collected by Secure Flight?
TSA collects the following information, known as Secure Flight Passenger Data (SFPD), for flights into, out of, and within the United States:

Name (as it appears on the government-issued identification [ID] the passenger plans to use when traveling)
Date of birth
Gender
Redress Number (if applicable)

What is the objective of Secure Flight?
The goals of the program are to:

Identify individuals on the No Fly List and prevent them from boarding an aircraft
Identify individuals on the Selectee and Expanded Selectee List for enhanced screening
Prevents future misidentifications through the integration of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Redress process
Facilitate passenger air travel
Protect individuals' privacyWhat is Secure Flight and what does it do?

[lib2DaBone]

12. The whole purpose of the TSA is intimidation...

..designed to get the public used to surrendering to illegal search and seizure.

The TSA is part of the total 911 plan (as designed by the Neocons) to promote our economy as a secuity state.


Look for lots of false-flag security incidients between now and election day.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. A lot of buck-passing in that story

JetBlue blames TSA, TSA blames JetBlue. I hope there is a court case, and someone gets blamed.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. She had a stink bomb inside her diaper.

[madrchsod]

17. sometimes i think my 9 month old granddaughter is a terrorist...

usually when i change her diaper.....the smell would clear a plane in no time at all

[tclambert]

18. Two words: DIAPER BOMBS!

[Suji to Seoul]

48. They were afraid of stink bombs!

[trumad]

57. Been there done it...

Three terrorist live with me and each had Diaper Bombs.

Somehow I survived.

[BlueIris]

19. TSA is vile. Shut it down. nt

[The Wizard]

20. Only use air travel

when absolutely necessary. Yet another reason for high speed rail.

[Blue_Tires]

22. which is a shame, since air travel used to be so enjoyable

before the post 9-11 morons took over

[IDemo]

26. Haven't flown since '98, very likely never will again n/t

[4th law of robotics]

43. You don't think rail would be subject to the same nonsense?

If it were to replace airtravel within the US I have no doubt there'd be TSA agents doing the same things at train stations.

[marble falls]

21. Don't you people understand? The common thing between ALL terrorists is that:

they all were once 18 months old. Catch them young and you've caught them all. Brilliant!

What I wouldn't give to hear W's weaselly little laugh just one more time.

I will be voting for the President believing his second term will finally start fixing this shit. The terrorists blow up their underwear and TSA wear theirs on their heads.

[alcibiades_mystery]

24. Maybe because she has two names: Rihanna AND Riyanna

Awesome journalism, yo.

[Liberal Veteran]

25. Rihanna is the good child. Riyanna is a terror baby.

I read about them in Highlights magazine. They replaced Goofus and Gallant.

[alcibiades_mystery]

52. ROFL

[Roland99]

27. Anyone remember the way the 9/11 terrorists were dressed? I sure do

They looked like ANY guy in, say, an IT dept, that was of middle eastern descent.

So, maybe they should be profiling people dressed like me (although my severe lack of tan might at least let me get thru un-patted down)

[hifiguy]

28. Teh stoopid and the derp

run deep in TSA.

[KansDem]

29. Quick! Send her to the GitMo Playpen! (nt)

[iandhr]

30. If this baby is a a terrorist folks game over.

Lewis Black quote but he applied to a 95 year old woman in a wheelchair.

[Smilo]

31. Hey has anyone dealt with one of those diapers after

an explosion........... not pretty.

TSA is pathetic.

[frylock]

32. kick for the petrified pro-TSA posters on the board..

explain to us all again how this shit is keeping us safe.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=663292

[slackmaster]

33. Is there anyone on DU who still thinks the Bush-era "watch list" is of any value?

Or that it should be used to restrict anyone's civil rights?

[24601]

53. Hmmm, this is the Obama-era. Bush certainly has plenty of faults, but this one falls on the

current administration - unless you saying they have no clue about what's going on in government while Bush pulls the strings from behind the curtain. (I don't buy that for a nano-second.) President Obama became 100% responsible at noon on Jan 20, 2009.

[ManiacJoe]

34. Interesting two paragraphs at the end of the article.

WPBF contacted JetBlue and was told this was an issue with the Transportation Safety Administration. JetBlue also said both it and the TSA are investigating the incident.

But the TSA disagreed, telling WPBF this is an airline issue and therefore, it is not investigating. The TSA also said that since Riyanna and her parents were issued boarding passes, that means they had been cleared by the TSA and were definitely not on the no-fly list.

[slackmaster]

35. The opacity of the "terror watch list" gives TSA an easy out for embarrassments like this

Is the child's name actually on the no-fly list, or not?

We have no way of finding out. And if her name is on it, her parents have no avenue of due process available for getting her name removed from the list.

[ManiacJoe]

36. According to repeated claims by the government, via the media,

there are no children on the no fly list.

[slackmaster]

37. I won't believe anything the government says about the list until they publish it

[Odin2005]

38. WTF?

[4th law of robotics]

41. Well, terrorists do tend to be young . . .

[LoisB]

42. Oh yeah, that's a terrorist if I've ever seen one. Someone please help these idiots. Maybe

she had a bomb in those cute little cheeks.

[Uncle Joe]

45. This thread needs a theme song.

Thanks for the thread, Ichingcarpenter.

[slackmaster]

47. That girl is so cute, I was thinking something more like this because it's transportation-related

[felix_numinous]

46. What. an. embarrassment.

the TSA, Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, wars based on lies, and all the other bullshit responses this country has has to endure, after having to go through the NATIONAL TRAGEDY of 911. This shit does not remotely resemble how any civilized country would respond to the possibility of terrorism. This farce and blatant waste of taxpayer dollars is a behemoth frankenstein monster left over from the Bush years, and needs to be dismantled and money but back into social programs where it belongs!!

[drynberg]

49. SOUNDS AND LOOKS TO ME LIKE

a bit of responsibility and consequences need to be handed out quite publicly so other TSA goons will see that there is a price to pay for being assholes. So, lots of heat may help them see the light...

[Thrill]

50. Jeesh Did she name that child after the singer?

[tawadi]

51. 'They were met by TSA agents and made to stand in the terminal for about 30 minutes'

Why? Why make them stand in the airport another 30 minutes? To embarrass them even more?

[rug]

54. Clearly she was secreting pounds of plastique inside her cheeks.

[Rhiannon12866]

56. That's sure the scariest baby I've ever seen!!!

[yurbud]

66. when is this shit going to end?

[olddad56]

68. Kids these days, they blow up so fast. You can just never be too careful.

[appleannie1]

69. That was the airline, not TSA. They would never have made it passed the security check point if it

was TSA. They need to sue the crap out of Jet Blue.

[AnnieBW]

70. Man, That Is One Dirty Diaper!

I've heard of kids dropping stink-bombs in their Pampers, but to call them terrorists?