Home News TSA saves America from crying 3 y.o. girl in wheelchair, takes her stuffed animal “Lamby”

TSA saves America from crying 3 y.o. girl in wheelchair, takes her stuffed animal “Lamby”

2/22/2013 12:29pm by Chris in Paris 70

Missouri has been in the news a lot recently for all of the wrong reasons, including this recent ugly incident involving the TSA. The TSA insisted on checking a three-year-old girl in wheelchair, and then took away her stuffed animal, Lamby, and refused to give Lamby back after checking him for explosives.

(I wonder how you say “Lamby” in Arabic?)

It’s troubling that every time we see another crazy moment by the TSA, they make some kind of an apology, claim they will fix the problem and provide better training or guidance, but the problems continue.

There’s a distinct lack of common sense that privatization won’t resolve. (The GOP always thinks privatization is the answer, but it only answers the call of campaign contributions.)

Whether it’s humiliating a woman dying of leukemia, harassing seniors, or holding another young girl in a wheelchair for explosives, the TSA is unable to change. They even retaliate against people who don’t go along with their silly tests, not to mention the bizarre incident involving the very dangerous cupcake icing.

Lucy and Lamby, in better days.

The TSA – whether it’s run by the government or outside contractors – is beyond repair. It’s not making us any safer, and they have zero proof that suggests they’ve done anything to improve air security. Picking on a three-year-old girl in a wheelchair who just wanted to go to DisneyWorld is typical of what they do. This is not protecting anyone.

The video of this little girl is just heart-breaking.

Tags: Lamby, stuffed animal, three year old girl, TSA, Video, wheelchair

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Chris in Paris
An American in Paris, France. BA in History & Political Science from Ohio State. Provided consulting services to US software startups, launching new business overseas that have both IPO’d and sold to well-known global software companies. Currently launching a new cloud-based startup for the Microsoft market. Full bio here.

U.N. Owen

How do you say ‘Lamby? in Arabic?!?!’

How pathetically jingoistic can someone be?!?!
Steve

I had someone try to steel my wallet by placing an empty wallet in my bin at a TSA checkpoint next to my wallet, at least the TSA could give us a lockable basket to but our belongings into when they are x-rayed. I think the big problem is that when the TSA was introduced they didn’t give it a test period where they could shut the program down if it didn’t help. Now they check for everything (illegal) mostly drugs. I f a terrorist wants to get in they still could, easy.
Annie

Thank you for the article, Chris. I did want to clarify, however, that “Lamby” was returned to Lucy. They only kept her away until management (or whatever the TSA calls it) intervened.
http://fighttherightwingnuts.blogspot.com/ mike31c

And some people want to privatize schools and the like?
Seminoljay

TSA (Taking Stuffed Animals)
TSA (Taking Sheep Away)
ronbo

On the bright-side, they didn’t kill her and her rough-and-tumble mother with a drone strike!
LanceThruster

In the UK after their “9/11″ (7/7 IIRC), they had a campaign where different people would post pics/vids and declare “I am not afraid/We are not afraid.” If only we had taken that approach ourselves. If they ‘hated us for our freedoms,’ we no longer have anything to worry about as we’ve lost most of them.

I heard the radio report of this the other night, but seeing that little girls face (they played the tape of her crying in anguish), just makes me sick.

Heckuva job, TSA!
- http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
  
  Very like—TSA molests little girls, handicapped, and the elderly. America the exceptional.
- Max_1
  
  They hate us for our Freedoms…
  … So Congress went and gave them away for them.
  - Ford Prefect
    
    Yeah. And on that basis, it’s only a matter of time before they really start liking us, eh?
- http://www.rebeccamorn.com/mind BeccaM
  
  America: The Terrorists Won – We’re Terrified of Everything
Luigi DaMan

These are the lowest common denominator workers in the U.S. The entire TSA should be disbanded and we should go back to minimum security. Being afraid of everything is not the path to freedom anyways.
djny10003

