TSA forces travelling policeman to remove his disabled four-year-old son's leg-braces

Philadelphia TSA screeners forced the developmentally delayed, four-year-old son of a Camden, PA police officer to remove his leg-braces and wobble through a checkpoint, despite the fact that their procedure calls for such a case to be handled through a swabbing in a private room. When the police officer complained, the supervising TSA screener turned around and walked away. Then a Philadelphia police officer asked what was wrong and "suggested he calm down and enjoy his vacation."

Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday.
The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk...
The screener told them to take off the boy's braces.
The Thomases were dumbfounded. "I told them he can't walk without them on his own," Bob Thomas said.
"He said, 'He'll need to take them off.' "
Ryan's mother offered to walk him through the detector after they removed the braces, which are custom-made of metal and hardened plastic.
No, the screener replied. The boy had to walk on his own.

Daniel Rubin: Another case of TSA overkill (via Digg)

(Image: Rhys Gibson, Bruce Schneier/TSA Logo Contest Finalists)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Action • safetyhuman

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Anonymous

This situation proves the obvious…”common sense just isn’t that common”
shiva7663

Report violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act; call the ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 (voice) or 800-514-0383 (TTY).
Anonymous

Everyone should be thankful that the TSA agents are doing their best for the safety for others. Considering that most of the TSA agents have less than a grade 10 education. It makes sense.

Keeping us safe from those 4 year old terrorists.

Meanwhile, allowing sweating, nervous and insane would-be bombers to fly freely.
Gainclone

Boing Boing posts a story about the TSA being a bunch of idiots.

Then, a hundred or so readers comment: Yes, indeed. The TSA is a bunch of idiots.

The process is repeated indefinitely.

At this point, I think we get it. The TSA (here it comes) is a bunch of idiots. Tell us something we don’t already know.
- Santa’s Knee
  
  OK:
  
  “You’re an idiot…”
Anonymous

I am a paraplegic…who can walk on a cane with my braces on…off i am in a wheelchair….I have always been checked out but no one has ever asked me to take off my braces…to go through a checkpoint at an airport…I am 6’2″ tall..my braces are large and bulky…This 4 year old in this topic has tiny braces..and anyone who cannot see they are neither a gun or explosives ..has a problem..not the parents or the child just the person demanding the child take off his braces.Making a big deal out of a simple procedure, and being rude to a fellow American who serves and protects…While arriving in Paris,France a guard asked me can i check your braces sir? I replied sure and he did.. he also checked my wheelchair and my cane…politely..as the guard next to him..moved in closer so i could see the machine gun inside his coat…all to show they were serious..Guards at airports in this country need to show the same kind of respect and be polite…as they let us know they are serious..
Antinous / Moderator

And, people with disabilities are part of a “privileged” class, if by privilege, you mean we attempt to make things as accessible as possible to people with physical disabilities.

The first rule of Bully Club is You Don’t Pick On Someone Your Own Size.
crojack

This happens every time we fly. My oldest daughter, now 9, is in a wheelchair and they don’t let her though in the chair. We have to carry her through, and they have a person completely go over her chair. And we have to take her braces off, which is a lot bigger ordeal than just a pair of shoes. It sucks and it’s really embarrassing to my young daughter (and her younger sister) who already has to deal with people looking/staring/double taking/etc.

Why is this news now? Maybe because the dad was a police officer? I feel for the parents, no doubt about that. But it does kind of piss me off that this hasn’t been brought to light sooner, not specifically here, but in the media in general.
deckard68

I’ve seen a lot of spinals, Dude, and this guy is a fake. A fucking goldbricker. This guy fucking walks. …
Anonymous

Define irony: all the people who are expressing their dismay using the word “lame.”
- Anonymous
  
  I was just thinking that.
  
  Yes, let’s express our disgust with ableism while using ABLEIST LANGUAGE! That’ll be effective in decreasing ableism in society! /sarcasm
  - epo
    
    Wow! ableism, now that’s a lame PC expression, retarded too!
huntsu

Well, thank the Lord! I feel safer already.
Daemon

One small step for big brother, one huge leap for insanity.
siliconsunset

This was done on purpose to generate press. “see? we’re checking EVERYONE. We mean it. Don’t even think about it, terrorists!”

