OldGoat

Four important additions to the story:

1) The family managed to make it through the TSA checkpoint without any problems. But as they prepared to walk to their gate, a TSA agent pulled aside Lucy for additional screening measures.

2) “They specifically told me that they were singling her out for this special treatment because she’s in a wheelchair,” he told Fox News. “They are specifically singling out disabled people for this special scrutiny. It’s rather offensive to me as a father of a disabled child.”

3) “It’s your worst nightmare,” Forck said. “It’s bad enough they are demanding they want to pat down my child and didn’t want me to videotape it.”

Forck, who is an attorney, said he knew enough about the law to know it was perfectly legal to videotape.

“That set off alarm bells,” he said.

4) “We are not unreasonable people,” he said. “But to say you are going to do a bodily search with no probable cause whatsoever – just because she is in a wheelchair – that was offensive.”

FlyingCowboy

As one who flies frequently in and out of STL, this is absolutely no surprise at all.

HawaiiTrvlr

I suspect it will take another day or so before Blogger Bob issues his spin version of the events. The story was picked up by Fox News at least. Hopefully other news sources will pick up the story soon.

SeriouslyLost

It's so all the furriners can understand. Shouting makes American English easier to comprehend.

studentff

I'm not even sure that will happen. The TSA blog seems to have sunk to being nothing more than a periodic summary of prohibited items found at checkpoints, the vast majority of which either would have been caught by a WTMD in 1975 or are not a credible threat to aircraft. (often both) I think the blog team got tired of their spin-filled blog entries being tainted with truth from the reply posts.

Boggie Dog

The TSA blog is nothing more than a failed low budget bad pr concept. Very typical for TSA programs.

jkhuggins

Or, rather, has become that. There was actually dialog in the early days.

CrazyFoool

This is so dumb on both sides. TSA sucks but for the woman to be against paper being swiped on her so she can fly on a giant tube with other strangers seem like she's just pushing TSA. She writes to viewers as if profiling would solve everything yet she comments about how it's not only blacks that were ignorant to the rules. She had to write that because youtube viewers profiled the black woman as being the ignorant one. we can say racial profiling is wrong in one instance then say it's totally ok in another instance. This lady is hypersensitive because her kid is in a wheelchair. I think she's bending reality a bit to make the TSA look even worse.

WillCAD

I didn't get that from the video at all.

She wasn't "against" the swipe test. She had been told by TWO different TSOs that her daughter was going to get a full-body pat-down. Her guard was up, and she didn't know what was going to be done to her child without her permission. Adding to the stress was the fact that the poor kid was so scared of all of this that she was crying and blubbering. When the later TSO told her that all they were going to do was a swipe test, she asked the TSO questions to understand exactly what that test was. Once she understood what it entailed, she was fine with it and allowed it.

She didn't bend reality; the reality is right there on the video for all to see. TSA attempted to violate their stated policy of not patting down minor children except to resolve a specific alarm; when called on the carpet for it by the mother, they eventually backed down and performed the proper screening, which was an ETD swab test.

Unfortunately, the kid was severely scared by all of this. But the fact that the mom was recording everything is, IMHO, what made the TSOs back down and stick to proper procedure rather than abusing the child any further.

InkUnderNails

There are two major things for me.

1. They had completed screening and were heading to their flight.
   
2. They were stopped in the sterile area and told that they would need additional screening just because of the wheelchair.

If I had completed screening and was stopped on the way to the plane to be screened yet again, I would be pitching a fit as well. If they further told me it was because I was fat and old (both true) then I, too, would have viewed it as a discriminatory act. IANAL, but as I understand the administrative search doctrine, it has to be generally random selection, universal (everyone gets the same treatment) or based on some suspicion found during the previous random or universal checks (failing the ETD or WTMD). When the person selected is based on some criteria of non-randomness, particularly a protected class, then it is no longer covered under the protections granted for constitutional relief for unreasonable search.

Boggie Dog

Whatever it has become it is certainly irrelevant today.

mkjr

why not just have the mother carry her child through the metal detector (after the mother has already been through to confirm no metal) and just swab the wheelchair for explosives...for drugs is a f'ing joke...they are already in the states. why do you need to swab it for drugs? if you think they are going to transport drugs in a wheelchair when you could just put it in a fedex envelope....the TSA really does have crap for brains.

mkjr

why do you see this as a problem? do you know what it is like to be a parent of a disabled child?

petaluma1

It sounds to me as if TSA forgot to screen the wheelchair and were trying to cover it up through a whole body patdown of the child.

Global_Hi_Flyer

Exactly what ga_girl said. If Disney tries to fight TSA or DHS, they will retaliate by terminating the flight restrictions over Disney World, which, in turn, will hurt Disney (among other things, the flight restrictions prevent banner-tows). Disney is using TSA/DHS for their own corporate benefit. Unless there is a groundswell of cancellations due to TSA, Disney is going to continue to toe the agency line.