For freedom. Have you all forgotten 9/11??? (I’m being sarcastic)
Sweetie

They’re just starting young, preparing the girl for the plutocratic police state her elders have so graciously and generously wrought.
Mark_in_MN

It’s one thing to check the wheel chair and pat down the kid. And I could understand that they might want to run Lamby through the X-ray or something. But not giving it back is beyond the pale. Who doesn’t understand the attachment of a child to a special stuffed animal or doll, even if they regard it as silly? Come on, that’s not security that’s an attempt to be cruel. When it comes down to it, whatever authority they may or may not have to do so, it amounts to theft.
tamarz

Given the other story you published about the flight attendants on a United Flight who threw the travel writer off for taking a picture inside the airplane and then trying to explain why he took the picture, it’s clear that privatization is not the answer. Private corporations, IMO, are often the worst when it comes to service (I give you Verizon, Comcast, our electric company here in the D.C. area, as prime examples).
Ninong

Only once have I run into a TSA agent with a serious attitude problem. It had taken me 45 minutes standing in line just to get to the screening part and I was about to miss my flight, which I could see was already boarding at the very first gate, less than 100 yards away. It had taken at least 5 or 6 minutes for him to show up and I said something about being in a hurry because my flight was right there boarding.

That was all it took to set this guy off. He started giving me his stock speech about my “right” to go with him to a private room where he would conduct the inspection under the watchful eye of his supervisor. I told him I didn’t want to go to any private room, I wanted him to just do his job they way he’s supposed to do it right here! Naturally he took as long as he could but I still made my flight by about 5 minutes. Thankfully there weren’t any stand-bys or my seat would have been given away by then.

It’s best to not say anything to those guys except to answer their questions directly without any extra information. I stick with “yes” or “no” whenever possible. Most of them are fine and even extra courteous and polite but occasionally you will get the idiot with Napoleon Syndrome.
- Mike Meyer
  
  Well, asking questions or making request/demands means one has not learned their place in the flying society.
- U.N. Owen
  
  You should’ve followed what they say – GIVE yourself AT LEAST 2 (TWO) hours in ADVANCE of your flight to PREPARE for going through security.
  
  The lines dd NOT ‘just’ become long the moment you flew – it’s YOUR responsibility to make sure you arrive with time to spare – NOT their fault (and, NO – I don’t work for them, nor have anything to do with them. It’s just COMMON SENSE)
http://www.facebook.com/monoceros.forth Monoceros Forth

These idiots must be really bored with their jobs. They pick on some random traveller just to give themselves something to do.

And can you imagine how much worse it would be if it were a private company running things? They’d be the airport security equivalents of trigger-happy Blackwater mercs.
- sane37
  
  It IS a private company running things. The TSA outsources airport security.
http://AMERICAblog.com/ John Aravosis

If Lamby lives, the terrorists have won.
- http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
  
  OMG! rotfl
- Naja pallida
  
  Ta Ha 20:18 does say: This is my staff whereon I lean and wherewith I bear down branches for
  my sheep and wherein I find other uses.
  
  Traditionally, one would assume that Moses was speaking of having other uses for his staff, but maybe he really meant other uses for his sheep.
  - http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
    
    Very like. Shear genius!
Trumandem

I’m not comfortable with commentors belittling people working for a minimum wage. Blaming the problem on “minimum wage” worker expectations is letting the policy and policy makers off the hook for accountability. I think more thought needs to go into critical assessments of the policy outcome we are witnessing here regarding this 3 yr. old. At this point it is safe to say TSA is nothing more than a feel good exercise to make it look like an end result is being successful in stopping terrorist acts from being committed. This is not to say we don’t need a screening process to detect possible potential threats. But then again patting down hysterical 3 yr. olds isn’t a solution either. I’m just amazed at the hysteria exhibited whenever something related to possible terrorist acts that are tethered to prevention policy’s seems to cross some threshold for sanity. Osama Bin Laden was more successful than he ever imagined in this context. How long has it been since 9/11 and we are still wetting our pants over it? Sheesh…..
- nicho
  
  I’m not comfortable with commentors belittling people working for a
  minimum wage. Blaming the problem on “minimum wage” worker expectations
  is letting the policy and policy makers off the hook for
  accountability.
  
