I’m not the most ardent fan of the TSA, nor am I among its most outspoken detractors. All in all, I’d describe myself as optimistically neutral about the agency. Optimistic because I’d like to believe the organization is meeting its mandate to protect travelers in ways that may not be visible to the general public; neutral because — ironically, due to that same not-visible-to-the-general-public conundrum — I can’t point to any empirical evidence to demonstrate the agency is, in fact, fulfilling its mission.

Despite that optimistic neutrality, though, I have some nagging concerns about my seven-and-a-half-year-old nephew’s first venture through a TSA checkpoint. It should be a landmark moment when he, his twin brother, four-year-old sister and their parents make their way through the airport to board a plane for their first family trip involving airline travel.

My concern stems from the fact that my nephew is an amputee. He wears a prosthetic leg (the latest features Angry Bird characters), but that doesn’t stop him from playing soccer, basketball, riding a bike, swimming, jumping, horsing around and, as of last year, snowboarding like a champ.

The family is heading to Florida, so my brother and his wife plan to have my nephew wear shorts (so the prosthesis is clearly visible to TSA agents) on the plane. They plan to give the agents a heads-up as they approach the checkpoint; and if all goes well, passing through security will be the most boring and uneventful part of their trip.

I was pleased to learn the TSA has a designated website to provide information of interest to travelers with disabilities. I was even more pleased to discover that, given 72 hours’ notice, the agency can coordinate checkpoint support with a TSA customer service manager located at the airport.

In the decades ahead, I look forward to listening to my nephew tell his kids all about his exciting first flight and how it opened up the world of travel for him. I hope the agents on duty are savvy enough to do their jobs without doing anything to mar what should become a wonderful memory.

— Lisa Matte, editor in chief