Parents of 6-Year-Old Girl Pat Down at Airport Want Procedures Changed

[The Northerner]

Selena and Todd Drexel Say They're 'Struggling to Explain' Screening to Daughter

The family of the 6-year-old girl who received a pat down at airport security in New Orleans said today there needs to be a different screening process for children.

"We struggle to teach our kids to protect themselves, to say 'no, it's not ok to touch me in this way in this area," the girl's mother, Selena Drexel, said. "Yet here we are saying it's ok for these people." If we don't find other ways we're making them more vulnerable, she said.

Drexel and her husband, Dr. Todd Drexel, of Bowling Green, Ky., appeared this morning in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America."

A video of the couple's daughter going through the screening went viral on the Internet, getting thousands of views on sites like YouTube. It shows a TSA agent rubbing the young girl's inner thighs and running her fingers inside the top of the girl's blue jeans.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/parents-year-girl-pat-airport-procedures-changed/story?id=13363740

[yardwork]

1. I don't know why we're putting up with this.

Seeing the little girl standing there with her arms out was the worst part for me, even worse than the actual patting down. Why are we allowing ourselves to be treated this way?

I'm a woman who travels quite a bit and my home airport was one of the first to test those machines. Leering TSA agents loved to wave me into the plexiglass cubicle and have me assume the position - legs spread, arms held out. It wasn't until I started seeing the news reports that I realized that they could see my body under my business suit.

This is not keeping us safe. It's pure intimidation.

[notesdev]

4. The are training the kids to be submissive to a police state

Welcome to East Germany.

[The Northerner]

7. +1

[Taverner]

10. Yep - the serfs have to be taught to know their place

[krabigirl]

18. Yep, indoctrination.

[snooper2]

2. If some TSA prick tried doing that to my daughter

He would get dropped- fuck the consequences...

:mad:

[truebrit71]

5. I was furious as I watched that segment on GMA...

..This is complete and total bullshit...This is intimidation, pure and simple and absolutely nothing to do with "security"..

[Loge23]

3. Spot the Terrorist!

Watch the video and spot the terrorist!
(Hint: she's wearing a blue shirt)

We lost, folks.

[lector]

6. If you stop

and think about it, it's a reasonable pat down. You may not like to think about it but in the real world people use their children as carriers of drugs and weapons. It has been done many many times. The machine gave an alert, the TSA's job was to find out why. I think they did the right thing. Better to piss off parents than have a plane go down.But hey that's just MHO

[bpj62]

8. Oh Really

You sound like a person who has no children. If I saw a TSA employee patting down my 12 year old in that fashion I can guarantee you that I would demand that they stop. How the hell do we know what that machine detects and does it go off randomly. If I ever have to go through a pat down I will make that employee feel as uncomfortable as possible. When is enough enough. We teach our children not to let strangers touch them and that is exactly what this TSA screener did. What kind of confusing message are we sending to our children.

[seabeyond]

11. they can stick it up their ass, too. are you suggesting it is reasonable for a gloved hand

to go up everyones ass?

[Taverner]

31. +1000

[HipChick]

14. children, old people and pregnant women have long been used as drug/weapon mules

simply because they think they are not going to be targeted

[BlueJazz]

25. I agree....and frankly I fail to see what the big Deal is all about.

I watched the video twice didn't see anything that was out of the normal patdown procedure.

[ecstatic]

27. A RWer let it slip... It's about the race of some of the people doing the "pat downs"

And it's interesting to see that same type of prejudice on the left.

[JoeyT]

33. Yep.

It was a non-story as long as it was being done to anyone with sufficient melanin. Someone groping a little white girl?! Shock! Horror!

It's wrong no matter who it's being done to, so I'll take opposition to it where I can get it, but yeesh.

[sabrina 1]

17. What utter garbage. You are who the FFs were talking about

when they stated that those who would give up their freedoms for security (which apparently after ten years of these draconian abuses of civila rights we still don't have) deserve neither freedom nor security.

You live in your terrified world, but don't impose your fears on the rest of us. I value our Constitutional rights far more than having a daddy state telling me they are 'keeping me safe'.

This is about money first, and keeping this country in a state of fear (congrutalations, they got you on board) so they can continue to fight and profit from their phony wars, wars which do more to make American unsafe than a little girl who set of an alarm at an airport.

'Home of the brave'?? Apparently not.

These machines need to be abolished, in fact we need a Boston Harbor event tossing them into the water to make the point.

[Aerows]

22. Home of the brave

God that phrase is like acid on my tongue, anymore. I have friends in other countries that wouldn't put up with this for a second. It saddens me. We have become "Home of the Police State".

I fly A LOT, and have friends that fly a lot in other countries. They aren't subjected to crap like this, and as an American, it offends me that ANYONE would be forced to endure this. Especially over "drugs". Our own government is rife with people running illegal smuggling operations, including drugs and weapons.

