Snapshot of a Six-Year-Old: Terrorist Extraordinaire?

In the past week, the Associated Press reported on a video taken by a Kentucky family visiting New Orleans, in which their six year old daughter is frisked like a normal adult.  The video shows the young girl standing, arms out, legs spread and scared as a Transportation Security Administration official pats her down just past the metal detectors at an airport in New Orleans, Louisiana.

This video is an absolute outrage to me, since quite honestly, do we need to be frisking children like they're little terrorists in training?  This family was just walking through the security checkpoint to get to their gate, at which point I can understand if the parents are frisked.  I've been frisked before walking through security at my own airport.  I let them do their business and move on.  I have nothing to hide, no problem.  But "randomly" choosing a six year old is beyond belief.

The actions of the TSA screener who frisked the child are absolutely reprehensible.  Now, I do realize that planes are a very viable target for terrorists and terrorist activity.  The nightmarish images that came on September 11th, 2001 will never leave my memory, since terrorism of that caliber had never hit civilians.  The deaths of 3000 Americans will always be in my mind. 

However, there is a line in which security becomes tyranny.  When every single person comes under scrutiny, from 6 months to 60 years, and is subject to multiple searches and seizures just because the government can.  Once we reach that point, then our government and society have changed completely.  This type of action is just a small step towards that much larger objective.

The TSA screener was wrong, but at the same time, the statement left by the TSA is even more scary.  The Transportation Security Administration sent a press release to the media, saying that the screener acted under policy, but they were looking into reviewing security protocols.  So what our federal government just said, "This is what we want, we could care less about who you are.  We want to search you, we will."

But this is kind of action is not a stranger to law enforcement in this country.  Earlier this month, police in Colorado used pepper spray on an eight year-old boy in classroom as he was throwing a major temper tantrum.  I won't sit here and say that the child's actions and behavior in this case was that of a model child, but there were different steps that could be taken to diffuse the situation.  A police department spokesman talked to ABC news later that day, defending the actions of the officer.

The fact is, children are not adults.  Their psychology, their physiology, are all dramatically different in size and scope.  Handling a situation like they are an adult doing the same thing is the wrong thing to do.  To defend the actions of a law enforcement official who uses these extreme measures against a child is also equally wrong.  Yes, certain situations like the one with the 8 year old boy can seem very dangerous.  However, a law enforcement officer is trained to handle danger from a wide variety of attackers and in a large amount of situations. 

When a child is the subject of something like this, whether it be a search or a defense action, they need to be able to truly justify their actions.  When it involves children, the line has to be drawn farther away than where it is with an adult.  This country is not a police state, and while I understand that when airplanes are used like missiles, things change, but there is a point where the change needs to stop and we need to think where we're going.