“I am so furious with them I can’t even see straight”

Steve Watson

Prisonplanet.com

April 15, 2011

A US Congressman says he is furious at the treatment of minors by the TSA and has introduced legislation to completely outlaw any form of pat-down on a child by security personnel without the express consent and presence of a parent.

In a letter to TSA head John Pistole this week, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah described the treatment of six year old Anna Drexel at the hands of a TSA officer in New Orleans as a “shocking violation” of TSA protocol.

In a video that quickly went viral on the internet, the confused and tearful young girl was subject to an enhanced pat down, which included an officer putting her hands inside the child’s pants.

Chaffetz, who is the chairman of an Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee that watches over the TSA, introduced the bill on Wednesday, noting “I am personally outraged and disgusted by yet another example of mistreatment of an innocent American at the hands of TSA.”

“This conduct is in clear violation of TSA’s explicit policy not to conduct thorough pat-downs on children under the age of 13.” Chaffetz added.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t



The Congressman also spoke of a recent incident involving his own children and the TSA, describing how his wife and two daughters were separated and given enhanced pat downs after refusing to go through radiation firing naked body scanners when flying to Utah from Washington.

“I am so furious with them I can’t even see straight,” Chaffetz said Thursday. “They should not be taking minors by themselves for pat downs.”

“The agency must get serious about the manner in which it seeks to balance national security with personal privacy,” Chaffetz wrote to Pistole. “At the very least, it cannot continue to operate under the belief that little girls and handicapped children pose such a serious threat that [agents] must abandon all manner of decency when interacting with them.”

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Chaffetz has consistently railed against the TSA takeover throughout the nation’s airports.

Last year he oversaw the passage in the House of an amendment to ban “strip-search” imaging at airports altogether.

“You don’t have to look at my wife and 8-year-old daughter naked to secure an airplane,” Chaffetz said at the time.

“You can actually see the sweat on somebody’s back. You can tell the difference between a dime and a nickel. If they can do that, they can see things that quite frankly I don’t think they should be looking at in order to secure a plane,” Chaffetz told the House.

The Congressman has also labeled the TSA’s delay in releasing safety reports on the machines as “inexcusable”.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

This article was posted: Friday, April 15, 2011 at 9:47 am

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