TSA Pats Down 6-Year Old Girl In New Orleans Airport (VIDEO)

AOL Travel News:

A new video on YouTube is causing an uproar, as critics question why Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at the New Orleans airport gave an intense pat-down to a 6-year-old girl.

The video shows a female TSA agent explaining the security procedure to the child's mother and then having the 6-year-old girl spread her arms and legs for the pat-down, which includes "sensitive areas," in the words of the agent.

Read the whole story: AOL Travel News

Comments

[Marc Haston]

09:10 AM on 05/03/2011

I'm driving this vacation to avoid the airport. When will we get our rights back? I went through the x-ray and the pat-down on my last trip and I said never again. I fear the TSA more than the terrorist. I think the TSA fits the description of a terror cell.

[ctom]

02:05 AM on 04/28/2011

It's time that a person brings sexual assualt charges against TSA, Big Sis, and the airport itself via civil suit. It is federal property afterall and without probable cause and without consent, a federal employee cannot get their jollies off fondling people under security pretenses. It requires some circumstances, however, it will happen nonetheless. There will be at times when the x-ray scanner is down for repairs or maintenance. At such time of lapse, enhanced pat down is the only option and the Feds cannot counter-argue that a choice was available to the passenger and thereby consented to the pat-down. I say get vicious and used the courts to go for personal damages. With enough suits (which TSA must respond), it will tire them out and the policy will change. I'm sure about 100 of these cases will do the trick.

[kaarnak1969]

03:12 PM on 04/26/2011

Oh how I grateful I am to have someone as wise as BO and Big Sis running this instead of profiling for terrorists the TSA is molesting children. We need to fire everyone involved and then send them all to jail for molestation.

[George Hanshaw]

11:31 AM on 04/23/2011

A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.

Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.

Homeland Security agents arrested the TSA officer March 24, and he is being held without bail.

Although the case was unsealed Thursday, neither the indictment nor the news release mentioned Gordon's job searching airline passengers for TSA.

The arrest comes as TSA grapples with several other incidents involving screeners, including a YouTube video posted last week by parents angry about the pat-down their 6-year-old daughter received at an airport in New Orleans. TSA officials said the pat-down was proper; the parents said the girl was "groped

[fred53]

12:15 AM on 04/21/2011

Folks we aren't thinking about the big picture here. There is NO terror threat to
American air travel. None of this TSA nonsense is necessary. Think about it
this way. We are worried about people who hate us attacking assets in the US
right. First who are the people who hate us? People hate us because we invade
and occupy their countries and murder their families. So they first and foremost
want us out of their countries.So why would they travel here at great cost and risk
to a country where they didn't blend in, had no support and couldn't speak the
language to attack us knowing full well we would feel threatened and retaliate in
their country doing even more damage than we had already done??? They wouldn't,
it wouldn't serve their interests. They would attack our assets in THEIR country
where they did blend in and had support and freedom of movement where we would
not feel directly threatened, just demoralized. That would serve their interests to force
us out of their country. The real question we should be asking is who does have an
interest in all these booga booga events that never seem to do any real damage?
Who benefits?? Follow the money.

[Geoff in Vancouver]

07:53 PM on 04/20/2011

I'm on vacation right now, and in order to get here TSA "had to" pat down my 10 year old daughter and my 4 year old son,(who has Down's Syndrome!!!)

Strangely enough I (a 43 year old male) was not patted down.

I'm not making this up. For whatever reason I'm not considered a potential problem, but a 4 year old with Down's Syndrome is.

I guess it not a problem if it's not caught on video...

[O Godfrey]

01:13 PM on 04/20/2011

We should expect TSA screeners to be properly trained to do their jobs!

Nothing in the news over the past year about the antics of TSA screeners indicate they have the proper people or customer service skills to do the jobs tasked with. Reasonably safe?

We believed we were reasonably safe on 9/10/2001, didn't we?

TSA should develop critical competencies for screeners, develop realistic job descriptions, hire the right people, and train them to do their jobs properly. How do we know which TSA employees are pedophiles or perverts?

If the following is how TSA is proposing to train its leaders, then expect more of the same. Giving employees books and telling them to read is not how to develop employees!

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/23051?c=education_training

[George Hanshaw]

11:33 AM on 04/23/2011

"We should expect TSA screeners to be properly trained to do their jobs!

Nothing in the news over the past year about the antics of TSA screeners indicate they have the proper people or customer service skills to do the jobs tasked with. Reasonably safe? "

We should question if the jobs they do are even necessary.

