Eight-Year-Old Winds Up On Terror Watch List

The TSA, in a section they call "Myth Busters," says that "No 8-year-old is on a TSA watch list." Oops. It looks like the Myth Buster is busted, because that's not the case. There is an eight-year-old on the watch list.

Michael Hicks is on a watch list, under suspicion by the Department of Homeland Security. Unfortunately, there happens to be a boy named Mikey Hicks, 8. According to his mother, he's been having to suffer through extra security for 7 1/2 years.

It's interesting, because the TSA site says:

Airlines can and should automatically de-select any 8-year-olds out there that appear to be on a watch.

Apparently, not, based on his mother's statements. He was first patted down when he was two.

On their latest trip, he was frisked "aggressively," his mother said. Of course, there should be some degree of allowance made: it came after the Christmas Day near-bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight.

“Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal. A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.”

Still more interesting: his mother, Najlah Feanny Hicks, is a photojournalist who once got Secret Service clearance to travel aboard Air Force II with then-Vice President Al Gore. You'd think his age might get Mikey off the hook, but apparently no. And really, as he gets older, things will just get worse.

Watch a report from CBS' "The Early Show."