CNNThe Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is defending its agents after a woman complained they forced her 95-year-old mother to remove her adult diaper to be screened before she got on a plane earlier this month.
The woman's daughter, Jean Weber, filed a complaint with federal authorities after a TSA agent at Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport demanded that her mother take off her adult diaper because it was soiled and impeding their search. Weber's mother, who is battling leukemia and in a wheelchair, did not have another diaper with her.
"It's something I couldn't imagine happening on American soil," she told the Northwest Florida News.
Weber told CNN she burst into tears as she took her mother into the bathroom to remove her diaper and bring her back to security agents for more searching in a private area.
A Homeland Security representative explained to Weber that the agents were just following procedure and had done nothing wrong.
"Then I thought, if you're just following rules and regulations, then the rules and regulations need to be changed," she told the Northwest Florida News.
"While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner," TSA spokesman Greg Soule said in a statement. "We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure."
"In no instance would our officers ask a passenger to remove an adult diaper. Various options, including private screening, were offered to the passenger and her daughter. Out of respect for passenger privacy, we will not disclose further details about the screening of this passenger except to assure that all protocols were followed," the agency told The Lookout in a follow-up statement.
Outrage over invasive searches has dogged the agency since it implemented "enhanced pat-downs" last year to prevent passengers from sneaking explosive devices on airplanes, following the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound plane. Pat-downs are reserved for passengers who choose not to go through full-body scanner machines or who trigger some security alarm. The agency claims only about 3 percent of passengers receive an enhanced pat-down.
The Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer epitomized conservative resistance to the TSA's new procedures in a column entitled "Don't Touch My Junk" last November, where he praised passenger John Tyner for saying those words to a TSA agent.
Cell-phone videos taken by fellow passengers of searches of children have fueled that initial outrage. Earlier this month, a video that quickly went viral of a 6-year-old girl receiving a pat-down caused the agency to revise its policy on children. They say fewer travelers under age 12 will receive pat-downs in the future.
But it seems that every few weeks or so, a new passenger horror story or pat-down protester ends up in the news. A Michigan man who survived bladder cancer said he was left humiliated after he urinated on himself during an enhanced pat-down. A former Miss America shot a video saying she felt violated by her enhanced pat-down in March. And one man was arrested after he stripped down, displaying the Fourth Amendment written on his chest.
You can watch Weber explain the ordeal she and her mother went through in the CNN video below:
(Image of searched woman: CNN)
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