[MoreFreedom]

11:57 AM on 04/24/2011

You expect government workers to be properly trained? LOL Since when has government worked well or efficiently? Government doesn't work - it uses force.

One should ask if the benefits of the TSA outweigh the costs. And on this, they fail miserably. The security screenings waste our time, traumatize our kids, and testing shows they don't find dangerous materials in passengers' carry on luggage. And the TSA offers pedophiles and sexual deviants the opportunity to feel up innocent people. It should be eliminated, and the airlines should provide the security screenings.

[Jo Kaye]

02:35 PM on 04/18/2011

Most of us think a little kid obviously is not a threat. Neither was my elderly mother-in-law carrying her husband's ashes. Neither are millions of others that board commercial flights every day. But who among us can spot the terrorist among the millions of travellers?

Ten years later, it's easy to feel annoyed or outraged, but how many of you want to see another commercial airliner full of innocent people hijacked. How many of you think terrorists wouldn't try using children? Not long ago we didn't think women could be terrorists either, or that shoes could be a weapon.

Last night, Geraldo was spouted his disgust - promoting "racial profiling" instead - "Who is she traveling with? Mommy or Muammar? Where is the family traveling to and from? Is it Pakistan or Disneyland, Kabul or Kentucky? And what is the reasonable chance they are a danger...?"

So we should only screen people with the right ethnic sounding names or specific destinations? Richard Reid was flying to Miami - nothing to worry about right?

Do you want to be "reasonably" safe based on the judgement a screener, or would you like to know everyone had been screened equally? If the parents explain to their kids this is just part of getting on a plane, and kids see a parent get a pat down, wouldn't it be less frightening? (I've watched the video several times and I don't see anyone's hands down the girl's pants, or what some described as molestation.)

[George Hanshaw]

11:34 AM on 04/23/2011

"But who among us can spot the terrorist among the millions of travellers­? "

Certainly not the TSA.

[lynzyluhu]

01:23 PM on 04/18/2011

The mother is right: Teaching your kids to not let "strangers" and adults touch them inappropriately or make them feel uncomfortable and then standing by watching this violation happen is a VERY mixed message. We cannot let kids think that just because someone is wearing a badge and a uniform that they can behave in this manner.

TSA needs to adjust their policies and kick this child pat-down tom-foolery to the curb. Period.

[Patriot093]

05:04 AM on 04/18/2011

-Rampant use of children in arms smuggling in Munger, India

U, November 12, 2009
Children, Arms Smuggling -Children are increasingly being used for smuggling arms in Bihar's Munger district, notorious for manufacturing illegal firearms, records available with the juvenile courts there indicate.

According to official figures made available, out of 145 cases registered in the district under the Prevention of Arms Act against children in the last five years, 55 related to smuggling of weapons and the rest possession of illegal firearms.

In 2005, according to figures from the juvenile courts in Munger, nine out of 23 cases filed against children related to gun-running.

Lets not be foolish in thinking terrorists won't use children to smuggle explosives on a plane filled with innocent people.Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R - UT) who's side are you on in this war on terror?

[George Hanshaw]

11:35 AM on 04/23/2011

"-Rampant use of children in arms smuggling in Munger, India"

Which certainly justifies the searching of children for arms in Munger, India. Should that become a problem in the US, maybe we ought to consider strip searching every kindergartener getting on the noon bus....

[GerryS]

11:16 PM on 04/17/2011

WOW,

where I come from, you would get tossed in jail for being a pederast for doing that---------------

[timbeaux]

06:29 PM on 04/16/2011

This goes beyond idiotic. I want all the money from my taxes that pay or will pay for this woman's salary, pension, and medical plan sent back to me. Not to the government, because they clearly have no fricking idea how to spend it, but to me. And her superior's salary, etc., all the way up to Napolitano.

[idonthinkso]

02:24 PM on 04/16/2011

here's what happens if you publicly speak out against TSA's obama admin-supported fascist violations against our civil liberties:

http://www.realnewsreporter.com/?p=2529

disclosure: i voted for obama.

[RMac]

12:20 AM on 04/16/2011

I feel so much safer now.

[Mitchell Gilbert]

07:46 PM on 04/15/2011

The U.S. Government molests a child (video) http://exm.nr/fbsNQV

[idonthinkso]

02:25 PM on 04/16/2011

be careful, your statement could get you a "terrorist" tag...

http://www.realnewsreporter.com/?p=2529