I and my three young children, ages ten months, two years, and three years were severely harrassed at the San Diego International Airport on March 6, 2008.
My husband had purchased tickets for our flight to St. Louis, Missouri on March 1, 2008 at the airport. At the time of purchase, the employee did not know how to process the transaction (of AIRPLANE TICKETS) and had to call her superior to do her job.
Upon arriving at the airport on the 6th, I made my way to the Boarding Desk to receive my boarding passes. The clerk proceeded to confuse my sons with my mother-in-law and brother-in-law who share the same last name and who had already received their boarding passes and checked their luggage. She finally found my passes in their system when she typed in my last name (which I had given her upon first approaching the desk in the form of my state ID along with my boarding receipts). The woman was extremely impatient with me and even chastised why my mother-in-law and brother-in-law for having already checked in their luggage and also myself for not being aware of their 'protocol'. Upon completion of the 'service', the clerk then informed me that I was 'Selected Assistance', which I naively thought meant that I was to receive some additional 'assistance'.
This was not the case. While checking in my luggage I was informed again that I was 'Selected Assistance' and was pulled aside by another employee. All of my bags were completely searched , of course, and even my ten month old's sealed baby food was questioned as being acceptable for travel.
I and my ten month old son were then taken to another separate area, while my other two young sons remained with their grandmother, and both my infant and I were frisked.
This was one of the most humiliating and infuriating experiences I have ever had. I will never use this airport's services ever again. I am a 22 year old wife with three children. We are not terrorists. The fact that these airport employees were insinuating, none too subtly, that I would bring harm to myself, my three sons, my brother-in-law and my son's grandmother; much less dozens of other people, is appalling to me.