  If you pay peanuts — you get monkeys.
  - Sweetie
    
    As opposed to John Yoo, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Jay Bybee, right?
    - nicho
      
      Oooooh. They’re not monkeys. They’re very very clever people.
      - http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
        
        That’s right because they can actually count the sum of their IQ’s on two hands. The smart ones can add the sum of their feet.
        
        Sweetie
        
        Which makes their bad acts so much better. A poisonous pill with a candy coating is certainly preferable to one without it, eh?
        
        http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
        
        Well, that’s probably true, but it doesn’t factor in the supository route.
    - http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
      
      Including ,Sweetie, including —catch up
      - Sweetie
        
        Your rebuttal doesn’t match the context, but thanks for playing.
        
        http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
        
        “but thanks for playing.” That’s why they call you Sweetie—thanks.
- Sweetie
  
  The buck stops with the people who create a hostile environment like this, not the people on the bottom. It’s easier to point fingers at low-wage workers, but they aren’t the real problem.
  - http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
    
    “It’s easier to point fingers at low-wage workers,” see above comment, and yes these morons are the problem. Ever follow the reasoning behind the Nuremberg trials?
    - Sweetie
      
      You’re wasting my time as usual. Take the chip on your shoulder elsewhere, perhaps to someone who’s impressed by it.
      - http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
        
        Ouch! I hate to see you sour, but question your protective fetish for proletariat civil rights violations.
      - http://profiles.google.com/tom.bales Tom Bales
        
        Nobody can waste your time but you.
- Ford Prefect
  
  I believe they actually make $14 an hour. In any case, it’s not their wage which is at issue here.
  
  It’s abuse. It’s abuse of power. It’s also the culture of TSA, which trains people to abuse children, the elderly, the disabled, foreigners and anyone of darker pigmentation.
  
  I think more thought needs to go into critical assessments of the policy outcome we are witnessing here…
  
  I do believe that’s the point of these posts. This is all policy-driven. The fact it keeps happening means it’s a feature, not a bug. Maybe people will take this seriously when a REpublican is in the WH in 2017. Until then, we can only blame the automatons.
  - Naja pallida
    
    Exactly. While their wages aren’t great, they certainly are not minimum wage. It’s entirely about their culture and complete and utter lack of any accountability up the chain of command within the entire agency.
    - Ford Prefect
      
      Indeed. If TSA is free to degrade people, steal from them and sexually assault them, then what kind of treatment would one expect after being imprisoned without charge and granted no right to habeus corpus? And in the fact the administration won’t say if it has the “power” to summarily execute Americans (and lots of others, to be sure) on US soil… well, I’d say there are no limits to power at all.
Jafafa Hots

I have a relative who is a TSA agent.
It’s the only job in his entire life he’s managed to hold down.

He’s not very bright, but he is conceited.
Raise The Minimum

Look at the screeners, typical minimum wage employees
- Naja pallida
  
  Average hourly wage of a TSA employee in Missouri is twice the minimum wage. Even minimum wage employees are trained better and required to operate with more common sense than this. But if the TSA were privatized, there is nothing about this that could possibly improve. All it would do is cost the tax payers much more for the same level of incompetence.
  - Sweetie
    
    The wage is irrelevant. We have people at the highest level of business and government who are just as callous and heartless. The only difference is that they smile at you while they stick in the knife.
    - Naja pallida
      
      Well, I took his comment to mean that “they’re just minimum wage employees, that’s why they consistently display such lax judgment” but they’re not. While their pay isn’t great, they are supposed to be trained extensively… and you try treating people the way they do at a minimum wage job. You’d be fired in a heartbeat, because you are expendable and easily replaced. The TSA has a culture of CYA, and due to the bureaucracy, nobody is ever held accountable.
- Sweetie
  