[Aerows]

21. Drugs?

We are okaying the patting down of children because they might be carrying drugs? Jesus Christ. The CIA has been well known to run drug-smuggling operations. You don't think a lot of this is orchestrated? The "Fruit-of-the-Boom" guy was practically shepherded through security to MAKE us scared.

Why do you think that is, exactly?

I am no safer, and neither are you because of these procedures. When you are at the point where you are ready to offer up your child for a pat-down in the name of security and to prevent "drug dealers", you aren't thinking straight. The people in charge are freaking drug dealers.

It stuns me how little some people respect liberty. Is it the TSA agent's fault? No - she was doing what she was told. The problem is that they are being pressured to do this, and everyone that has stated that this is to get us acclimated to the police state is 100% correct. Our forefathers wouldn't have tolerated this BS for one second.

When you start groping men and women that have a prosthesis, or a six year old child traveling IN HER OWN COUNTRY, something is very f-ing wrong. It's lunacy.

[Ignis]

23. Your kids first.

[ThatsMyBarack]

9. They have one week to fix things....

Before I fly to Vegas!

[eowyn_of_rohan]

12. I refuse to fly until this crap stops

trains, boats, bikes, and automobiles can get us to a LOT of places without having our rights violated..

[krabigirl]

19. Same here.nt

[Angry Dragon]

30. They have even done ot in train stations

after the people got off the train

[SoCalDem]

32. nd surely parents can find drive-able vacations that do not expose their kids to

intrusive searches.. Kids can have a good time without going on an expensive vacation:)

I cannot believe that these parents did not know this was a possibility.

Until people quit flying in significant enough numbers, airlines will not feel pressure to change much.

there are two choices:

fly and run the risk of being irradiated/patted down
or don't fly.


.....for the people who will say" but I have to fly for my job, or my family lives too far away to drive"..well life is full of things that don't seem fair, but we all have to deal with them in whatever way we choose to, and things do not revolve around us in a micro sense..we live in a macro world..

we can only change things that apply to us as individuals, and until rules get changed to a point where we like them, we can only choose to not participate, or to put up with rules we don't like..

[cbdo2007]

13. It may not be popular here, but we NEED to implement profiling at the airport.

Not racial or gender profiling specifically but out of 100 people it would be easy to narrow down which people might possibly be terrorists and which ones for sure aren't.

I would much rather they do racial profiling than to be molesting my daughter in the TSA line at the airport. That's one sacrifice I'm definitely willing to make, but even that isn't necessary. Terrorists fit a certain descriptions so single those people out and search them. They do it in other countries all the time, most likely for this exact reason.

[mikeytherat]

16. That's great. Until they profile you, or your daughter.

mikey_the_rat

[cbdo2007]

20. I'm happy to be profiled, if I fit the profile. That means they know who they are looking for...

I was profiled once in college and it was fine because I was doing nothing wrong. I was riding my bike home from my girlfriend's and had a backpack so a cop pulled up next to me and asked if he could look in my backpack because they had reports of a white male with a goatee and a backpack breaking into cars. I gave him my backpack, he looked inside and gave it back and said to carry on. Took 30 seconds and was a helluva lot more productive than him patting down a 6 year old when looking for a white guy with a goatee.

The TSA know exactly what type of person they're looking for...and 90% of the people they search don't fit that description. You think that's smart just to be politically correct? No, it distracts them from their job, which is to keep us safe.

[Aerows]

24. Exactly

They had just cause for suspicion, and like me, you would had no problem proving you weren't the culprit. This is just handing over power for no good reason. It's insanity.

[ecstatic]

26. Terrorists aren't stupid. If they know only Muslims/brown people will be targetted,

they will slip their bombs/attack weapons onto another passenger who won't be searched (an elderly person or even a child) or get a John Walker to do it.

[LisaL]

28. Right. And parents of this child are going to do what, exactly,

while terrorists are attaching the bomb to their child?

[cbdo2007]

29. Actually, Terrorists are very stupid, but that's beside the point....

Has there every been an instance where a terrorist has tried to attach a bomb to a child while they were walking onto an airplane?? Nope.

Seriously, there is NO good reason to not have profiling here. It's just like any other crime. You look for the people who are known for perpertrating that crime and you question them, while not infringing on the rights of everyday citizens.

Just like with John Walker, they probably will attempt to get someone who will fit in more and be less noticeable to do their dirty work for them, but just like in his case, the alarms are more likely to go off well before they get to an airport scenario than while they're standing in line with their family going to disneyland.

[JoeyT]

34. Translation:

Go molest those brown kids and leave mine alone!

[Dappleganger]

15. My husband and I both watched this together last night...

as parents to four children, we both agreed that there was ZERO reason for any stranger to touch a child.

NONE. ZERO.

No matter how much the agent went by the book, TSA rules go too far and are a waste of time and $$$.