It is said to be a “touchy subject” and there is no doubt about that. The controversy began just this past week when a video showing a six-year old being patted-down or body-searched at an airport in the US surfaced on YouTube.

The issue is touchy or sensitive because both the search or the consequences of a “lack of search” could have different outcomes, depending on the way the search is conducted.

Right now, airports use a body search x-ray machine that normally picks up any hazardous or potentially dangerous safety hazards before getting on a plane. Yet this is just one of several precautions taken inside US airports. We have the restrictions on liquids, gels and type of sharp objects that passengers can take with them on the plane, not to mention the weight restrictions at the checkin. However, it seems this is not enough.

As many of us now know, the automated body search machine can easily be bypassed by sudden movements that “blur” or confuse the image on the machine. This makes “pat-downs” or physical body searches necessary. Such searches include a law enforcement official touching your arms, legs ,and even private parts in order to avoid passengers from carrying hidden weapons, explosives, etc. aboard the planes.

In the world we live in today, some might think this is standard practice in any airport around the world – even for small children. In fact, body searches often focus more on children, considering the fact that children are often related to “lenient searches” since they are considered to be “innocent”.

The HSA grilled the Transportation Security Administration for such searches, pleading with them to change their policy and use “their common sense.” Ironically, common sense also tells us that passengers will not bring on board and detonate bombs in the air, but our experience in the real world speaks otherwise.

In spite of this fact, the TSA has promised to review their policy and to use “more common sense” when it comes to “criminalising” young children, even babies – looking for explosives, weapons, etc. inside diapers and pockets of young children.

It goes without saying that authorities that carry out these searches are qualified personnel, and therefore carry out their duty with the utmost respect. To outlaw pat-downs or body searches for children would send the wrong message to those who wish to avoid or pass through security checkpoints unnoticed.

However, the TSA recognizes this despite the HSA allegations that it does not use common sense when it comes to pat-downs and body searches. In fact, in response to a law being considered in Texas to ban these searches among young children inside airports, the TSA has already threatened with grounding any flights departing from Texas airspace, forbidding airplanes that have not gone through security checkpoints with pat-downs from taking off.

The issue has its pros and cons. Some think there should be a limit on how many security measures are taken or allowed at airports, and that this is really a privacy issue. On the other hand, there are a vast majority that say, no security is too much security.

Considering the hastle of taking children through checkpoints to begin with, do you believe that pat-downs or body searches at airports should be illegal in your country?.....

Watch the following video to weigh the arguments on both sides of this issue:

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