What you describe is certainly possible in some of the cases. I don't at all think this was what happened to those three elderly ladies at JFK who described the TSA clerks as forcibly yanking their pants and underwear down.

How about the msnbc story that I linked and quoted at post #28? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35428010/ns/travel-news/#.TvJxrlZ4kyc TSA didn't dispute the family's story that the boy had been forced to remove his braces.
It's true that people presenting at the checkpoint in a wheelchair have different levels of ability, but here's a nugget of wisdom @:-) I learned on the Disability Forum. People who use a wheelchair in daily life due to inability to walk even short distances have their own wheelchairs. Also, in many cases, they either roll the chair themselves or have motorized chairs. After all, they have to do this everyday outside the airport. For the most part, the people you describe above are the ones using the airport-supplied wheelchairs and being pushed by an airport/airline employee. I was one of those myself for two trips - one to the US and one via Asia to Europe - prior to my hip surgery. If someone shows up at the checkpoint in their own wheelchair without an airport 'pusher', it's a pretty good bet that they can't walk well enough to get through the checkpoint unaided.
I agree that they should ask the passenger, but asking "can you stand?" is setting that as the default. It implies that the screener would prefer them to walk through rather than screening them in the chair (I'm sure they would - it's less work for the screener!) It puts the passenger in the position of insisting on being treated differently. And in the above, as soon as the passenger says "I'll try" instead of "oh, yes, of course I can walk that far", the screener should say "If you're not sure, I can screen you in the chair." Your scenario focuses on convenience for the screener instead of the safety and comfort of the passenger. (I'm sure that accurately describes the TSA, but it shouldn't.)

The same could be achieved by saying "I can screen you in the wheelchair if that's easier for you" and let the passenger say either "yes, thank you" or "it's okay, I can walk through." It demonstrates that the screener is willing to be "respectful and sensitive" as their HQ keeps claiming. Start from the assumption that the passenger can't walk and allow some to say "I can," rather than starting from the assumption that they can walk and forcing some to say "I can't."

And here's the difference, in general, between my (admittedly limited) experiences as a wheelchair passenger with TSA vs Australia (SYD), Asia (BKK, SIN) and Europe (FRA, GVA, LHR). I could stand and walk through the WTMD, and I figured that was going to be easiest. In the US (LAX x2, DEN), before I could even say "it's okay, I'll walk through" I was asked to get out of the chair (possibly because I was in an airport chair). In Australia, Asia and Europe, without exception, I was asked whether it would be more convenient/comfortable for me if they screened me in the chair (even though I was in an airport chair and pushed by an airport employee). In FRA they insisted that I stay in the chair while I got a rather cursory patdown and wanding.

Most of the problem, apart from poor training, is the risk avoidance attitude of TSA compared to risk assessment and common sense demonstrated elsewhere. I'm not saying that people in wheelchairs shouldn't be screened at all. But what happened to my friend's father - an elderly Australian man in his own wheelchair - and Lenore Zimmerman, Ryan Thomas, Thomas Sawyer and all the rest suggests that too many TSA screeners see such people and think "they must be hiding something - better give them the works!" Respectful and sensitive?

Then train your screeners better.

Or perhaps we should simply start throwing them in jail for abuse under color of authority when they pull such stunts.

Actually, I have no problem at all with throwing the burden on the screener in this case. There was no reason to SSSS the woman--she and the aide could have remained together while the aide got searched.

Since the TSA caused the problem it's their fault.

Actually there are quite a few people in wheelchairs that could walk for a short distance with help. For a few years my MIL was one such--she could walk if supported, her problem was she would fall otherwise.

Perhaps you haven't flown recently. You have to do both. Scanner or not.

They were pawed and scanned with hand held metal detectors, as was my mother shortly before her death by cancer. Planes fell from the skies every day, thus requiring strip searches.

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I don't see it as a risk assessment issue. Some of the TSOs here have said that it's possible to effectively screen a passenger in a wheelchair without them getting out of the wheelchair.

As has been said multiple times, it isn't either possible or desirable for TSA to independently assess the passenger's abilities. On the other hand, it's also clearly not possible for security reasons for TSA choose the extent of screening based on a passenger's stated abilities exactly because of the above. So the passenger's statement of disabilities affects only the mechanism of screening. I think we all agree that this is the way the system is supposed to work and that it's proper.

It's also clear that the system does work as designed in the vast majority of the cases. But when it doesn't, I think that "power" is the issue, but it's not always on the side of the TSO.

Clearly, we keep hearing enough report of what are obviously "power-tripping TSO's" that we're sure they exist. On the other hand, I do think that at least part of the problem is that many passengers are in the "never question authority" mode and will interpret requests or questions as demands.

I do agree, though, that both of these are problems the TSA needs to address, but again believe that until a program of "mystery passengers" is initiated and taken as seriously as "red teams", nothing will change.

bolding mine

Why would we be agreed on this? Clearly, if you have a 85-year old barely moving in a walker, or an emaciated man in a wheelchair, those are things that can be easily verified apart from the pax's statement. People like this represent much less of a risk and the protocols for them should reflect this.

numbers please? also, isn't the design precisely is what is being disputed? That you are so concerned about theoretical possibilities that you subject 90 year olds in wheelchairs to rigorous and invasive screening despite the very low likelihood of them being a threat.

