Canadian Air Transport Security Authority diligently tracking down terrorists

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After spending the Christmas holiday with family in Calgary, Elizabeth Strecker, 82, was flying back to her home in Abbotsford on Jan. 4 when she was selected for further screening by security officials and told to go through the full body scanner.

“One guy asked me if I had any liquids or gel on me and I said no,” said Strecker.

And that’s where the trouble started for the widow who immigrated to Canada from Germany nearly 60 years ago and lived in Calgary for 14 years before retiring to the B.C. city.

A cancer survivor, Strecker had a mastectomy five years ago and now wears a prosthetic breast — which is made of gel.

When she pointed that out to security officers, Strecker said she was accused of lying when first asked about liquids and gels.

“It was terribly, terribly embarrassing,” she said.

“It was really very humiliating.

“I’m an 82-year-old woman, not a terrorist.”

And that’s the problem: the 82 year old Elizabeth Strecker doesn’t look like a terrorist, so her prosthetic breast was an obvious target for probing. If CATSA only squeezed the prosthetic breasts of people who looked like terrorists, they could be accused not only of profiling, but of having common sense.