Lame.

It’s also quite possible the TSA is a scheme to get the entire country to avoid flying so as to reduce our overall fuel consumption, what with dwindling supplies and all. Sure feels that way sometimes.
pukool

Confused by the lede and headline… is this a big deal because of the poor treatment of a four year old, or because the member of a protected and privileged class was suddenly treated like the rest of us?
- Glossolalia Black
  
  Okay, I’ll come out and say it: yes, indeed, four year olds are part of a protected class. All four year olds, as a matter of fact. And, people with disabilities are part of a “privileged” class, if by privilege, you mean we attempt to make things as accessible as possible to people with physical disabilities. Which means it’s not a privilege at all, but rather just the right (and legally responsible, under the Americans with Disabilities Act) thing to do.
  
  So, yes, a four year old of a “privileged” and “protected” class was “treated like the rest of us”. This does not mean that there wasn’t shenanigans, nor does it mean it was right. In fact, in light of how passengers are generally treated on American flights, I would venture to say that being treated like the rest of us means he was most likely treated like shit. And he shouldn’t have been.
  
  Not only is it wrong to make someone take off their leg braces and hobble through passenger check without them, it’s against their own rules. And it’s shitty, and inhumane.
  - Neverfox
    
    As savvy723 points out and should have been obvious to you, the “privileged class” comment was referring the father’s occupation. That was a lot of wasted time and energy you aren’t going to get back. You could have avoided it with a little common sense.
- DownunderYank
  
  YES! You got it in one.
- Anonymous
  
  What is the protected and privileged class? Do you also think that engineers and school teachers should be sent to Gulag?
- Anonymous
  
  @pukool:
  
  Anyone who can afford to fly is part of a “privileged class”.
- sievetronix
  
  Yea Pukool because air travel is the main transportation for the poor.
  - Neverfox
    
    Why do you think pukool was talking about economic class? There are many other dimensions of class, e.g. those who are part of forcibly maintaining a monopoly on the use of force (the TSA, the police) and those who aren’t.
Teller

Chum for locker-stuffees.
remmelt

In a society that relies heavily on avoiding accountability, how is this even a surprise? Hold the screeners personally accountable and you’ll notice a sudden change in policy.
- airshowfan
  
  If you think the US is “a society that relies heavily on avoiding accountability“, then you probably do not appreciate how things are in the developing world. Sure, there could be much more accountability in the US government, but there couldn’t be much LESS accountability in many other governments. In many many countries, EVERY aspect of government bureaucracy is as unaccountable and ineffective and inefficient and theatrical as the TSA, with rules that leave no room for common sense but that DO leave room for the workers to be extra inconvenient to you if they’re feeling hung over or particularly lazy that day. At least in those countries you can usually bribe your way out of this kind of hassle, or call your one important friend who will make phonecalls that end with the local office’s supervisor being given a hard time and being helpful to you. (This, of course, is also bad for the country and its society, and ensures even less overall justice, but I won’t lie, it can be convenient for the wealthier-than-average person).
  - Anonymous
    
    I think you should not hold the US to the standard of a third world nation.
VICTOR JIMENEZ

The TSA is hiting hard the retarded bell of injustice and stupidity.
St_Toad

Why concern yourself with what happens in a country that you don’t live in, Cory ?
Can’t you find some horrible things that happen in Canada/U.K. that you would rather share ?
- Cory Doctorow
  
  Dear unhappy person,
  
  I’m sorry to hear that something I did inspired such displeasure. Please consider reading something else, finding a qualified counsellor and, if applicable, resuming your medication regime. Please do not contact me anymore.
  
  Thank you,
  
  Cory Doctorow
  - Pantograph
    
    I’m with St.Toad. Don’t say bad things about places you don’t live such as the US, China, North Korea or Zimbabwe… Hmmm I may have to rethink my position on this.
- Nelson.C
  
  Hmm, curious that you know enough about Cory to know that he lives in the UK and comes from Canada, but have somehow missed that he often writes about both Canada and the UK, not to mention other countries such as France and China. But perhaps those posts slipped your attention because you don’t concern yourself with what happens in countries you don’t live in?
  
