Whether the TSA’s new, more invasive screening procedures are making us safer is still up for debate. However, we do know that the agency is making excellent progress in its mission to anger everyone who flies in the United States.
Jean Weber has filed a complaint against the TSA over how her 95-year-old mother was searched last weekend while flying from Northwest Florida Regional Airport to Michigan. Her mother, who is in a wheelchair, is in the final stages of leukemia and was headed to Michigan to be with her family. From Northwest Florida Daily News:
[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 said.
Weber said she sat outside the room during the search.
She said security personnel then came out and told her they would need for 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.
A TSA representative contacted Weber this week and said personnel were just following procedures. Weber responds:
“Then I thought, if you’re just following rules and regulations, then the rules and regulations need to be changed … I’m not one to make waves, but dadgummit, this is wrong. People need to know. Next time it could be you.”
We’re all aware that flights have been targeted by shoe bombers and underwear bombers, and theoretically there could be a Depends bomber in the future. But is there really no way to identify the dangerous extremely ill elderly women without degrading innocent people?
Elderly Woman Asked To Remove Adult Diaper During TSA Search [Northwest Florida Daily News via BoingBoing]
Image via 25359169/Shutterstock.
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