Transport minister defends invasive search of seniorOTTAWA — Transportation Minister John Baird was unapologetic Sunday about the invasive search of an 85-year-old woman conducted by security personnel at the Ottawa Airport.
Baird was asked by media Sunday about the treatment of the four-foot-10, 90-pound woman who was travelling from Ottawa to Toronto on Dec. 28. The woman was asked to remove her boots and then unzip her pants. A female inspection officer then poked at her abdomen.
The woman’s niece, Cynthia Sutcliffe, said that the former federal public servant is now “terrified” of airport security and that the search was “extreme.”
But Baird argued that even people who seem non-threatening cannot be disregarded by security.
“The reality is, as we’ve seen in Iraq, the al-Qaida network has put explosive devices on developmentally disabled adults and then sent them into marketplaces where their bombs were detonated,” Baird said on the Sunday TV show Question Period. “Obviously we have to deal with every concern.
I think we should use common sense.”
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...use common sense...
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Sutcliffe is skeptical of full-body scans because some elderly people who go through the scanners will be wearing incontinence briefs.
“I want them to catch the bad guys, don’t kid yourself. But if it’s your grandmother or grandfather who is going to be wearing those undergarments for personal incontinence and things, and then they start saying, ‘Well the guy that blew up the plane had the stuff in his underwear,’ where do we stop?”
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Transport+minister+defends+invasive+search+senior/2426907/story.html