  Frankly, I can’t imagine the paucity of imagination that finds such a narrow point of view at all comfortable or desirable. It takes all kinds to make a world, I guess.
- gollux
  
  We’re the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?
  
  Nothing more brave than stripping the leg braces off a child…
- Anonymous
  
  Because it’s not like the US ever worries about things it doesn’t like that happen outside its own borders. Really, Cory!
- Brother Phil
  
  When they came for the Jews, I did nothing, for I am not a Jew…
tallcedars

Lame. Cruel.

As far as I can tell, after far too many times being subjected to the whims of TSA’s screeners (including physical abuse), TSA is staffed with people who have a slavish obedience to rules, a love of authority, a bit of a sadistic streak, and absolutely no imagination. I’m sure there’s a rule somewhere that the screener was able to twist to give this result – because he could.

This reminds me of one of the times I was stopped for “enhanced screening.” It was a long flight, and I had brought along four books that I was in the process of reading. I was told, quite seriously and sternly, that I would only be allowed two books on future flights. This was undoubtedly a reference to a rule that had, at the time, recently been announced limiting air passengers to two books of matches. True story.

No sense. No imagination. No help.
- jackie31337
  
  The thing that boggles my mind is that I fly into and out of Philadelphia every time I visit my parents, and the TSA screeners at the international checkpoint have never been anything but helpful, polite, and downright kind to me and my daughter. I know there logically have to be rude, poorly trained, power-tripping screeners out there, but I have yet to interact with any of them. Maybe I’ve been incredibly lucky, or maybe the really awful screeners are working the domestic checkpoints.
Crystaltips

Poor kid. What a shit that agent must’ve been.
Oshkosh John

At the least, now there’s a cop who knows how weird and bad this TSA thing has become. I feel more secure already, knowing the TSA can and will harass a child.
Gryffinator63

St-Toad, Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

As for the story…I smell a lawsuit. Media outlets need to be made aware of this. This is just plain ignorance at its most pathetic.
Anonymous

Wow do they make people in wheelchairs crawl through without their chairs too?
- Dimitrios Makropoulo
  
  I believe tasering in the SOP for people in wheelchairs.
  
  http://gizmodo.com/5364835/wtf-police-taser-legless-man-in-wheelchair
Geekbrad

This happens to my 7 year old _all the time_, I didn’t know it was news worthy. I figured they screwed everyone with braces. But there’s no stopping them, braces come off since we don’t usually have the time to make a big scene, so I have to carry him through the scanner. We have taken to bringing a printout of the wording stating that braces don’t have to come off, but still get grief sometimes.

Worse, of course, are the passengers that put their overweight bags right on top of his walker in the overhead bin, breaking parts whenever possible. Losers.
Tamooj

mm… ths stry hppnd t th bgnnng f LST yr. Why s ths nws nw?

W gt th gvrnmnt w dsrv.
f y r stll srprsd/ngry t hw lrg brcrcy cn b thggsh & smpl-mndd, thn y prbbly dsrv t hv yr rghts trmpld. Dn’t rnt bt t n BngBng thgh – jst wrt t yr Sntr. ‘m sr h/sh wll pprct yr bd spllng nd grmmr jst s mch s w d (vn thgh thy wn’t gt d rvn frm t lk BngBng ds).
- grimc
  
  The cop didn’t tell his story to the paper until a couple weeks ago. RTFA.
Anonymous

I just have to say …. what the F**k ….

All I have to say is ‘get these stupids out of our airports; they are clearly abusing their privileges and ruining our live ….’
Heartfruit

The last time I flew in the US there was an elderly woman behind me in line in a wheel chair with a leg brace. They asked her to take it off but she told them her doctor had instructed her not to take it off. So they escorted her to a “private room”, which looked to me like a big glass cube in the middle of the floor. Then screamed across the space for a female officer to come and inspect the women’s leg. At this point I decided to move on so not to further this women’s uncomfortable situation.
JoshuaTerrell

Wow. Just wow. TSA must stand for Totally Stupid Assholes. I know that’s puerile but this is disgusting and sad. Sigh.
thewinchester

I’m lost for words over this. Seriously, how far will US citizens continue to tolerate this rubbish before they have the entire agency turned on its head and sent back to basics.
mudpup

The Headline should be.

