Looks like the terrorists *have* won folks!

Oh do I miss the days of Port Authority police standing over me with their hands on their guns at 4:30 a.m. while the airline called to run a security check on my driver's license. Particularly the part where it happened every time I flew for over a year, until I was switched to just the "SSSS" list for another year.

I guess two years was enough time for them to figure out that I was not the person they were looking for.

Good times.

I've heard of some pretty insane things before, but this one really is pretty bad. I'd understand to hold or seclude the child if the parent (or guardian) is posing a risk or threat, but a 5 year old child? Unless the child is carrying the weapons or dangerous liquids (such as a digital camera with extra batteries and a water bottle) then there is no reason to stop and hold the kid. At LEAST let the mother stay with the child! Even if that means the mother needs to go through additional security screenings... that kid is WAY to young to be left there in fear of the TSA and what is going on.

I've said it before, but I'll ask it again, How do we get rid of the TSA? I'm 100% dead-serious. Incidents like this just underscore how useless the TSA is. As long as the TSA is in place, there will be no efforts made towards real security for our skies.

Bureaucracy at its finest ladies and gentlemen!

Ted Kennedy should be on the no-fly list...

The TSA isn;t the direct problem as much as the political correctness that has permeated society. All the supervisor would have to do is say "Gee, it's a little white kid, he does not match the terrorist profile, off ya go sonny boy". Problem Solved.

But nooooooo, our government must treat EVERYONE equally in every situation, even if it's the wrong thing to do. Just like harassing little old ladies with knitting needles.

Thank you baby boomers for the utopian ideas that don;t work. please die now.

@chili_dog:

So if it was a 5 year old black kid, he should have been detained?

Flying out of Philly a couple years back, my son (then 7) was flagged. All I had to do was provide his birth date and ssn to prove he wasn't an infamous terrorist from ireland.

@bradanomics: its funny how he just proved his own point.

@bradanomics:

Silly rabbit, everyone knows white people don't commit acts of terrorism! Tim McVeigh was an albino brother from Detroit!

@chili_dog: No, the problem is that the TSA should have used a little common sense and realized that a 5-year-old kid is not going to be a national security risk.

@chili_dog: Don't be a moron. The problem is that he's a five year old. It has nothing to do with his skin color. Political correctness has nothing to do with the No Fly List. Cat Stevens is on it, for Christ's sake.

If this story wasn't sooooo ridiculous it would be HILARIOUS! LMFAO! :-) :D :-)

Yeah those hippies really dropped the ball on all that change.
WTF happened to all that, huh?

"-all those day-glow freaks who used to paint their face, they joined the human race
some things will never change..."

-Donald Fagan/Walter Becker

What other identifying information is on the No-Fly List? Wouldn't it need to have more than just a list of names to avoid these kinds of situations?

If this incident wasn't sooooo ridiculous it would be HILARIOUS! LMFAO! :D

The bombers are using women now. What's to stop them from using children?

@chili_dog: if you say so. perhaps you can tell us exactly what a terrorist looks like.

Knowing the TSA attitude, I guess the 5-year old whined a little and the TSA agents felt their authority was threatened and went on the inevitable power trip.

TSA as a whole aside, what about these particular individual agents? No one paused to say "Wait, this is a child. This is wrong somehow."

No matter how soulless the organization is, an individual should have employed a bit of good judgement or common sense here and avoided all of this.

@unklegwar: The bombers would presumably be smart enough not to use children named after themselves.

We complain when we think the TSA isn't paying ENOUGH attention to the no-fly lists, and now we complain when they adhere to the very letter of the No Fly lists.

I'm sure the lists didn't say "Bobby Smith, not the little kid, the OTHER bobby smith".

The kid's name was on the list, it's the agent's job to execute the same procedures for everyone on the list.

I'd prefer over doing it than slacking off.

@chili_dog: Troll.

Thanks for letting us know how to get off the no-fly list. Any idea how we find out if we're on the list before we get to the airport and get anally probed?

@unklegwar:
"I'd prefer over doing it than slacking off."

I'd prefer intelligence over idiocy, thanks.

@Jim: Get your terminology straight. The TSA is not an organization - it is a government agency. And what is a government agency if not a bureaucracy.

Bureaucrats do not employ judgment - to do so violates the central premise of a bureaucracy which is to give the appearance of furthering a mission without actually attaining any set goal.

It seems like the more vivacious your economy, the dumber the TSA agents.

This explains why Seattle and the NYC area seem to have the worst of the worst. A poorly paying job isn't that exciting when you can make more money waiting tables.

I always expect awful experiences in places where foreigners and non-hetero people are generally disliked on a governmental level (say, Oklahoma...the people are fine but the state loves to make laws demonizing us), as I fall into both groups. Strangely, that's been anything but true. The security at the airport in Oklahoma City (named after Will Rogers, which ups the coolness anyways) was pleasant, speedy, and polite. Nothing like the TSA morons here in Seattle, who are about 15% great and 85% awful. The North checkpoint tends to be the least bad of the bunch and I'll go through it even if it means walking across the bloody airport on the other side.

