The Transportation Security Administration, a government agency with the primary goal to keep us safe and secure, scrambled for its own composure after word got out TSA agents at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport (Fort Walton-Destin) had defiled a 95-year-old woman on Saturday who was too weak to leave her wheelchair.

According to the woman’s daughter, the elderly lady who weighs hardly 100 pounds was taken to a glassed-in area where an intrusive pat-down occurred. It was there an agent felt the lady’s disposable diaper – “moist and firm” – and then insisted her daughter remove it before allowing the two make their journey.

Forget the fact the lady is in the advanced stages of leukemia. The fact she had to have a blood transfusion just to make the trip has no place in the argument, either. For our nation to reach the point where it makes a 95-year-old citizen break down and cry is all the evidence that is necessary to prove our TSA has once again gone too far.

What was done to the woman in the name of safety is absolutely ludicrous. Oh, she was a trouper for the most part, going back through the scanner without any underpants, but it would seem, just upon a visual view of a gentle woman who served as a nurse for 65 years, that she was certainly not a terrorist.

Last week John Pistole, the agency’s chief administration, addressed a video of a six-year-old girl being given a pat-down in the New Orleans airport that has resulted in outrage and scorn for the TSA. Speaking before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, he promised “we have changed that policy” and said, “there will be repeated efforts made to resolve that without a pat-down.”

Now, less than one week later, the Internet is aflame with stories, opinions and rage about the 95-year-old who was forced to remove her diaper before flying to Michigan to be with her loved ones for, gulp, one last time before having to be placed in an assisted living facility. Oh, the agency immediately issued a statement. “While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner,” it read. “We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure.”

I believe the great majority of Americans, especially those with elderly parents, do not believe “proper procedure” is good enough. It is time for us to say, “No, this isn’t right” and I don’t care what any “expert” has to say who doesn’t take decency or courtesy into consideration.

C'mon, I believe we’ve had far more arrests lately because of drunken in-flight incidents than we have from terrorist threats and it is inherent on Congress and the Senate to end the unwarranted hysteria that accompanies air travel right now, not until after the next election.

It is out of control. None of us object to a metal detector but full-body scanning and pat-downs are clearly ridiculous and cost the taxpayers millions. The TSA workers will be the first to tell you they don’t find atomic bombs or non-metallic explosives sewn into underwear, like the singular incident in 2009 that caused all the panic.

Years ago we had another lone incident, where some guy was trying to light a bomb in his shoe, and we’ve been taking off our shoes like some herd of idiots ever since before we get on an airplane. It’s totally nuts and, as we get closer to a presidential election, a savvy politician will get some votes by crying out against a nation that demands a 95-year-old lady remove her disposable diaper.

For the record, the unnamed leukemia victim made the trip to Michigan just fine and now her niece and her family are said to be “treating her like royalty because they love her so much.”

The Transportation Security Administration makes me cry, too.

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