  I worked for the minimum wage and for less than that. I may have been the only WalMart cashier in my state who listened to Scriabin, but some of us are not fortunate enough to be born with silver spoons.
caphillprof

This makes me very sad, particularly the part about refusing to return Lamby. What kind of monsters are these?
- Sweetie
  
  I used my crystal ball to ask Abdulrahman Anwar al-Aulaqi and every American citizen.
  - http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
    
    And?
  - Sweetie
    
    It took so long for this comment to show up, I thought it had been lost.
- Sweetie
  
  Ask the 16 year old who was bombed and whose bombing has remained unpunished by the American citizenry.
  - http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
    
    You are off topic….Lamby rules the conversation, how ever much one might agree that the drone murder of an innocent boy is an international war crime committed by the US and its President.
    - Sweetie
      
      Quit trolling me. If you’re going to troll me, at least have something intelligent to say. My comment is not off-topic. You just have to think outside the chip on your shoulder to see that. So desperate!
      - http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
        
        Just make the connection Sweetie—-How is the death of a teenage boy related to molesting a three year old girl by the TSA? Ok don’t answer. I will not challenge your rumblings any more.
        
        Sweetie
        
        “What kind of monsters are these?”
        
        Consider my response in light of this question.
        
        http://profiles.google.com/tom.bales Tom Bales
        
        The kind of monsters who would take a beloved toy from a little girl and then refuse to return it?
        
        Ford Prefect
        
        (Waving upstretched arms) I know! It’s because it’s the same government doing both things with impunity! Abusing children, killing them, whatever. This is how the guy we voted for thinks of human beings who aren’t CEOs looking to loot something.
        
        If anything, murdering other people’s children because they might commit a FutureCrime years down the road seems even worse. Not to worry though, it seems Obama plans on doing the same thing here in the US as well. If not him, then the next Emperor will use the power he bestowed on him or her.
        
        http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot
        
        Agreed!
      - http://profiles.google.com/tom.bales Tom Bales
        
        I’s say the troll is the one that takes the thread off subject. Can you explain why the bear… which obviously was NOT stuffed with explosives… was not returned to this little girl or not?
- U
  
  They’re terrible – ‘Satanic’ ones… (lol)
  
  Please… they’re moronic under-educated, under-paid fools.
  
  But, saying that – if they (TSA) actually did the job they’re supposed to do – (if you want to see it done correctly, fly El Al – and, they’ve been doing it correctly for DECADES. Never had a hijacking. NEVER), most of you people would be whining how they’re ‘depriving you’ of your ‘freedom.’
  
  I’ve never been to this site (don’t worry – this is making me nauseous already), i just wanted to see that kid in a wheelchair video.
guest1

Rand Paul 2016, scrap the TSA. Dont you hate how the only ones against the TSA are right wingers lol
- nicho
  
  Air port security was private — which is what allowed 9-11. The
  security companies cut every corner they could. A security assessment at
  Logan Airport was cancelled prior to 9-11 because it was going to cut
  into the corporate profits. Rand Paul for Ward Chairman of the loony bin.
- Mark_in_MN
  
  If one scraps TSA airport security doesn’t go away, it just goes back into private hands. That means there is no possibility of real accountability, no chance of consistency from airport to airport, and profit outweighing safety. Not a good combination. Even before 9-11 I thought the security checkpoints should be run and managed by a federal government agency not a private system.
  
  The TSA as it now stands, however, is something that should be scrapped and rebuilt. It’s a joke. It’s security theater. It’s poorly run, lacks common sense and legitimate reasons for many of the things they do, needs a more professional workforce, and has too many people who get off on little power trips.
Tor

My 92-year-old mother had to suffer an intrusive pat-down because she has an artificial hip. I feel so much safer now.
nicho

Well, I feel so much safer — knowing that a high school dropout with power issues has humiliated a little girl.
- Sweetie
  
  Here’s something heart-warming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWKG6ZmgAX4
  - Max_1
    
    And we thought it was a joke…

TSA saves America from crying 3 y.o. girl in wheelchair, takes her stuffed animal “Lamby”

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