Folks... We're NOT Making This Stuff Up!

ANN Reader Gavin wrote, "...the airport security thing is REALLY getting out of hand. Basically, the security guards apparently worried that the water in a kid's science experiment could be used to hijack a plane, made him drink some of it. This may have caused him to contract any number of contaminants and/or diseases that are naturally borne in pond water. Does anyone else here think that the security is just going too damned far?"

What was reported by The New York Times news service was that a 14-year-old boy, trying to clear security at Aspen (CO) with a bottle of pond water, was indeed ordered to drink some of it. He did; and he did get sick.

The FAA has apologized to Elliot Gosko's family, and said, in effect, that we're all safer that the numbskull TSA-trained screener exercised his powers to a ridiculous level. But they didn't mean that in a bad way.

Elliot's science project was diminished; and Elliot did get sick to his stomach. [Whether the kid is likely to contract giardia over the next twenty years, won't be known for a while; the parasites that cause that disease are hard to find, in the early stages --ed.]

There has been no mention of any disciplinary action taken against the nitwit security guard, if any.

FMI: www.tsa.gov, http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0405sickkid-ON.html