Really, what is wrong with these people?

An expert in the fight against child sexual abuse is raising the alarm about a technique the TSA is reportedly using to get children to co-operate with airport pat-downs: calling it a "game".

Ken Wooden, founder of Child Lures Prevention, says the TSA's recommendation that children be told the pat-down is a "game" is potentially putting children in danger.

Telling a child that they are engaging in a game is "one of the most common ways" that sexual predators use to convince children to engage in inappropriate contact, Wooden told Raw Story.

Randomly patting down little kids, no matter what you tell them, is stupid and ridiculous. Telling them it's a "game" is dangerous. I can just see the pedophiles sewing themselves nice, crisp "TSA Agent" uniforms now.

In case you're keeping track, the number of reports of sexual abuse of children is up to 80,000 per year. The number of people harmed in terrorist attacks on airplanes in the US is about 3500 in the last 10 years.

Flying has lots of risks, and terrorism is one of them (a very, very tiny one). Sadly, people are terrible at rational risk assessment. We're terrified of things that will almost certainly never happen to us, and blithely engage in things every day that have a pretty high chance of killing us. Our national security policy shouldn't be based on this, it should be based on reality.