TSA chalks up another win for Terrorist in war on Terror.
savvy723

@Glossolalia Black:

I agree that disabled children deserve to be protected and privileged with accessibility.

However… I think the commenter you’re commenting on was actually commenting on the fact that the child of a *police officer* was harassed, the “privileged and protected class” being law enforcement officers, not disabled children.
- cowtown
  
  And THAT commenter was missing the general tenor of boingboing if they thought the headline meant to imply anything other than, “If a member of the TSA’s ‘team’ with a disabled four-year-old has to deal with this crap, the rest of us are REALLY screwed.”
  - pukool
    
    That is exactly why I asked the question. The story when I originally read it on Digg did not mention the father’s occupation in the headline, which Cory intentionally added. I know the BoingBoing crew follows Radley Balko, or at least Mark F. does, so I know they are well aware of the different rules for different folks. I was curious as to what made this news… was it that a four year old was mistreated or the lack of professional courtesy between members of the thin blue line? Perhaps there is a level of nuance here that I am missing, such as professional courtesy being acceptable when it comes to matters such as drunk driving or evidence tampering, but not when it comes to little boys on crutches.
Anonymous

Forgive me for not understanding the finer points (AU citizen), but given that America is the land of the lawsuit, where even the most ludicrous and specious claims are treated with near religious reverence, why hasn’t anyone sued the living crap out of the TSA?

The TSA appear to be breaking their own rules, the laws covering disability accessibility, and the good ole pain and suffering ones that clearly have much precedent in US civil courtrooms. So what gives? Why are they literally above the law?
Nollie

Simply terrible. The Philly airport is notoriously bad – I think there have been several posts about it here on boing boing.
Equal Access

This is completely unacceptable and the TSA personel should be fired for such a stupid move! There is no way I would allow my child to be humiliated like this and I surely would not ablige the idiots by removing my prothesis. Educate, educate, educate…..The cop was a ignorant bafoon also!
jaybee

One of the key issue in the idiocy that we know as TSA is that they can’t afford the hire the sharpest knives in the drawer and that everything but EVERYTHING is decreed by Washington. How many staff at each position, how the tables are to be set up etc with no flexibility for common sense, initiative or local conditions.
I experience the same screeching/running around like headless chickens every time I travel through the USA due to the 320gm of titanium that a very nice surgeon implanted in my hip to help me walk.
I tell them that the reason for the portal bleeping and yowling is an artificial hip, and I’m more than happy to have them hand-scan/pat me down, but it’s the blank look that they get when the hand scanner beeps EVEN THOUGH THEY CAN’T FEEL ANYTHING.
I usually end up showing them the x-ray…

At least they’re not as bad as in Sydney. One clown there insisted that I removed the implant and renegotiate the portal.

Blank look when I asked for a scalpel and some anaesthetic…
Ceronomus

The terrorists haven’t won…but they have gotten minimum wage jobs working for the TSA.
Rob

Idiotic. Cruel. Evil.

Just hair pullingly stupid and frustrating. Damn near everything the TSA and the DHS [I'm still flummoxed how anyone American can refer to their country as "the homeland" without irony] is a bureaucratic disaster.
phoomp

Could you imagine if this had happened in another police state, like China? It would be held up as an example of the brutality of the Chinese government.
Anonymous

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- Anonymous
  
  That’s true. Who guards the guards themselves? They are supposed to be in charge and yet they don’t follow their own laws. Who is to be in charge of those who makes the laws? The court? Do we have to stoop to filing suit before those in charge will treat the rest of us humanely? If they can’t even treat those with disabilities humanely, I think the rest of us are screwed.
epo

Slightly misleading headline. Father’s ocupation is irrelevant unless he had been in uniform at the time, then I would have been impressed by the TSA agent’s devotion to duty.

