Now, yes, I know, if I were a Fiendish Drug-Smuggling Mastermind, or an Evil Genius Terrorist Overlord, I'd be the first to try and smuggle drugs, explosives, or dirty magazines in a crippled girl's wheelchair. And, yes, I know, if this were the first time I were traveling with someone in a wheelchair like this, I'd probably have spent some time looking over the rules and regs (those publicly available, not redacted SOOPER-SEKRIT and/or arbitrarily made up in the agent's head) before going to the airport.
But c'mon — this is not 2001. This is a going on a dozen years after 9/11, and the TSA doesn't have it clear and obvious and straightforward in every single one of their agents' heads (not to mention posted for the public) what to do in what's hardly a bizarre or never-before-encountered circumstance? And they bungle it enough to make a little girl cry and force a mom to start videoing the incident (and then have the gall to make up a rule that it's "illegal" to tape them)?
The terrorists have in fact won, because we're living in constant terror.
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
I so hate what our airline "security" has become these days.
TSA Policies Are So Confusing It’s No Wonder A 3-Year-Old In A Wheelchair Gets Upset During Screening
(YouTube)
The Transportation Security Administration is doing some quick apologizing after an incident that left a 3-year-old girl upset and crying when her parents were told she’d need to submit to a pat-down. The toddler has spina bifida and had reportedly already gone through security at Lambert- St. Louis International Airport, when her mom captured what appears to be TSA agents attempting to touch the tearful girl.
The mom posted the video o…
Ug.
I can't even begin to talk about how distasteful I find the whole TSA nonsense to begin with. This is just an over the top example.
I'm willing to accept that I can't just walk up to a plane. And that there are, in fact, people who are interested in doing bad things that kill other people, using planes, and that the government is correct in trying to stop them.
But to call what's been done to the flying process (even with these sorts of things happening as egregious outliers) a sadly necessary inconvenience would be ridiculous. When watch a group of businessfolk, mothers, fathers, teenagers, tourists, travelers, etc., all having to strip off their belts, their shoes, their jackets, juggle their baggie of Potentially Terroristic Fluids, pull out their laptops, path down their own pockets, struggle with forgotten jewelry, worry about the metal buttons on their pants, get everything sorted out into trays so that the things can get x-rayed and we can get microwaved, and then reverse the process and get dressed again on the other side while trying to get quickly out of the way because the security line must roll … it just boggles my mind.
A candidate for the Presidency might be able to win simply by promising to line item veto any funding if the TSA.
I wouldn't fly again for love or money. But at least this mess has helped discover that I love rail travel, as expensive as it is, compared to flying.
Police State, what Police State?
I mean you want to be safe, right?
Well, nothing is safer than a Police State.
Yup. If you’re subject to random pat-downs, constant surveillance, and an expectation of following the orders of the authority at any time, you can probably take a huge bite out of crime and terrorism.
And then, like in the Soviet Union, you just have to deal with the _down_ sides of living in a police state. Like corrupt police. And living with all of the above.
I like rail as well and would gladly take it more often if it were more reasonably priced.
Getting rid of the TSA isn't going to help, +Gary Roth. We do still need airport security, and the practice pre-9/11 of using often incompetent private rent-a-cops was even worse (mitigated only by the rules being a lot more lax). Swapping out the TSA for minimum wage donut-munchers, enforcing the same rules as today, would be disastrous.
What needs to happen is a top-bottom review of the actual practices, and a ratcheting back of the security theater involved. The problem is not the TSA or federal security itself (actually, being able to call your Congresscritter about it, rather than it being a private contractor of the airport's, is a big advantage). It's that nobody's been willing to tell them, "No, that's ridiculous." And that's because nobody ever didn't get reelected or fired for pushing for too much "security."
Unfortunately, anywhere I'd want to travel to on business or personal is at least a day or two away by passenger rail. Can't afford the time.
I think there's more to this story, though. It's easy to say, "Oh, evil TSA, boo," but from what I've read of it, they tried to go through the standard screening they do for wheelchairs (send the occupant through the scanner in a special wheelchair and send the wheelchair to be scanned separately), and the mother immediately flipped out and refused to let them scan the chair. It's not a stretch to see that as suspicious.
There are definitely issues with the TSA and I'd love to see them get a serious, serious overhaul. But not every TSA horror story is their fault.
You are quite correct in noting that we've seen / heard just one side of the story.