Teens Getting Groped At Prom … By The TSA

Two girls at a Santa Fe High School filed suit after they say a security guard groped them — grabbed their breasts and shook the inner part of their bras and patted down their bare thighs. Now, if you think a reasonable response to such searches is to up the ante and bring in the feds for extra-special TSA-type screenings, you would agree with the federal court that demanded Santa Fe High School do just that.

So this Saturday night, a certified TSA official will oversee all Freedom Fondles at Santa Fe High School.

This story is so crazy that I’m having a hard time believing it’s real. The National Security State is coming to senior proms now? Is there any defense of the idea that this fun rite of passage is really at the level of a counter-terrorism threat requiring the involvement of, quite literally, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security? What next, waterboarding?

Less than 10 years ago, a San Diego administrator was investigated and demoted (she couldn’t be fired because she had tenure) because she lifted up promgoers’ skirts to make sure that no girls were wearing thongs. She faced widespread outrage, not a call for more advanced TSA screenings.

Responding to an unnecessary security search that led to accusations of groping with a requirement to bring in the TSA is not an improvement. TSA is not the standard bearer when it comes to protecting civil liberties, it’s the veritable embodiment of an encroachment on our civil liberties.

Newsflash to the feds and the high school that brought in security screenings in the first place. Feeling kids up does not make them safe. There is precisely no reason for a pat down. If proms are really that dangerous — so dangerous that they’re at the level of a national security terrorism threat — than they should just be killed in service to the police state.

The last thing that kids need is such a demoralizing display of federal power, telling them to live in fair and blindly acquiesce to authority. If I were a parent of a Santa Fe High School promgoer, I’d put my foot down. This is disgusting and must be stopped.