The 6-year-old girl who got a TSA patdown

A new viral video clip rekindles outrage over airport security procedures

A TSA worker frisks a 6-year-old at New Orleans' international airport earlier this month.
(Image credit: YouTube)

The video: The Transportation Security Administration has come under fire again — this time over a video clip showing an airport agent giving a particularly thorough patdown to a 6-year-old girl. (View it below.) As the TSA screener explains to the child how and where she will touch her, the girl's mom asks (in vain), "Can't you just re-scan her?" The TSA reviewed the video, shot April 5 at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport, and said the security worker did everything by the book. While civil rights advocates say there's no justification for frisking kids as if they were criminals, the agency is searching for less invasive ways to screen low-risk travelers, "while still maintaining a high level of security."

The reaction: OK, there is a real (though very small) "risk of children being used as mules for weapons," says Allahpundit at Hot Air. But it's absurd that 10 years after 9/11, we still haven't "figured out a way to check pre-schoolers for bombs without patting down their crotches." Hey, the TSA agent did "describe what she would be doing each step of the way," says Sunny Chanel at Babble, so it could have been worse. Watch the controversial frisking:

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