TSA: Going too far in ‘protecting’

We’ve all been subjected to the intrusive, inconvenient searches conducted at airports. As someone with military family I’ve traveled quite a bit and have become all too familiar with the groan-worthy process of airport security.

However, in the last few days airport security/TSA has been put on blast, after a video surfaced on Facebook, which showed a boy being patted down by a TSA officer for two minutes. The pat-down seems not only unnecessary but wildly inappropriate.

The officer in question goes over places already patted down more than a few times and borders on groping. The mother of the child, Jennifer Williamson, recorded the entire ordeal and was outraged. The child in the video suffers from a disorder called SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) and as such should not be subjected to casual touching or be overstimulated.

When Williamson made note of that to the officers and requested they search him through other means, they continued with this sort of protocol anyway; furthermore, as far as Williamson has stated, the child didn’t set off any alarms when he proceeded through the scanner, nor did he demonstrate suspicious behavior. They were kept so long that they missed their flight and were placed on an alternate one.

Even watching the video is uncomfortable; frankly if I were the parent in question the video would be a different one: “Local Mom Attacks TSA Officer with Heels and Pepper Spray.”

Since 2001, airport security measures have increased, and rightly so. That year, we were faced with devastating circumstances and made conscientious efforts to protect our nation’s citizens; however, we are now continuing to contribute to a system that has proven to be ineffective in stopping threats and has imposed on the people we are desperately trying to protect.