Big Brother tells kids: TSA 'isn't scary' Launches coloring books, cartoons to placate terrified tots 12.23.2013 Drew Zahn
Four-year-old Isabella Brademeyer had just learned about “stranger danger” at school, her family said.
Perhaps that’s why the little girl was terrified when Transportation Security Administration officers at a Kansas airport separated her from her mother, told her to spread her arms and legs and insisted on patting down the crying, pleading child, who was shouting “No!” and trying to run back to her family.
Isabella’s mother, Michelle Brademeyer, wrote of the incident on her Facebook page: “I was forced to set my child down. … My child was shaking and crying uncontrollably, she did not want to stand still and let strangers touch her. The TSO loomed over my daughter, with an angry grimace on her face, and ordered her to stop crying. When my scared child could not do so, two TSOs called for backup, saying, ‘The suspect is not cooperating.’”
Isabella’s terrifying ordeal on April 15, 2012, was just one of many similar instances reported by parents, even caught on video, last year when Americans were outraged over the TSA’s intensified security screenings at airports and other transportation hubs. . . . . But on Dec. 18 of this year, the TSA announced it was taking new steps to “make traveling more enjoyable for the entire family”: namely, with dog pictures, coloring pages and a new cartoon to explain why the TSA “isn’t scary.”
The new TSA Kids website contains a page for parents – with information and tips on traveling with children – and a page for kids, complete with K9 profiles, coloring pages and activities. . . . .