...(and it sounds like your DH was there)...
Totally missed that sentence: "Once I passed through I was able to stand with DS6 while DS4 went with my husband." I cannot even imagine sending DS through first, if both DH and I were there.
Basically it looks like they were checking to see if he had fired a gun, recently.
No, explosives. Fertilizer.
DH was coming home from Mexico and his hotel was near a big park. He took many walks near the park. On his way home, in Mexico (not TSA!), he tested positive for explosives. Hmm, wonder if the fertilizer used in grass maintenance had anything to do with that. Of course, before they swabbed his *hands* they had him take off his shoes. Where the fertilizer would have been. He gently mentioned that to the security agent and the agent agreed that maybe they should swab hands BEFORE having you touch the shoes...
(then again, if you touch the soles of your shoes when putting them on before the airport you'll still have that transfer)
No biggie, though. A few moments out of his time.
I think a lot of it is unnecessary. My son had just broken his hand. He was put in a metal brace. Airport security made him take the brace off to "check" him. Ridiculous. They pulled him into a secure room. Had no problem. They ran their hands all over him. Had no problem. Had him lift up his shirt.... A little problem. Made him take off arm brace.... Bigger problem. He was eleven and traveling with a school group to DC. RIDUCULOUS. Airport screening needs to use some sense. IMO, they aren't really making us safer.
And if he were a bad guy, or from a bad family, and he was hiding something in his metal brace that covers up things inside of it? Then what? If you're traveling at the same time a young-looking man is, who is concealing things inside of metal, don't you want that person to be checked out? Well, I don't know your son, I don't know you. I want you to be checked out if you have something that could conceal something. And you should want ME to be checked out if I'm in that situation, too.
I also don't have a problem with those with medical devices or in wheelchairs or any of that being checked out. If DH hurts his hip and travels with his metal cane, I want that cane to be checked out.
The FLL agents were abrupt and shuffled the kids around as if they were adults. Kids are not mini adults. The agent could have easily stood there with my son while I went through and then sent us to the side. It also would have been very easy for the agent to say, "we are going to swab his hands by wiping them". Those very simple steps are not too much to ask.
3. My family has a security routine where I take care of getting the kids through security and my husband brings up the rear. He takes longer. I'm pretty efficient and don't want to hold up the line so we go ahead and go through. The TSA agent is the one who wants the kids to go first. Usually they are great about it and have the kids give them a high five and tell them to watch me to see if I do it right.
...TSA responded quickly stating that " You are correct, a 7 (he turned 7 right after we got home) year old should not have been selected for random screening. "
When going through security, if there's anything that requires conversation with the agents, it can feel rushed and worrisome. We have to make sure we're talking clearly and slowly, because that can help our mental state and can slow things down just a little.
Since you weren't with the kids you don't know what was said to them. And having a cousin who is autistic, I know that at least one child with autism isn't the best person to ask "what did the person say to you" because if the child I know feels pressure, he shuts down. If your child is like that, and since the other one is younger, they might have explained the whole thing while you were separated by a window, and you might not know.
I've never held up a line. If I feel like I am, I let people behind me go through. If we are still getting belongings onto the conveyor belt, I just have them go entirely in front of me, belongings, too. If most of our stuff is up and they are behind me and they are comfy being separated from their stuff for a minute, they can still go in front. I'm glad you have now realized that having the parents sandwich the kids is a good idea.
And there is no way I would EVER want my son to high-five a TSA agent who might have been handling other peoples' luggage with whatever might be on their hands, etc etc. What a way to transfer residue (and unnecessary germs!). I have rarely encountered a TSA agent who isn't kind, and I encountered non-TSA security agents pre-9/11 who weren't the brightest of the bunch, but I still don't want to high five them and their touching-everything-that-goes-through-security hands.
I'm actually quite upset that children are seemingly exempt from random checks. I also don't believe it.
If I believed it I would write to them expressing my concern that we're allowing feelings to trump security.
Sorry, but the only person that is allowed to place their hands near my crotch is my husband and my doctor.
Anyone else that does it, it isn't with my permission. Touching my private parts, even through clothing, without my permission, is sexual assault.
