TSA baby pat-down...

TSA baby pat-down: Agency says stroller 'alarmed during explosives screening'

By Mary Forgione

Another day, another Transportation Security Administration pat-down photo. The latest image to hit the blogosphere shows a baby receiving a modified pat-down in the security area of Kansas City (Mo.) International Airport.

Here's the tweet that started it all: "Just saw #tsa agents patting down a little baby at @KCIAAirport Pretty sure that's extreme. Check the pic." That Twitter message, sent on Saturday from Jacob Jester, included this link to the photo.


The photo was a smash, viewed by more than 300,000 as of Thursday, and affixed to it, on numerous blogs and websites, was some version of this caption/headline "TSA Looking for Poop Bombs?"

The TSA was not amused.

"I’ve changed enough diapers to know a thing or two about 'poop bombs,' but something really stinks about the attention this photo is getting," Blogger Bob wrote on behalf of the agency Monday on the TSA's official blog. "The photo – taken by someone not traveling with the family – has gone viral."

(The TSA doesn't identify individual writers with their full names on the blog.)

Blogger Bob goes on to write that the child's stroller "alarmed during explosives screening" and that TSA officers followed standard procedures in screening the family.

"The child in the photo was simply receiving a modified pat-down which doesn’t even come close to what the headline implies," he wrote.

Jester said in this news video from NCB Action News/KSHB-TV in Kansas City, Mo.: "I took the picture because I wouldn't want that to happen to my own son, not because I was furious, not because I was irate, not because I was ready to throw down at the airport..."