Safety First.

YouTube video shows intrusive pat-down of US child

Agencies

Posted: Mon Nov 22 2010, 03:08 hrsLisbon/Minneapolis:====================================================================

A disturbing video surfaced on YouTube showing what appears to be a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent strip searching a young boy, with his father standing nearby. The video, which was uploaded to Youtube by user lukemtait, was filmed while a boy was randomly selected to undergo a random security check.

The video’s description read, “Lets get the facts straight first. Before the video started the boy went through a metal detector and didn’t set it off but was selected for a pat down. The boy was shy so the TSA couldn’t complete the full pat on the young boy. The father tried several times to just hold the boys arms out for the TSA agent but I guess it didn’t end up being enough for the guy. I was about 30 ft away so I couldn’t hear their conversation if there was any. The enraged father pulled his son shirt off and gave it to the TSA agent to search, thats when this video begins.”

The video was released by conservative watchdog group Minnesota Majority. In the video, a TSA agent waves a wand over the boy, then slides his hands over the boy’s body, including his groin area.

Addressing the issue of screening at airports, President Barack Obama asked security officials whether there was a less intrusive way to screen US airline passengers than the pat-downs and body scans causing a holiday-season uproar. “For now, they told him there isn’t one,” the President said on Saturday in response to a question at the NATO summit in Lisbon.

“I understand people’s frustrations,” Obama said, while acknowledging that he’s never had to undergo the stepped-up screening methods. Passengers at some US airports must pass through full-body scanners that produce a virtually naked image. If travellers refuse, they can be forced to undergo time-consuming fingertip examinations, including of clothed genital areas and breasts, by inspectors of the same sex as the passenger.

There have been several complaints of inappropriate behaviour by TSA agents in the past few weeks. Some people offer graphic accounts of genital contact, others tell of agents gawking or making inappropriate comments, and many express a general sense of powerlessness and humiliation. In general passengers are saying they are surprised by the intimacy of a physical search usually reserved for police encounters.

“I didn’t expect her to touch my vagina through my pants,” said Kaya McLaren, an elementary schoolteacher from Washington, who was patted down at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport last Saturday because the body scanner detected a tissue and a hair band in her pocket.

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