The prospect of travelling to American airports never gets any more appealing. Think I’ll continue not to bother.
- Anonymous
  
  #29, I doubt the headline is misleading. Do you really think he wouldn’t have pointed out to them that he was a police officer so get them to give him a break?
  
  We just had some cops in Boston get off without punishment after they almost beat an undercover cop to death (black guy too) even after he tried to identify himself.
- SamSam
  
  It’s pretty clear that the target of our sympathies is with the four-year-old, but I guess you’re right that the headline does say “TSA forces travelling policeman to…”
  
  The original article does it as well: “Did you hear about the Camden cop who…”
  
  It’s not a big deal, but I agree that it’s the four-year-old who should be the subject here, the four-year-old who was mistreated, not the cop. But I could see Cory, as a father, sympathizing most with the father’s feelings in this situation.
Anonymous

This is exactly why I will drive where ever I go. Flying in the USA has gotten ridiculous.
Anonymous

This makes me so angry. Father must have been beside himself. I don’t think it makes us safer to get people angry.
webmonkees

What in the disturbed set of scenarios was this TSA guy working from?

Okay, say this was a ‘catch’. we caught one!

“Cambden, PA officer caught with terror device concealed in his disabled child’s legs.
He was hoping that the braces the child wore would conceal the device from detectors, but wary TSA Guard Al Waysondajob made the catch. The bomb squad took the child away to be detonated at a safe distance from the airport. ”

Okay, that was wrong, sorry.
Anonymous

If the TSA did their job right they would’ve made the kid crawl through the scanner. Then they should’ve kicked him and yelled at him until he cried. That is how good security works. If we can’t humiliate and traumatize ordinary travelers then the terrorists win!

Plus it is fun for TSA and cops who barely squeaked by in high school to make life hell for people who are better than them.
middleclass

So one goon gets all goony on another goon. Big deal, we mundanes deal with it all the time.
cymk

Airlines, Homeland Security, the TSA…none of them will get the message. You can yell and scream about it all you want, write your letters to the appropriate authorities and in the long run the juggernaut of bureaucracy will keep on eating away at our civil liberties. The only way I can see for a message of dissatisfaction to be delivered effectively would be to stop flying. Period. And we continue to not fly for a week, a month, maybe more; until its understood that this bullshit security theater is pointless and if you aren’t going to do something real to protect us, then you might as well do nothing at all.
flatfive

Fuck these thugs. I’ve flown for the last time.

I can only hope their agency is disbanded and they’re all forced to go back to guarding the pretzel stores at the local mall.
Anonymous

Is it really surprising that TSA would operate like this? We’re paying these screeners minimum wage. What do we expect?

Want real safety – we need to pay for it. We should be attracting our best and brightest to this and recruiting from police academy’s or the armed forces, not Burger King…
mgfarrelly

This story actually made me sick to my stomach.

What sort of loathsome human being looks at a handicapped child, struggling to walk without braces and demands they perform? And this is a person charged with our safety? This is someone who should be cleaning dung off the walls of zoo.

No offense to dung cleaners, who I’m sure are much more humane and kind than this TSA chucklehead.

Ugh.
- joeposts
  
  “What sort of loathsome human being looks at a handicapped child, struggling to walk without braces and demands they perform?”
  
  Israeli security officials make some people actually perform – if a muslim says they’re in a dance group, they have to dance for the guards amusement. If they say they’re violinists, they have to play it for the guards. Perhaps we’re just bringing Israel’s highly regarded security protocols to the US of A? If you say your disabled, prove it by failing to walk.
  - Anonymous
    
    “if a muslim says they’re in a dance group, they have to dance for the guards amusement”
    
    Now *that’s* Security Theatre! *ba-bum-shh*
cameronh1403

And once again the TSA shows why they are not needed and why they should be disbanded! They don’t do crap to stop anything and can get away with anything in the name ‘safety’. Given the choice between driving in North America or flying, I would rather drive.
jurisenpai

My husband uses leg braces made of Kevlar and carbon fiber that look like futuristic shin guards. He’s definitely had some interesting experiences with airport security.

