jmra wrote:First I will apologize for lumping you into the Brady bunch as it is counterproductive to civil discussion and my wife said I need to play nice.
I believe that whoever included "groped" in the YouTube title did it to intentionally incite an emotional response by suggesting that the girl had been somehow violated. It is this tactic that I was comparing to the tactics used by the Brady Bunch.
Do I like the pat downs? No. However, by purchase of the plane tickets, the parents of this child consented to this behavior before they ever arrived at the airport.
Would I like to see changes? You bet! But I would like to see those changes made without resorting to the methods used by the person who posted the video on YouTube - with a misleading title and what I consider the intential use of a scare tactic to incite a virtual mob.
I guess I find the Brady Bunch remark more amusing in this context than insulting; especially since you've explained the basis for the remark and I don't deny that the term "groped" has the connotation you say it does. Like I said, I considered not using it for that reason, but ultimately decided the term is not entirely without merit when applied to a search conducted in this manner on a six year old child. The distinction you're making is unlikely to be understood by a six year old, or a four year old.
I'm not even arguing against pat downs, if they make sense, but this particular search is obviously pointless. No one can credibly contend that this little girl is a security threat. What's at work here is left-wing ideology, not security. Ascribing the best possible motives to the TSA the search is purely intended to serve the political purpose of demonstrating that everyone is considered to be an equal security threat, and that is both stupid and counterproductive. But I'm not inclined to ascribe the best motives. I think that at the highest level the implementation of this search regime is also a deliberate attempt at conditioning. The evidence for this is circumstantial, but as they keep expanding these searches to other venues and expressing their intention to expand them ever further, it's difficult for me to believe that conditioning isn't one of the motives.
As I address in another comment, I don't accept your concept of consent. I may be compelled to fly for any number of reasons. By your concept of consent, if the government said it feared terrorist attacks on grocery stores and required people entering them to accept random searches, I'd be giving my consent by purchasing food, since I could order it from Amazon, or eat at Taco Bell, or grow my own, if I don't want to be frisked. The big problem with this concept is that the logic that justifies these searches can be extended to justify searching just about anyone, anyplace, and anytime. The Constitution, by contrast, limits searches based on the concept of probable cause. Airports have escaped this standard with what I consider to be a bogus exception, but now that they're conducting these searches in train stations, it should be obvious that the Fourth Amendment is under attack.
Finally, as I said before, I don't know that I can consider the terminology a "scare tactic" even if I concede it is inaccurate or inflammatory. I can handle a pat down even if I don't like it but I'd be afraid to fly if I had my six year old child with me. I'm afraid to fly with my wife. My wife is a very private person. She doesn't even like being examined by the doctor, in private. I can easily conceive of circumstances that might cause her to react to being frisked in a way that forces me to her defense. Think about it --stressful circumstances, insensitive remarks by TSA personnel (not exactly unknown), vigorous public pat down that she finds humiliating, ensuing verbal exchange, escalation, and my intervention on behalf of my life's partner. If we had a six year old child or grandchild with us that was subjected to a search like this and started crying or screaming for mommy I can predict that my wife's reaction is unlikely to be calm, and hence, I would probably find myself quickly in trouble.
Maybe nothing would happen, my wife might be in the best possible mood, and the TSA personnel might be respectful and professional. However, how people react to things like this can be unpredictable and the consequences of the wrong reaction could be life altering, so yeah, I am scared to fly with small children or my wife, and I intend to stay away from air travel unless I have no other choice.
"Journalism, n. A job for people who flunked out of STEM courses, enjoy making up stories, and have no detectable integrity or morals."
From the WeaponsMan blog, weaponsman.com
IMO, the child was not humiliated. In fact, she looked like she was enjoying the attention. FWIW, I did not see any "groping" going on.
e-scotch aged in real years.