Confiscated by Airport Security

[xoxoxoBruce]

What happens to all that stuff the airport thugs confiscate?

Carry-On Items Taken at Airports Find Happy Homes
TUCKER, Ga. -- Ripping open one of four waist-high cardboard boxes on a cargo bay here, Steve Ekin pulled out corkscrews, pocketknives and assorted hand tools before finding an electric impact drill as long as his arm. "You'd think people would know better," he said.

The original price tag, still on the drill, read $170. Mr. Ekin planned to sell it for about $15 at a store opened last October in a warehouse district northeast of Atlanta. He's the director of Georgia's Surplus Property Division, the agency in charge of selling the government's used belongings. These days, he's also selling the items that trigger alarms at security checkpoints at nearby Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest in terms of passengers and flights.

Nearly six years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- and a blitz of government marketing about what is and isn't allowed -- thousands of travelers still attempt to board aircraft with scissors, awls, hammers and saws. They even try to carry on box cutters, the weapons apparently used by some of the 9/11 attackers to commandeer and crash four planes.

'Bats and Bludgeons'
This summer, as airport security lines back up amid one of the most congested vacation-travel seasons ever, prohibited items are one reason. Last year, according to Transportation Security Administration figures, airport agents collected 12,295 "clubs, bats and bludgeons"; 1.6 million "knives and blades"; and 74,665 other objects classified as "deadly/dangerous."

The most lethal items are dispensed with promptly. Guns -- an average of two a week are collected nationally -- are surrendered to local police departments, which investigate their bearers. Hazardous chemicals are disposed of by SAIC Inc., a San Diego company under government contract.

But the TSA, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, relies on state agencies like Mr. Ekin's to offload tons of other items that passengers "voluntarily surrender," in TSA parlance. (So long as the objects are legal, travelers are free to exit security checkpoints and mail them home or stash them in their cars before taking their flights.)

Some states trash or destroy some of the items, along with the shampoos, toothpaste and other gels and liquids banned in large amounts after a British bomb scare last August.

But many states now sell the banned objects and keep the proceeds. Alabama, Arkansas and Illinois tout them online. Kentucky enjoys a cottage industry in Internet sales of miniature Louisville Sluggers surrendered after factory tours in the baseball bats' hometown. Pennsylvania, which collects goods at 13 airports including New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, says it collects a total of 2.5 tons of TSA goods a month and that the items, sold on eBay, since 2004 have raised $360,000 for state coffers, as of June.

In Georgia, where the government once merely stockpiled surrendered items, the legislature last year passed a bill to allow direct surplus property sales to the public. Part of the reason, says Mr. Ekin, was to give passengers the chance -- remote as it might be -- to recover their goods.
The store, 3,000 square feet of polished concrete fenced off in a corner of an aluminum warehouse, boasts a large collection of potentially dangerous tools and trinkets. Since the store opened, a trickle of passengers have come looking for their stuff.

"If they can prove it's theirs, we'll give it to them," says Will Smith, the warehouse manager. A good description of the item suffices as proof, he says. So far, only two people have found their forfeited objects: a walking stick and a manicure set engraved with the owner's initials.

Power tools, like the impact drill, are surprisingly common. So are toy guns and pistol-shaped belt buckles. Most common are scissors (over 4 inches is too long to carry on a plane), bottle openers, pocketknives and multipurpose hand tools. The store also sees hammers, dumbbells, circular saws, hockey sticks and nail guns, too. It once sold a chain saw.

So hurry down to your local outlet... bargains galore. You could make a killing on ebay.