by Ian Driscoll

The TSA’s had a rough week.

First they’re forced to stop groping the elderly, and then Matt and Trey lambast them on Comedy Central. I’ll wait, if you’d like to get out your violins.

The backlash from recent reports of the TSAs handling of passengers who are advanced in years led to a change in their policies concerning members of the public over 75 years of age.

According to the new regulations, civilians 75 and over will be allowed to keep their shoes and light jackets on, as well as take a pass on the pat downs. TSA spokesman Jim Fotenis commented on the change in security procedures:

“By moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to security and applying some intelligence-driven and risk-based security models, TSA is looking at how this works for passengers. The TSA recognizes that the vast majority of air travelers present no risk to aviation security. But it’s how we identify those (travelers) and expedite the process that we’re working on right now.”

This follows on the heels of a move by Orlando Sanford International Airport to evict all TSA personnel, replacing them with more “customer friendly”, private security staff.

US Rep. John Mica, who authored the bill which led to the creation of the TSA following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, believes that the agency has grown too bureaucratic and bloated.

“I want to get it [TSA] out of the human resources business and back to security,” said Mica.

Meanwhile, South Park’s debut episode of season 16 mocked the agency’s perceived incompetence. In one particularly epic scene (linked above), a TSA agent monitoring numerous surveillance videos of people on the toilet, masturbated to the images for a full minute, intermittently helping himself to handfuls of moisturizing lotion.

The portrayal of agency employees as overweight, uneducated, superfluous buffoons only adds to the bad press the TSA has received in the last few months. Hell of a show, though.

Watch the full South Park episode here.