[blparent] Pat downs

[Veronica Smith]

TSA to avoid pat-down searches of kids 

By Gary Stoller, USA TODAY 

Airport security screeners must try to avoid invasive pat-down searches of
children, the head of the Transportation Security Administration said
Wednesday. 

The policy change, announced by TSA Administrator John Pistole at a Senate
Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing, follows public
outrage in April over a video showing a pat-down of a 6-year-old girl at
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. 

The TSA has been criticized for intrusive pat-downs of  children and elderly
travelers. 

The agency says it will instruct airport screeners at checkpoints how to
make repeated attempts to screen young children without invasive pat-downs.
The instructions should reduce the number of pat-downs on children, the TSA
says. 

As part of our ongoing effort to get smarter about security, Administrator
Pistole has made a policy decision to give security officers more options
for resolving screening anomalies with young children," TSA spokesman
Nicholas Kimball says. 

Former Federal Aviation Administration security director Billie Vincent
criticized the policy change but said he, too, is disturbed by intrusive
pat-downs of young children. 

The TSA is walking a tightrope, trying to quiet the public damage," says
Vincent, who is now a security consultant in Chantilly, Va. 

Vincent says intrusive pat-downs would rarely be needed if Congress would
stop considering profiling "a dirty word" and allow the TSA to profile
everyone  including young children's parents  before a flight. Pat-downs
would be needed only for young children whose parents raise a red flag
during the profiling process, he says. 

The TSA says it expects to test an identity-based screening option for some
passengers later this year. Under the program, travelers would voluntarily
provide background information about themselves and possibly qualify for
expedited screening. 

On Monday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, decided to revive a state
bill that would criminalize intrusive pat-downs by airport security
screeners. 

The bill would make it a criminal offense to touch "the anus, sexual organ,
buttocks or breast of another person" during screening. 

The Texas House has passed the bill, but it stalled in the  Senate after
John Murphy, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, warned
that passage would interfere with the government's ability to ensure
travelers' safety and result in flight cancellations. 

Contributing: The Associated Press