The point was that it clearly explains the limits of the TSA's authority; you have to extrapolate those limits to other situations not on point.

I do to.

But If I deplore drugs, does that mean I should run around talking about how TSO's should search for drugs in passengers' bags?

It is all about the legal limits placed on the TSA; PTravel , a lawyer, seems to understand the law pretty well. You, not so much. That you quote random websites as legal authority is a clear indicatio of that.

As do we all, but you're somewhat obsessed.

The act by four very official-looking and intimidating "police" officers of confronting an 11-year old child who is crying, puling her away from her parent and then interrogating her is "child abuse" in my book -- in every sense of the phrase.

Bravo! Kudos to you for keeping your eye on the ball. ^

I have four school-age children. I have been an EMT for 17 years and have transported more abused children to hospitals than I care to count, several of them knocking on death's door on the way. I had to fight to maintain a professional demeanor around the alleged abusers in several of those cases. Child abuse, frankly, pisses me off and I cannot, in any way, comprehend how any adult would want to do these acts to children.

That being said - this thread is about the actions of an overzealous government agency that does not understand, nor desire to comprehend, the very strict limits the Constitution places on government employees. If any of the TSO suspected child abuse should have followed the procedures for any other illegal act that passes beyond their limited administrative search privileges - report it to a damned LEO and move on to the next passenger. They had no business, none whatsoever, in separating parents from children outside of their limited administrative search authority.

Granted, IANAL and will not pretend to be. There have been several times that PTravel has corrected my misconceptions. He has fortified the opinions that many of us non-lawyers have been trying to say to you here.

TSA is not an agency that should be doing "anything for the sake of the children." They should be focused on their administrative search responsibilities.

Your continued repeating of information that pertains to teachers, professional educators and day-care workers is nothing more than argumentum ad nauseam and is, quite frankly, getting incredibly tiresome to read.

Gringo,

Anyone with a fully functioning brain finds child abuse deplorable. Again, that was not the issue here.

Crying kid does not equal separation or interrogation by the TSA.

"Acting in good faith on suspected child abuse" means notifying the proper authorities. It does most emphatically not mean separating a child from her parent against the parent's expressed wishes.

I am a mandated reporter, and I'm here to tell you that I could be arrested (and convicted), lose my certification, and probably lose my job if I pulled such a stunt. Those TSO's so far exceeded their authority it makes my head spin.

For the record, I am a government employee (a public health official), and an EMT.

~~ Irish