The author of this article recently took a trip with his wife and two children. The experience with the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) was the worst part of the trip. Without going into details, the harassment received induced a fear that this country is becoming a dictatorship.
When the torture reached a boiling point and the TSA agent explained that he ‘was just following procedure’, the author asked if common sense was part of procedure. The agent was unable to answer the simple question.
The experience was even more perplexing from the view-point of a good up-standing citizen, who has never even received a traffic ticket and travels quite frequently. There was no suspicious activity, although the TSA likely is told to ignore that anyway. The author also holds mainstream views and understands the need for security at places such as airports.
ValueWalk was thinking of writing up a post on the story, but a friend stated that they had heard of far worse experiences involving the TSA. However, when the shocking story below came out, we felt a personal responsibility to bring this story to the attention of the American people.
As to what the TSA should do instead? We have many more cost efficient ideas, but that is not the main point of this article. One quick idea which would cost nothing, would involve using common sense as ‘part of the procedure.’
The new story involves a three year old boy, and it was captured on video. The Youtube video has gone viral, and has reached over one million views. We hope to increase that number as much as we can, and therefore encourage everyone to post this video.
The video on YouTube shows a 3 year old wheelchair-bound child undergoing a TSA pat-down. Luckily the father of the boy, Matt DuBiel, hosts a radio show on NINE FM in Chicago. This likely helped the effort to spreading the video all over the internet.
Matt DuBiel took the video in 2010 and added in his own commentary and the following title “TSA nabs suspected Al Queda terrorist. “Does this video take an unfair stab at the TSA?”
DuBiel explained that he decided to post the video now after looking through old family videos.
DuBiel stated:
“I watched the video with my 10-year-old and my heart start beating real fast.”
“I started getting angry, a rash of emotions and then I had to explain to my 10-year-old what was happening and why I allowed it to happen.”
The video shows a TSA agent searching the boy by Pushing the boy around in his chair. The agent also took swabs from under the boy’s shirt and from his hands to check for explosive residue.
The father further stated:
“The truth is, he was trembling. He was trembling significantly. It wasn’t something that was conveyed on camera but he was scared.”
Watch the full three minute video below:
