TSA At It Again

The security threat on St. Patrick's Day.

Never one to rest on their laurels, the TSA is out demonstrating their crackerjack safety protocols with the pat down and diaper search of a 95 year old leukemia patient.

On her way to Michigan to be with family during the final stages of her fight against the disease, the frail, elderly woman was picked out for special additional screening. The woman's daughter, Jean Weber, related the episode:

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

Sari Koshetz, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration in Miami, said

“The TSA works with passengers to resolve any security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner”

Fair enough, but in the future I insist you submit yourself to a simulacast pat down while making your heartfelt statements to the press, just to communicate to the public your deep, shared sense of commitment to the pat down program.

Weber’s mother entered the airport’s security checkpoint in a wheelchair because she was not stable enough to walk through, Weber said.

Wheelchairs trigger certain protocols, including pat-downs and possible swabbing for explosives, Koshetz said.

“During any part of the process, if there is an alarm, then we have to resolve that alarm,” she said.

Alarms should be going off all right, but they should be the ones in your head that warn you when you are doing something indefensibly asinine. You are clearly working with a protocol that places no value on human judgment, that holds the unsupportable view that searching every conceivable person will not degrade the effectiveness of your searches, and are working with a bunch of dolts who are no more likely to make the nation safe by their pathetically pointless searches then they are to generate a workable Grand Unified Theory of Physics.

Weber said her mother was first pulled aside into a glass-partitioned area and patted down. Then she was taken to another room to protect her privacy during a more extensive search. Weber sat outside the room during the search. Security personnel then came out and told her they would need her mother to remove her Depends diaper because it was soiled and was impeding their search. Weber wheeled her mother into a bathroom, removed her diaper and returned. Her mother did not have another clean diaper with her, Weber said.

Pity. I suppose this still falls under the category of respectful and sensitive?

“I don’t understand why they have to put them through that kind of procedure” she said.

No one can understand it. It is one of those imponderables of the TSA.

Koshetz said the procedures are the same for everyone to ensure national security.

Ah yes, to ensure national security. We had to remove the depends and left her to travel on the plane without one... in the interests of national security.

“TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability” she said.

"We know from intelligence" is simply a non-sequitur when speaking of the TSA.

“I’m not one to make waves, but dadgummit, this is wrong. People need to know. Next time it could be you.”

I'm sure she is not one to make waves. She was simply overwhelmed by the dogged stupidity of the TSA. Well, damn straight.


Update June 27th

Mark Steyn comments on the inner workings of the TSA:

"Big Government – more-more-more money-no-object government — will by definition be profoundly stupid government."

Exactly. Read the whole thing here.