TSA denies having required a 95-year-old woman to remove diaper

[alp227]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- The Transportation Security Administration has denied that its agents required a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper last week prior to allowing her to pass a screening checkpoint at Northwest Florida Regional Airport.

"While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner," the agency said Sunday night in a statement.

"We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure and did not require this passenger to remove an adult diaper."

A response released earlier Sunday by the TSA said that the agency had reviewed the circumstances "and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/06/27/florida.tsa.incident/index.html

[Still Sensible]

1. Now they are just fucking quibbling

They wouldn't let her go through with the diaper on and directed her to a restroom removed from the checkpoint. Once she had the diaper removed, she went through the checkpoint again. Picking nits to defend the indefensible.

[boppers]

3. They wouldn't screen her with a dirty diaper.

She had the option to be screened with a clean diaper. She didn't have a clean diaper.

[wordpix]

11. it doesn't say what was in the diaper - if it was #2, it's defensible

Have you ever been near an adult who lets loose with #2? I have and believe me, you don't want it on a plane.

[LisaL]

2. Is it because they gave her a choice of not flying?

:eyes:

[truthisfreedom]

7. No doubt. "We won't require you to remove your adult diaper, ma'am, however..."

[w0nderer]

4. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

"We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure and did not require this passenger to remove an adult diaper."

yeah, reasures me...not!

We have examined ourselves and find that you have nothing to complain about cause we did our jobs really well and were nice to you

seems to me that TSA needs an external board of review

[guardiansandy]

5. "Just doing my job, ma'am"

Certainly the circumstances in our country today warrant a formalized caution to get that plane with hundreds of citizens safely to their destination. The poor employee who must do the strip searches probably dreams of a life in fantasy-land where this type of caution is laughable, unthinkable and primitive! He probably would rather be selling pencils on a street corner.

The issue and problem here lies not with the average working Joe who just needs a paycheck but with the TSA itself: certainly the Powers That Be can dig a little deeper and come up with some technology (or common sense as shocking as that sounds) to deal with every possible and conceivable problem that could occur. As wOnderer asks, who is guarding the hen house while the TSA worker bee is frisking the chickens?

If it is a dirty diaper that is a safety risk, either develop a more sensitive piece of equipment to see what goes beyond or is contained in the ahem, "dirt", such as explosive elements (no pun intended)....or perhaps take a tiny sample of the content of the diaper and run it through some kind of testing equipment. Grandma has every right to not have control over her diaper's condition. If she can't get it changed, then let the TSA examine it with better equipment and send her on the way to her plane.

It may still be intrusive, but I think we would see less people lining up to be a TSA safety inspector.

It's a hilarious story...but wouldn't be if it happened to me. C'mon, we are closer than ever to a cure for cancer, how difficult would it be to electronically check potentially dangerous poop?? Quickly and with protection of dignity and privacy....

[PSPS]

6. Your initial premise is wrong.

Welcome to DU. A very good first post.

Most of what you say is logical, but you started with, "Certainly the circumstances in our country today warrant a formalized caution to get that plane with hundreds of citizens safely to their destination."

If "formalized caution" means subjugating the population to the intrusive, sexually humiliating Abu Ghraib-type dehumanizing that is the purpose of the TSA, I disagree.

If a "terrorist" wanted to wreak havoc and cause mass deaths among fliers, they could simply queue up in the TSA line and blow themselves up there. At that stage, nobody has been through any screening at all. Many more people would be killed than in an airliner, and everyone would stop flying. Mission accomplished.

Yet we're told that we still must have the TSA "to protect us from terrorists." My scenario above demonstrates that this is completely bogus. It does no such thing.

Which brings us to the real questions:

1. Why is there a TSA and why do they employ the methods they do?
2. Why has there been no such incidents as I've described above?

I'll leave it at that because you know, or should be able to figure out, the answers.

[jberryhill]

8. Having determined that her caregiver wanted to put her aboard a plane without a change...

...there is another legal issue implicated anyway.

[wordpix]

10. no, that's not what happened---the caregiver had clean diapers in luggage already on board

Caretaker was forgetful. She should have put an extra Depends in her purse and not in the luggage. I don't think it's a legal issue that she had clean ones in her luggage but forgot one for her purse. It's just a dumb forgetful thing

[hootinholler]

9. I'll add one more

3. Why wasn't all this developed by El AL? They have been a target far longer and do not need the overabundance of intrusion.

-Hoot