DHS: New airport security policy for children

A photo taken from the YouTube video of a 6-year-old girl getting a patdown. / YouTube/CBS

WASHINGTON - Children 12 years old and younger soon will no longer be required to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress on Tuesday. The policy also includes other ways to screen young children without resorting to a pat-down that involves touching private areas on the body.

The changes should be rolled out in the coming months, Napolitano said during a Senate hearing on the terror threat to the U.S.

Napolitano said there may be some exceptions. Terrorists have plotted to use children as suicide bombers, and some children still may be required to remove their shoes to keep security random.

"There will always be some unpredictability built into the system, and there will always be random checks even for groups that we are looking at differently, such as children," she said.

Many travelers have complained that the TSA does not use common sense when it screens all air travelers the same way, including young children and the elderly. Criticism escalated last year when the government began using a pat-down more invasive than what had been used in the past, one that involves screeners feeling a traveler's genital and breast areas.

Previously, CBS News reported the case of a 6-year-old who went through an intense pat-down through security at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport.

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"A 6-year-old child shouldn't be subjected to this kind of treatment in the first place if there's no reason to suspect her or her parents of being criminals," Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU Louisiana, told CBS affiliate WWL New Orleans, at the time.

Shortly after that incident was a photograph alleging a TSA agent was giving a baby a pat-down at an airport in Kansas City. A spokesman wrote on the TSA blog that officers followed proper procedures and that the child in the photo received a "modified pat-down."

Earlier this year, TSA Administrator John Pistole instructed screeners to make every effort to screen young children without giving them the new pat-down. Pistole had called for a more aggressive pat-down when he took over the agency last year because he thought it gave screeners the best chance at stopping a suicide bomber like the one who nearly brought down an airliner over Detroit in 2009 with a bomb tucked in his pants.

Instead of patting down a young child, screeners will soon be told to send children through metal detectors or the walk-through imaging machines multiple times to capture a clear picture and use more explosive trace detection tools such as hand swabs, according to a homeland security official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the measures.

The government is expected to soon begin testing a new airport screening system on a small number of travelers who volunteer personal information that intelligence officials will vet. If cleared, these travelers could go through security faster, in some cases, because they won't be asked to take their shoes off.

Removing shoes during checkpoint screening has been a common complaint among airline travelers since security was increased after an al Qaeda operative tried to set off a bomb built into his shoe on an American Airlines flight in December 2001.

Not all countries around the world have the same requirements. For instance, countries in the European Union have never required that travelers take off their shoes to go through security at airports, Pistole has acknowledged. And while no one has attempted another shoe bomb on a U.S. flight since December 2001, Pistole said the technique continues to be an option for terrorists.

"Probably the most visible part of the change in homeland security since 9/11 for most Americans has been the presence of TSA at the airports," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee which held Tuesday's hearing. "It's an annoyance to people," Lieberman said of the security measures. "But they put up with it."

[gustafus]

Napolitano's buzz cuts are still groping women. Aren't we entitled to be gate raped by REAL WOMEN?

I didn't set off any alarms, but was told to go through the ex-ray - I said absolutely not.

They sent an obvious lesbian to pat me down. I said absolutely not.

they huddled.... and huddled some more.

Obviously they knew the lesbian face of the agency made it more difficult to use lesbians on women.

They withdrew the lesbian and proffered what looked like a straight female. She did the dirty... but in a sensitive way.

I was still angry.. but this is new ammunition.

Use it ladies.

[jsf14]

In at least 3 foreign countries I noticed that passengers going through security are not asked to remove shoes. A few Americans do out of habit.

[iowapastor]

O blessed be our great god and father, the federal government for their gracious gesture to the little children that they allow us to have!! May they be forever blessed for blessed are their ways to us who are so far below; blessed are they who protect us from grannies, children, and invalids. May their name be blessed from this time forth and forevermore. O thank you for your great mercy and grace.

[rwsmith29456]

Instead of announcing it, they should just do it. Now they've told the terrorists that they won't be checking children's shoes.

[username555-2009]

How about the TSA going away altogether? This is a waste of time and resources, they haven't stopped anything. If you believe the official 9/11 story, all they had was some box cutters and Americans passengers won't fall for that one again. They had metal detectors installed before we started spending millions on Michael Chertoff's Rape-Scan machines. All the DHS and TSA do are ramp up the warnings to keep the sheep in a constant state of fear and keep the tax dollars coming.

[BillsCatz]

I suppose he can say 'It's an inconvenience, but the public goes along with it" But it's either 'go along with it' or don't fly, and that's not an honest choice at all..

[grandma1940]

How craxy...are we more worried about children being advised of the possible problems than we are of the possible consequences of a child carrying possible airline security problems?

[d0gnipples]

They put up with it because they have no choice. If you resist in any way, or even open your mouth & say anything you go to jail or miss your flight and lose your money.

Many people have no choice. It's cooperation under duress. It's government/police coercion.

I refuse to fly. #WeWontFly #GateRape

[wastrelway]

It was much easier to place the burden of terrorism on the potential victims instead of where it belongs. That policy will continue, and it won't stop terrorism. And to jechaucer, yes the problem with 'radical' Muslims started before Bush was in office. Neither of us are old enough to remember Tours, or the Siege of Vienna, or the Muslim wars in India -- maybe it's not really the 'radicals' as they would have you believe.

[doonerpjenkins]

Let's not forget when time Radical Islamist Ramzi Yousef tried to blow up the trade center on February 26 1993. Yousef lit the fuse to a bomb in a rented truck in the public parking garage below the WTC. That was under Bill Clinton's administration. I don't recall any knee-jerk reactions from the feds at that time. But, yes, this sort of thing has been going on for years.

[myopinionpal]

Looks like the terrorist have won they got the U.S. goverment jumping through hoops spending tons of money on airport security. Even in death Osama Bin Laden is laughing his a$$ off at how paranoid he has caused America to be.

I say let the airlines take care of screening people before they get on their aircraft because if something does happen to the plane the airlines are the ones that get the hefty lawsuit not the TSA.