In Oklahoma City, the TSA guy had no idea what to do, so my husband told him he needed secondary screening and ballistics test, etc. The TSA guy was very polite but utterly clueless.

In Richmond, VA the screener just ordered my husband into the millimeter wave machine – problem solved in about 30 seconds.

In Atlanta, we were put into priority screening in Customs and jumped ahead of at least 200 people – the one benefit to secondary screening I’ve seen so far.

The key is to know your rights according to the ADA and to be firm until the screeners comply.
Blue

At this point I’m feeling more hostility toward the TSA than to Al Qaeda.

That’s what they were aiming for, right?

I mean at least Al Qaeda has a (warped) ideology and sincere belief system (however misguided). These jerks are just abusing their power to be insensitive and cruel.
alteran

@siliconsunset

I disagree. This was just a typical power-tripping TSA asshat. Most are not like this at all, but you pass through about 10 TSA people per round trip so it doesn’t take many.

A TSA jerk demanded that my just under two-year old son, who like many at that age was pre-lingual, walk through the detector on his own CARRYING HIS BOARDING PASS.

I informed the officer that I could carry it and the officer insisted that my two-year old had to. There is no way that’s written in the regs.

I was really concerned that this would become a problem because he simply couldn’t follow directions, but we had my wife go on the other side of the detector, call to him, and I shoved the pass in his hands when he started, and he just happened to hold on to it.

Metal detectors detect metal. The only reason to separate people is so you know which one set the damn thing off.

And making a pre-lingual child carry a boarding pass? Power-tripping, nothing else. (And to be clear, nothing like what this guy and his son went through.)
gollux

TSA and the Jesus complex… We’re dumber than a first grader.
relgin

This is simply unprofessional behavior on the part of TSA. Why does this agency continue to allow these things to happen? If this agency were a real business, people would be fired but as it is, they are unaccountable. When I read of these sort of cases, I am very disturbed by what my government allows to happen.
Thorzdad

Somewhere in a cave, Bin Laden chuckles contentedly. Mission accomplished.
escoton

This is annoying and semi-tragic. A four-year-old doesn’t deserve to be hassled like that. That said, I do get a secret kick out of cops getting treated like they treat others.
As far as the headline being unclear? It would be better if you put a DONK on it!
jafi

TSA asked me if I could remove the cast on my broken hand.

Fiberglass, bright blue – ran from my fingertips to mid forearm. Clearly obviously a big heavy cast from the way I was carrying my arm.

She asked “can you take that off”
I answered – I hope not my hand is broken. She asks “does that come off” – dumbfounded I answered “I hope not – for the sake of the BROKEN BONES”.

I was thankful that I wasn’t still in the splint I had while they waited for the swelling to go down before casting it. Clear orders not to remove it – quite clear this woman would have tried to force me to.
Moriarty

I think the father’s profession is mentioned in the headline specifically to generate arguments in the comments.
- cinemajay
  
  Actually I think it’s mentioned specifically to show that no one–even a cop with a disabled child–is immune from being treated like dirt while being screened. And I’m NOT talking about getting special treatment either–this guy and his kid were robbed of not only dignity, but due process as outlined by the TSAs own screening procedures.
davevontexas

I’ve thrown an unproductive fit about this before (see my last post), but I’m hoping someone goes after the individual TSA workers. Here’s why: I suspect that if the Thomases do what I’d like them to do, namely lawyer up and fight the TSA (ADA, fourth amendment and anything else their lawyer can think up); it’s just going to be a matter of time until the TSA throws the individual worker-drones under the bus, says something vapid about guidelines and is found to be acting perfectly innocently.

If the child’s rights were violated and the TSA isn’t at fault, that leaves the individual TSA workers to blame. And a few horror stories about TSA supervisors whose lives were ruined — while not a substitute for hiring grownups to run a government agency — strikes me as an excellent place to start piling up the disincentives against this kind of corruption and abuse.
Unanimous Cowherd

What should the takeaway from this be? What does this teach us? The result of this and all of the other TSA-related bad news is to make it seem nearly unbearable to travel by air. I have not been on a plane for years now, and frankly, I simply don’t want to. Not that I don’t like to travel, but I just don’t feel that the hassle is worth it any more. We are driving for our next vacation, like we have for the past several years. I wonder how many others are doing the same?