@bradanomics: Oh those 5 year old black kids are menace, just look at Bobby J. :)
[www.liveleak.com]

Well, this is just one more reason why the TSA is now more hated than the IRS.

Wow, it's super sensitive day at the Consumerist. He IS a white kid.

@Pasketti @unklegwar: What about using them for Germ Warfare? Kids are like a magnet for viruses, spreading disease and pestilence everywhere they touch... at least that's what all those Lysol commercials tell me*.

[*The above comment was sarcasm.]

@unklegwar: No, it's the agent's job to ensure safety while minimizing trouble. They certainly didn't do that here. Aren't we supposed to be training agents to use their gut instincts and recognizing threatening behavior?

What exactly does a five-year-old do that's "threatening"?

@unklegwar - Kicks the back of your seat during the entire flight.

@unklegwar: What women bombers are "they" using? Has there been a woman suicide bomber in this country lately that I missed? Or um, any bomber? Or are you repeating something Hannity or Savage said on the radio this morning?

I don't necessarily believe that it's the TSA that's the problem. See it's "company policy" that's the real problem. "Companie policies" protect stupid people from having to use common sense.

@Buran: Carrying C4-pie

everybody knows, you need at least two bags of gummy cola bottles made from explosives, for any achieve a sizable detonation. he only had a handful, so let the fucking kid on the damn plane.

@jinjin1080: No, "company policy" gets rid of accountability by providing a corporate Nuremberg defense.

The company can blame the employee and say that s/he should have used better judgment while the employee can blame an anonymous "company policy" that no one will ever verify exists.

Everybody wins.

scratch "for any", insert "to", and please add an edit button.

Did anyone watch the story? The name was on the list because someone named Mathew Gardner was wanted by the IMMIGRATION authorities. Don't you think it is possible that the kid's dad may have given the boy's name instead of his own when he was caught the first time by INS?

Of course they searched her after she hugged her kid. People stash all kind of things on their kids because of "who is going to search a 5 year old?"

For once the system worked, they were detained, checked AND still made their flight. Plus they had no more trouble the rest of the trip AND were told how to get off the list.

@unklegwar: Actually, the TSA wasn't doing their job properly here. You won't find this on TSA's website but it is in all of their rulebooks. By explicit definition, the no-fly list does not contain the names of any children. There are no children on the TSA no-fly list. If a child has the same name as someone on the no-fly list, that child is, by TSA regulation, not the person they are looking for. There is thus no excuse to prohibit a child from flying just because their name matches someone on the no-fly list.

I don't even know where to begin.

The TSA and many of its policies don't make us safer as much as it makes us FEEL safer. If they actually invested the money in making us safer, that party would lose the election for being soft on terror. So both sides keep it up, even though its weakening our efforts.

No more than 3 oz bottles. What's to stop me from combining a few bottles in an empty one?

The TSA regularly fails screening tests and lets bomb materials through.

That's what you get when you pay someone the same as you would pay someone at Wal-Mart. There's something to be said about experienced security agents. They're much like good cops.

PS- Ted Kennedy actually was on the No Fly List and he talked about all the trouble it took to get off of it. A number of people who spoke out against FISA, TSA databases, etc. "magically" appeared on no-fly lists.

Regarding the "PC" vitrol- Most terrorism attacks in the US have been by CONSERVATIVE WHITE PEOPLE. OK City, ATL olympics, abortion clinics (yes it counts as terrorism, even though Fox News doesn't tell you that), neo-nazi attacks, etc. So, try making Bill O', Rush, etc. miss their flights because they're "suspicious" and see how fast the rules change.

@darkened: Talk about explosive taste.

I'm starting to wonder weather or not a requirement to work for the TSA is a full frontal lobotomy. Either that or a double digit IQ.

Honestly, you don't see street cops arresting 5 year old kids because the kid has the same name as someone they're looking for. Real law enforcement officers are allowed to use common sense and best judgement. Oh, and they also have more than just a name when they're looking for a suspect.

If this doesn't happen with LEO's outside the airport, then why is this acceptable for the TSA?

If I recall, shortly after 9/11, there was a big push to have airport security uniformly operated by the government. What was envisioned was a professional organization akin to law enforcement. What we got instead are the same group of people who were manning the gates pre-9/11 but with uniforms and more authority. The TSA is an an example of the best intentions running smack-dab into reality. Oh, for the record, scaring a 5 year-old is totally messed up.

@MrEvil: Yeah, cause you *never* hear about LEOs busting in, in full SWAT gear, the wrong door and terrorizing innocent people.

It's certainly not the norm, but cops certainly aren't immune to foolish lapses of judgment.

And yeah, screw the TSA and the smallpox-ridden blanket of safety they provide.

@Jim:

The problem is that agencies like the TSA hire applicants specifically because they do not have the ability to exercise independent judgment. If you hired a bunch of people who could think for themselves, the really stupid rules would just be ignored.

@MrEvil: That's twice as many digits as most of them have.