The TSA at MSY

By now most of you should have heard about the incident where the TSA gave a pat down to a 6 year old girl. This happened at Louis Armstrong International on Tuesday, April 5. The following is the TSA's response from their blog:

4.13.2011
Screening of 6 Year-Old at MSY

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.


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.


Also, you may have heard in the video that someone references a drug test.TSA does not test for drugs. It's possible those individuals are referring to the explosive trace detection test that can detect the smallest traces of explosives.

Here are my thoughts as one that had to watch my 10 year old grandson endure the same in Boston.

New Orleans depends upon tourism. It is sad that the memory that family will take home from their visit to NOLa is that their daughter was selected for a TSA patdown. The city should raise Holy Hell that the TSA is affecting tourism to the city. But the Mayor is a Landrieu and a Dimmocrat so don't expect that to happen.

The TSA refuses to tell why she was selected for fear it may give away their advantage over terrorists. Sometimes I think they have a Magic 8 Ball to make their choices. But it probably was that the parents didn't want her subjected to the virtual strip search machine. Or it may have been random and the poor girl was just unlucky.

The TSA states that the pat down was done by approved procedure (as if there should ever be such a thing as an approved procedure for a pat down of a 6 year old).

But I think you have to ask why would any thinking adult think it was acceptable to pat down a 6 year old child? Why didn't the TSA agent call over a supervisor and seek alternatives - especially since the mother was asking for an alternative? The agent was simply "following orders" which is a phrase I think we heard during the Nuremberg Trials.