Is US airport security too tight? Photo Credit: Redjar

America’s Transportation Security Administration is coming under fire for what some vocal critics consider its extreme airport security measures after it emerged that a 95-year-old woman suffering from leukemia had to remove her soiled adult diaper before being allowed to board a flight from Florida to Michigan on June 18.

Jean Webber, the daughter of the elderly woman, told CNN that a TSA agent became suspicious of the diaper because it was “wet and it was firm, and they couldn’t check it thoroughly.” The pair was obliged to remove the diaper and pass back through security to make their flight. Webber told CNN her mother, who is “very ill,” had to wear no underwear for the flight and that the TSA’s procedure “needs to be changed.” In response, the TSA issued a statement saying, “We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure.”

  • Why? “Last year, the administration announced it was ramping up the use of full-body scanning and pat-downs to stop nonmetallic threats, including explosives, from getting on planes,” informed CNN. “The goal is to head off attacks such as the one allegedly attempted on Christmas of 2009 by Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, who allegedly had a bomb sewn into his underwear on a flight from the Netherlands to Michigan.”
  • Perfect suicide bomber? Outrage over the incident is in full gear. Lewis Rockwell sardonically fumed, “We have here the perfect suicide bomber: A 95-year old terminal woman. She’s going to die soon anyway, either from her illness or her advanced age. She’s the perfect terrorist to carry out a suicide bombing.”
  • Not the first pat-down scandal. “What’s 95 years old, cancer-stricken, in a wheelchair, and wearing an adult diaper? If you ask the TSA, it’ll say it’s their latest pat-down subject,” sniped The Daily Beast, which summarised the TSA’s six “most shocking” pat-down scandals.

6-year-old girl patted down:

Ex-Miss USA claims her vagina was touched four times by a TSA agent:

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