Jaunted

The suspicious object was the diaper, of course, and it was too firm and wet for them to be confident that nothing was hidden inside. Two things: One, you now have that image in your mind and you can't ever un-have it. You're welcome. Two, of course they had to follow up once they came across it. No wonder that TSA is defending its personnel, and even clarifying that the woman wasn't required to remove her diaper.

This gets us back to the same problem we discuss every time one of these incidents happen. Once you decide that everyone has to be searched as a potential terrorist, which is de facto TSA's policy, agents have to follow up on whatever they find. Screeners usually try to be pretty sensitive to medical issues—people with catheters sticking out of their bodies, for instance—but they're not allowed to ignore thick plastic diapers or detector-triggering strollers just because grandmothers and babies don't "look like" terrorists. We could build a system where they were allowed to ignore those things, but that's not this system.

None of which should be taken as a defense of TSA's current way of doing things. But if you want to change it you're going to have to rebuild it from the ground up. First we'd need to start letting TSA use appearances and behavior in deciding who to search. So some passengers would be selected into extra screening. Then they would have to take the next step and start using appearances and behavior in deciding who not to search. Here some passengers would also be selected out of screening.

Lots of people aren't ready to embrace anything approaching those changes, and some of them have very good reasons. But the result of the current system is an endless stream of babies, toddlers, and grandmothers getting patted down. Costs, benefits, and tradeoffs. No easy answers here.

[Photo: CNN]