> I've read stories of numerous people who had cigarette lighters
>confiscated from CHECKED LUGGAGE by TSA employees. I guess the
>"tobacco industry" isn't quite as powerful as you think it is.

Or the employees are taking things into their own hands to be sensible.
Nonetheless, that does not change the essential point: clippers are on the
verboten list, lighters are not.

On the subject of the TSA for a moment -- the Transportation Safety Agency --
is everyone here au courant about the fact that in 2004 the TSA -- which has no
authority as a law enforcement agency, these are the guys who find, search,
check and lose your luggage -- will be instituting a screening program for
flyers?

Under their program, for which they will draw information from a variety of
sources, law enforcement, plus what they call "soft resources," a lovely and
utterly undefined term, you will be placed into one of three categories: green,
yellow or red. Green, you fly no problem. Yellow, they may pull you aside and
check you out a little more carefully. Red...you don't fly and you're subject
to detention.

Note that there is no means in place for correcting faulty information, no
means of veryifying information. One errant typo and you could be pulled aside
and detained. And as for who gets detained...there have been repeated cases of
people who were doing nothing more than showing up at protest marches being
detained or prevented from flying, at minimum missing their planned flights.

What are the criteria for being included in the red or yellow categories?
They'red not being too specific, again for "national security reasons," which
simply means they can do whatever they want with impunity and without having to
justify anything.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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