They mark it on your boarding pass. Or at least they used to. In fact, at one point my husband was told by the ticket agent that he would end up in the extra screening because of the one way ticket.
Full disclosure. I haven't flown in a couple of years. Like I said, I refuse to fly.
But the last time I flew, the TSA agent's hand was pressed against my breast and later against my crotch. Now it was the back of the hand, but their hand was pressed there, nonetheless.
It is fine that people are willing to go through that to fly. I just won't. I've been through the extra screening one too many times, and I don't plan to do it again.
It is YOUR perception that it is assault. It is YOUR perception that they are touching your "privates". It's your assumption that they consider it to be "privates", rather than "a good hiding place".
It's NOT the opinion of many. It's not my opinion. We all have bodies. We all have joints in our bodies where things can be hidden, where clothing doesn't fit firmly against. Women often wear bras that often have padding or gel, and for silly reasons they've decided that they aren't allowed to ban those through airports, so they need to just see if anything obvious is there.
Not sure that people intent on assaulting people are using the BACK of the hand.
If a check is random, then the agent doesn't know why it's happening. Checking people with one-way tickets isn't random. And it's not a "thing" because I book almost exclusively on one-way tickets, and almost never get pulled aside for extra screening. Which is sad for agents because I'm quite good-natured about it and try to make it less unpleasant for the agent, hopefully making their day of touching other peoples' bodies a bit more joyful instead of full of crankiness.
I've had my boarding pass stamped and nothing happens. I've had it NOT stamped and things happen.
But the fact is, you put your boarding pass AWAY after you go through that ID and boarding pass check, so the people at the detectors/scanners don't even see that. They don't know who you are. Nothing is being triggered, because that pass is in the bags by that time.
They used to look at it, but I haven't had the pass looked at while going through the metal detector (I don't do body scanners, which is generally why I get patted down) in quite awhile now.
By "new norm" I meant that young children being screened is now normal. Call it naive, but I just never thought about it. To be perfectly honest it makes me sad more than anything.
I can always tell people who never took Roman History in school. That's all it takes, in college, to erase any bit of innocence about the world. Terrible, awful, horrid things have happened since time immemorial. To adults, to children. By adults. By children. There is nothing new.
My mom dealt with the Cold War. In the 80s Sting tried to remind us that "Russians love their children too" which was a direct response to the Cold War fears. Before that, WW2. Before that, WW1. Before that, countless wars. Just look at the atrocities in the world since man started standing upright.
Look at other countries, my goodness. American was LUCKY until 2001, that nothing had shown up here. (and no I don't count Pearl Harbor, because my FIL knew fellow military people working in communications there at that time, and the US knew 100% that it was coming, and let it happen to get us into the war...that used to be "something my FIL said" and now I've seen it from more sources...the American people were against our involvement until that happened)
Compared to the rest of the world, we were just so lucky until then. Now we're right there with the rest of the world.
I'm sorry you hadn't thought about it. I don't know how one couldn't have, but I get that some don't. I'll put it down to the lack of taking Roman History.
Alrighty then....I'm going to be the one that 'goes there'. Are you seriously saying that you were sexually assaulted during a security screening? Because if you are, you are doing a great disservice to those people that have truly been sexually assaulted. That's just cruel. And swabbing for gun residue? Nope, it's for bomb material residue.
It's comments like this that inflame a conversation.
That's the exact thought I had. If that poster hasn't had anything like that happen, it must feel like a slap in the face to someone who has, to suggest that a quick back-of-the-hand whisk along the leg/pelvis joint, or along the underside of under-clothing, would be sexual assault.
If you were selected for one of the hands on body screenings and the airport security screener did not go up the inside of each of your legs until they felt what they call "resistance," that is where you legs join your trunk, they were not following the protocols properly. In your situation, the airport security screener would have missed an underwear bomb.
Theater for the masses.
It's all perception, though. That poster feels that they are touching her privates. I don't. Neither does goofy4tink. It's not that the agents aren't doing their jobs when they are doing the patdown, it's not that they are doing anything different...but I feel that they are touching legs and checking out underwear (bra) because those are good hiding places, while another person feels that they are touching "privates".
. 