NOBODY should have their private parts touched absent probable cause, much less a demographic that is leaps and bounds the least likely to be a problem.

I don't see that the wheelchair is a discriminant there. Consider a 30-year old man in a wheelchair vs an 85-year old not in a wheelchair. It would seem to me that risk-based screening should take into account the age of the passenger, but I don't see why it should take whether they arrive in a wheelchair or not into account. How could you determine at the checkpoint that a 30-year old man who present himself in a wheelchair actually needs one?

As was said upthread, there's no way to know, but clearly we're talking about once in a few orders of magnitude.

That's not the level of "design" that I meant. What I cited was the principle that you can't rely on something that passenger says (whether about a disability or anything else) to affect the extent of the screening, only the method. I doubt anybody here disagrees with that.

I hadn't noticed that TSA was taking the repeated 'red team' failures particularly seriously....

Odd how Pistole's analysis/intel/'chatter' works. Suddenly after almost a decade, he discovers that children's shoes are low-risk. Not a particular type of shoe (flip-flops, for instance, or baby booties), not a particular size of shoe (not large bulky steel-toed boots, for example) - just shoes on kids under 12. Interesting that the intel that apparently revealed that kids are low-risk coincided with some very highly publicized videos of kids getting frisked. Just a coincidence that after a decade of being warned that terrorists will stop at nothing, including children - suddenly terrorists aren't interested in kids' shoes anymore.

The same analysis/intel/'chatter' apparently continues to hint that women's breasts, skirts and privates are high risk areas - allegedly, because of the Chechen bombers. However, body cavities and men's privates (also involved in terrorist actions) are apparently of low/no interest to terrorists, so TSA doesn't focus on them.

Wonder if it is this same analysis/intel/'chatter' that has led to such a ramped up interest in older/handicapped folks, particularly if they are in wheelchairs.

Re: the whole communication issue. If a traffic cop pulls me over and says 'May I see your license, please?', the circumstances and the officer's uniform clearly indicate that this is an order, not a request. When folks approach the checkpoint (even frequent fliers), there's no way to predict what to expect. When a TSO says 'Can you get out of your wheelchair - (cause it will be easier for me)' or 'Can you take that off?' or 'I need you to show me bla-bla', most pax hear an order. Most TSOs are issuing an order. To pretend that TSOs don't realize this is to delude one's self.

Thank you - that's exactly what I meant by "risk assessment vs risk avoidance."
You've now shifted the discussion from nachtnebel's "85-year old barely moving in a walker, or an emaciated man in a wheelchair" to a 30-year-old in a wheelchair.

The wheelchair is a discriminant, and needs to be taken into account, because it is the wheelchair that makes it impossible for the passenger to simply proceed through the WTMD (or the scanner, for that matter) and requires that the TSA screener and passenger come to some other arrangement. An 85-year-old man on his own two feet, without a wheelchair, walker, cane or metal implants should be able to walk through the WTMD without any discussion.

It's not up to TSA to decide, but some common sense could help. I would have to argue that an 85-year-old barely moving in a walker or an emaciated man in a wheelchair is, a priori, unlikely to be faking it. A athletic-looking, alert young person in a wheelchair might be a terrorist in disguise. Or he might be a football player who just had knee surgery.

Risk assessment would say, "there is a 0.0000001% chance than any one of these passengers is a terrorist. The chance that this elderly, frail gentleman in his own wheelchair whose wife says he can't stand, much less walk, is even less likely to be a terrorist. I do not, therefore, need to insist that he goes through the WTMD to see if he's hiding a gun in his crotch."

Risk avoidance says, "I read on the TSA blog that terrorists might recruit an elderly person to smuggle weapons through a checkpoint in a wheelchair and they might have done it and it might be THIS man so I'd better give him extra scrutiny."

Regardless, if TSA has screening methods for paraplegics or quadriplegics that can be done without them leaving the wheelchair (and they say they do), this should be offered FIRST to anyone in a wheelchair, whether they're 30 or 85. Then they don't need to rely on what the passenger says about their disability. If the passenger offers to make things easier/faster by walking through the WTMD (or the scanner), okay.

TSA claims they can adequately screen someone who is seated in a wheelchair. Doing this as default for anyone in a wheelchair should therefore not reduce the "extent of screening", it just means more work for the screener.

As for statistics, obviously not every disabled person is badly treated at every checkpoint. But there are too many individual, documented cases to just shrug it off. And I note the survey above which determined that 75% of amputees were not happy with the way they'd been treated at airport security. That points to more than 1 or 2 bad screeners.

My grandson will be 10 in Feb.

He is deaf. Use a wheelchair. Cant walk at all. Doesnt talk.

Any stranger that get close to him or even try to touch him will have hell.
He doesnt trust strangers at all.

So now he would be considered he could be a terrorist. In this case his parents could not even help him to get screened .The reason cause strangers would get "personal" with him.

Does that mean he is to young to be belived to have a disability.

And he is from Sweden.