TSA changes policy on child pat-downs
Airport security screeners must try to avoid invasive pat-down searches of children, the head of the Transportation Security Administration said Wednesday.The policy change, announced by TSA Administrator John Pistole at a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing, follows public outrage in April over a video showing a pat-down of a 6-year-old girl at Louis Armstrong New Orleans
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The TSA has been criticized for intrusive pat-downs of children and elderly travelers.The agency says it will instruct airport screeners at checkpoints how to make repeated attempts to screen young children without invasive pat-downs. The instructions should reduce the number of pat-downs on children, the TSA says."As part of our ongoing effort to get smarter about security, Administrator Pistole has made a policy decision to give security officers more options for resolving screening anomalies with young children," TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball says.
Former Federal Aviation Administration security director Billie Vincent criticized the policy change, though he, too, is disturbed by intrusive pat-downs of young children."The TSA is walking a tightrope, trying to quiet the public damage," says Vincent, who is now a security consultant in Chantilly, Va.Vincent says intrusive pat-downs would rarely be needed if Congress would stop considering profiling "a dirty word" and allow the TSA to profile everyone — including young children's parents — before a flight. Pat-downs would be needed only for young children whose parents raise a red flag during the profiling process, he says.
The TSA says it expects to test an identity-based screening option for some passengers later this year. Under the program, travelers would voluntarily provide background information about themselves and possibly qualify for expedited screening.On Monday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, decided to revive a state bill that would criminalize intrusive pat-downs by airport security screeners.The bill would make it a criminal offense to touch "the anus, sexual organ, buttocks or breast of another person" during screening.
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