California Sells Items Confiscated At Airports

Remember that little pocket-knife taken from you by airport screeners the last time you flew out of LAX? Check www.ebay.com. There's a real good chance you'll be able to get it back.

For a price.

The richest state in the nation is apparently so hard up for cash that it's auctioning off items taken from passengers flying commercial in the new reality. And, since the items were confiscated by employees of the TSA, a federal agency, Washington, DC gets a cut, too.

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Robb Deignan, spokesman for the California Department of General Services, said on Friday the items that have been confistated since November are legion in number. In fact, he says, there are so many that California doesn't have the time or manpower to return them to their owners. Besides, what would the Postal Service think?

"The most common items are probably Swiss Army knives and corkscrews," Deignan told one reporter. "This (program) only expands as long as people don't leave these items at home. This program could be over tomorrow ... This is not necessarily something we want to be in the business of doing." So far, California has raised about $16,000 on the web.

While cash-strapped California -- which is facing a $35-billion budget shortfall -- is happy to profit from the auctions, the earnings stress that for some people messages about heightened airport security simply are not sinking in.

The auction program also is doing a brisk trade in much larger tools that could obviously double as lethal weapons. Deignan noted his department has even auctioned hatchets.

"I really don't know what people were thinking," Deignan said. "Maybe they were going to chop a cord of wood for mom when they got back to Minnesota."

FMI: www.dot.ca.gov/hq/planning/aeronaut/htmlfile, www.ebay.com