Ken Wooden, founder of Child Lures Prevention is an expert in child sexual abuse and he is angry at the TSA. TSA officers have been told to make the new pat downs into a game in an effort to make children more cooperative at the security gate.

Telling a child that they are engaging in a game is “one of the most common ways” that sexual predators use to convince children to engage in inappropriate contact, Wooden told Raw Story.

Children “don’t have the sophistication” to distinguish between a pat-down carried out by an airport security officer and an assault by a sexual predator, he said.

The TSA policy could “desensitize children to inappropriate touch and ultimately make it easier for sexual offenders to prey on our children,” Wooden added.

“How can experts working at the TSA be so incredibly misinformed and misguided to suggest that full body pat downs for children be portrayed as a game?” Wooden asked in an email. “To do so is completely contrary to what we in the sexual abuse prevention field have been trying to accomplish for the past thirty years.”

TSA regional security director James Marchand thinks anything that makes the process easier for his staff is perfectly fine.

“You try to make it as best you can for that child to come through. If you can come up with some kind of a game to play with a child, it makes it a lot easier,” said Marchand, promising to make it part of TSA training.

TSA administrator John Pistole has said he may change the pat down procedure for children and victims of sexual abuse. He has not said how adults could identify or prove that they were victims.

The TSA is truly ignorant and stupid if they think this was ever a good idea.

Email the TSA and let them know what you think about the illegal pat downs and scans:

John.Pistole@dhs.gov

DHS Janet.Napolitano@dhs.gov