The Daily Blog

TSA Gives Pat Down to 6-Year-Old Girl in New Orleans.

A new video on YouTube is causing an uproar, as critics question why Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at the New Orleans airport gave an intense pat-down to a 6-year-old girl.

The video shows a female TSA agent explaining the security procedure to the child’s mother and then having the 6-year-old girl spread her arms and legs for the pat-down, which includes “sensitive areas,” in the words of the agent.

The child complains and the mom asks if re-scanning might be an option. The TSA agent replies, “no.” The agent does try to calm the girl, telling her she has “pretty hair,” and appears to conduct the pat-down in a gentle manner.

The incident occurred at Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans last week.

The family in the video is from Kentucky, and the mom, Selena Drexel, tells ABC’s “Good Morning America” that they were returning from a vacation when their daughter, Anna, underwent the pat-down. Anna’s father, Todd Drexel, says his daughter started to cry afterward.Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) of Louisiana, questions why the child wasn’t taken to a private area and whether the screening was even necessary.

“A 6-year-old child shouldn’t be subjected to this kind of treatment in the first place if there’s no reason to suspect her or her parents of being criminals,” she tells CBS affiliate WWL New Orleans.

TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball tells AOL Travel News the agency “has reviewed the incident and determined that this officer followed proper current screening procedures.”

However, he notes the TSA is in the midst of planning changes in line with TSA Administrator John Pistole’s call for risk-based security screening.

“As part of this effort TSA has been actively reviewing its screening policies and procedures to streamline and improve the screening experience for low-risk populations, such as younger passengers,” the agency says in a statement.

But a congressman is questioning whether the incident seen in the video did in fact violate rules that call for a “modified” pat-down for children 12 and under.

“This conduct is in clear violation of TSA’s explicit policy not to conduct thorough pat-downs on children under the age of 13,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, says in a statement.

This is not the first time the TSA has been criticized for rigorously screening children at airports and even on trains.

Singer Slapped With YouTube Child Porno Case Wants to Go to Jail.

A sexually explicit ditty spliced into footage of a children’s concert then broadcast over YouTube will be sending an aspiring singing star to jail.

Evan Emory, 21, who promotes his club performances in the small community of Ravenna, Mich., online, inadvertently gained international fame when his prank caught the attention of police and then the media. A firestorm of controversy ensued when a prosecutor charged him with child pornography, so now Emory says he wants to go to jail to make the whole thing go away.”He hopes that by sitting in jail he makes amends,” Emory’s attorney, Terry J. Nolan, told the Muskegon Chronicle today. “As a lawyer, I don’t know if he deserves jail, but Evan wants to do the jail because he feels like he deceived the school. He loves Ravenna. He knows he deceived not only the parents of the kids, but he deceived the school.”A deal is in the works between Emory and prosecutors that would downgrade his child sex crime case to a felony count of posting harmful information on the Internet if he pleads guilty, Muskegon County Sheriff Dean Roesler told AOL News. Originally Emory faced a maximum 20-year prison sentence with a lifetime registration as a sex offender. The deal would involve jail time, five years’ probation and community service, but no registration as a sex offender.

“We take the exploitation of children very seriously,” Roesler said. “I was very disturbed when I saw it. The children were unknowingly exploited for the benefit of this Evan Emory. So was the school system and the whole community of Ravenna. It’s a very close-knit community.”

The incident began on Feb. 12 when Emory filmed himself performing several songs for a class of first-graders at Beechnau Elementary School. He later spliced in something else entirely -– another song with sexually explicit gestures and lyrics such as “I’ll be the bus riding your ass up and down my town” and “See how long it takes to make your panties mine.” The faces of the children were clearly visible in the video.

“He wanted to be a performer, he wanted to be a YouTube star. He wanted to be discovered on YouTube like Justin Bieber,” Roesler said. “Well, he definitely got noticed.”

Emory told school officials he was using the footage as part of a portfolio to compete for admission to a Big 10 college. The video was definitely well thought out.

Emory brought a videographer with him and gave instructions to get shots of the children looking surprised and then angry. When the children left, Emory asked the teacher if he could stay behind for additional filming, and that’s when the second song was recorded, Ravenna School District Superintendent John VanLoon told AOL News.

The children’s faces were spliced into the song, appearing to give various reactions to the lyrics, VanLoon said.

The video shocked teachers, parents and the community where Emory attended school himself.

“I probably had half a dozen contact me and say are we talking about the same kid, are you sure? We couldn’t believe he would do something like this,” VanLoon said.

Emory was arrested at home that same day and the Sheriff’s Department notified YouTube, which took the video down.

“He didn’t want to take it down. He wanted to see how may hits it was going to get,” Roesler said.

For his part, Emory has apologized in a Muskegon Chronicle story, saying he never meant to hurt anyone.

“I feel horrible that it was interpreted that way,” he said, wiping away tears.Emory said he wrote the song when he was 16 and had feedback from his friends that it was funny. So he decided to push the envelope and shoot footage at an “inappropriate” place, he said.

However, the ensuing firestorm led to suspension from his waiter job at Applebee’s and legal fees that have forced his father to look for work out of state, The New York Times reported.

“I s**t on my community,” Emory told the Chronicle. “I have people who have known me since I was 4 in my community that want me dead. I sang at my graduation commencement. You can literally fit the entire town in the gymnasium. I never wanted this to happen. I’m sorry to everybody.”

TSA Probes Pilot Critical of Airport Security.

SAN FRANCISCO - Federal authorities are investigating a pilot who posted videos on YouTube that were critical of security at San Francisco International Airport, the pilot’s attorney said Friday.

Don Werno of the Santa Ana-based law firm Werno and Associates said the Transportation Security Administration is looking into whether his client revealed sensitive information.

The pilot remains employed with a major airline, but he has withdrawn from a program that trains flight crew to help prevent hijackings after authorities confiscated his federally issued firearm, Werno said. He declined to release the pilot’s name, citing concerns about the man’s job.

The TSA wouldn’t answer questions but said in a statement it is responding to the situation and is confident in the security at San Francisco International Airport.

“As to access control at SFO, TSA is confident in the tools the airport has implemented and reminds passengers there are security measures in place that are both seen and unseen.”

The pilot posted several videos on YouTube in late November or early December that showed how ground crew members can enter secure areas by swiping security cards and without undergoing further screening. He notes in the footage that pilots undergo intense screening, but then have access to ax-like weapons that are stored in the cockpit in case of emergencies.

One of the videos, which number more than six, was of federal air marshals and sheriff’s deputies who came to the pilot’s home earlier this month to seize his federally issued firearm. The pilot had been allowed to carry the weapon on board as part of a program after 9/11 that trains certain flight crew to serve as “federal flight deck officers” to prevent hijackings.

Werno said his client was upset about what he feels is lax security for ground crew, including baggage handlers, working at SFO while flight crews and passengers are subject to intense screening.”The airport should be a security zone where everything that comes into the airport perimeter is checked,” he said.

The pilot removed the videos from YouTube after the TSA objected.

The pilot, a 50-year-old Sacramento-area native, has worked for a major airline for the past 10 years and continues to fly, according to Werno. He has been advised by his airline not to disclose his identity.

In its statement, the TSA said it “responded and took action in this situation because the pilot in question was a FFDO (federal flight deck officer).”

“FFDOs must be able to maintain sensitive security information as a condition of the FFDO program,” the agency said. It did not elaborate.