Am I afraid of air travel? Yes, actually, but not because of the plane or the flying or the height. I’m afraid of the ugliness and mess and tension that are what I think about any time I consider, maybe, of getting on a plane. It makes me terribly sad.
PLM

Add up the cost of each extra hour everybody needs to be at the airport for each flight since the advent of the TSA. Add in the cost of the TSA, HS, etc… Add in the cost of all of the confiscated items, especially all of the bottles of shampoo, conditioner, etc that ended up in the trash after the >3oz container ban. Just keep adding it up. You and I pay in our time and $s. The overall cost is orders of magnitude greater than anything terrorists have directly done. And every “solution” is really just an appearance of addressing the risks and threats of terrorism, never a word or a dollar about root causes – usually poverty, injustice, pillaging of countries rich in natural resources, but $ poor.
ebirjr

These are the TSA procedures that THEY did not follow (Security Officers will not ask nor require you to remove your prosthetic device, cast, or support brace.): Security Officers will need to see and touch your prosthetic device, cast or support brace as part of the screening process.
Security Officers will not ask nor require you to remove your prosthetic device, cast, or support brace.
During the screening process, please do not remove or offer to remove your prosthetic device.
You have the option of requesting a private screening at any time during the screening of your prosthetic device, cast or support brace.
You have the right to refuse the offer of a private screening; however, you will need to allow the screening to be conducted publicly if you wish to proceed beyond the security checkpoint.
Anonymous

Homeland Security, and TSA- your mission has been accomplished, return to base.

Fear Incorperated
Anonymous

TSA Vs. Police Next on Opra.
Anonymous

So when is it going to be enough? How many of these stories are we going to have to wade through before we all decide that it’s too much? Have we been hand-fed so much that we honestly believe that corporations and government agencies are untouchable by the average citizen? They’re just PEOPLE! The corporations and agencies aren’t some powerful existential entity; they’re just groups of people! They have money? So what? WE control how they get that money. They have power? We have MUCH more than they do. There are MANY more of us than there are of them. Any power they possess is the power or authority that we mutually AGREE that they have. An individual is easy to abuse. What if their abuse had caused that child irreparable harm? Would it be enough then? It’s not even as if this is an isolated incident or that the TSA is the only offender.

Banks treat us like dirt while we LOAN them OUR money.

Government officials favor special interest while they enjoy positions curried through OUR favor. They bail out practitioners of faulty economic practices while private citizens lose their homes.

Various businesses and agencies spend our money and twist our laws on some draconian copyright witch-hunt.

Law-makers construct labyrinthine monstrosities out of countless rules and regulations that the average citizen couldn’t hope to navigate on his or her own (you are always breaking SOME law).

To them, we are cattle. We are fed a steady diet of fast food, reality TV, and bull. We are encouraged to worship the individual (individuals pose no threat). We blog or twitter about it, then proceed on our way.

Here’s the BIG SECRET: There really is no THEM or THEY… only US. “They” are just people, and a very small group at that. The ones that institute “policy” are an even smaller number. We don’t need violence. We don’t need some grand uprising. All we really have to do is CHANGE OUR MINDS. We all have to decide TOGETHER that this is NOT how we are going to be treated, because this is not how we are going to treat each other… policy be damned.

We have to finally decide that our humanity is worth more than any rule, policy, or obscure law printed in leagalese. Who stands for the common man, woman, or child? We do. Who should stand to defend a special-needs child while they are being humiliated by some dispassionate “cog in the machine”? ALL OF US.
BookGuy

I applaud this. Because it’s cool to torment people with disabilities? No, but rather because a cop was subjected to this. Maybe the TSA abusing cops will finally cause some push back that the TSA or the idiots who run it can’t ignore, like they ignore the rest of us.

At the very least, they should get into a massive TSA vs. cop taser fight the next time at the airport. So I can watch.