A New Jersey mother said her 8-year-old son faces extra scrutiny from TSA agents when he flies because his name appears on a "selectee" list, The New York Times reported.
Najlah Feanny Hicks said her son, Michael Hicks, a Cub Scout who travels often with his family, has had to go through extra security screening for most of his young life, receiving his first invasive pat-down at the age of two.
The trouble began even before that: when Michael Hicks was a baby, Najlah Hicks said she was told by airplane officials that her son "was on the list," The Times reported.
The "selectee" list contains around 13,500 names of people who are subjected to higher levels of security screening at airports, a larger group than the government's official no-fly list.
Hicks said her son gets extra pat downs at airport security because he shares the same name as someone else who was already on the list, the paper reported.
She said her son became very upset after he was aggressively frisked on the way home from a family vacation in the Bahamas.
"Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he's a criminal," Hicks told the paper.
"A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can't walk through security without being frisked."
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