Agency attempts to play down “Poop Bomb” outrage
Steve WatsonPrisonplanet.com
The TSA has defended the actions of two of it’s agents who were photographed conducting a full body pat down on an eight-month old baby at Kansas City International Airport yesterday, saying they were adhering to procedure.
The image went viral yesterday after it was uploaded to a social networking site with the comment “TSA Looking for Poop Bombs?”
Outrage ensued as the agents were seen laughing and smiling as they checked the baby’s diaper while the child’s mother held him in the air.
Passenger Jacob Jester captured the pat down on his cell phone, and uploaded it to the net with the comment ‘Just saw #tsa agents patting down a little baby at @KCIAirport. Pretty sure that’s extreme.’
Jester, who is also a pastor, commented “I was thinking, what would I do if this happened to my son? I understand that my security is at stake. I appreciate TSA trying to make flying more secure. But I wouldn’t want it to happen to my son.”
The TSA has addressed the incident, once again via it’s official blog, which states:
We reviewed the screening of this family, and found that the child’s stroller alarmed during explosives screening. Our officers followed proper current screening procedures by screening the family after the alarm, who by the way were very cooperative and were on the way to their gate in no time. The child in the photo was simply receiving a modified pat-down which doesn’t even come close to what the headline [“TSA Looking for Poop Bombs?”] implies.
The TSA statement has done little to quell the backlash, with posters on twitter and elsewhere calling the incident “sickening, appalling, oppressive, unlawful, Frightening, disturbing, and disgusting.”
The incident comes in the wake of two other recent cases of young children being groped by the TSA.
Last month 8-year-old Spencer Sheahan was subjected to a full pat down at Portland International Airport in Oregon, in addition to 6-year old Anna Drexel, who was groped on video by an agent at New Orleans International airport.
Both children thought they had done something wrong and were being punished. Little Anna broke down in tears afterwards, according to her mother, who said she found it impossible to adequately explain to her daughter why the incident had occurred.
All three of these recent incidents represent a clear violation of TSA’s explicit policy not to conduct thorough pat-downs on children under the age of 13. Yet the TSA, and even Big Sis Janet Napolitano, has defended the actions of its agents in each case.
The TSA official Blog, manned by “Blogger Bob”, has been consistently used by the agency to issue misleading and outright false information in an effort to legitimize the unconstitutional actions of the TSA.
The agency has even suggested in a court of law that it has the right to physically strip air travelers should it wish to do so.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah has introduced legislation to the House that would completely outlaw any form of pat-down on a child by security personnel without the express consent and presence of a parent.
Critics have suggested that this isn’t enough, however, and that the TSA should be removed from the nation’s airports all together and replaced with private security screeners.
Watch Alex Jones’ rant on this latest TSA tyranny below:
Oh, and by the way, your security isn't under threat from any other terrorsits than your own government.
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