Loot confiscated by TSA turns into revenue for states
— -- From samurai swords to hatchets to snow globes, the Transportation Security Administration collects tons of unusual objects each year that passengers try to carry on planes.
The objects are what the TSA deems weapons or other threats to flight security. They're surrendered at checkpoints by forgetful or harried passengers who would rather give them up than miss a flight or return to the check-in counter and pay extra to put them in a checked bag.
Among the most common: Swiss Army knives or similarly sharp multiuse pocket tools, though the gamut runs to swords or even fuzzy handcuffs that are more for bedroom use than by law enforcement.
And despite cynical suggestions from angry travelers that security officers keep the items for themselves, the TSA turns over the property to state agencies and commercial vendors, which cart it away to sell. Although public auctions yield a fraction of retail prices, dozens of states have found some revenue in the contraband.
"It's kind of amazing what people will try to take on board," says Troy Thompson, spokesman for Pennsylvania's Department of General Services, which takes some of the contraband. "To them (passengers), it's an item that's not threatening, but in these days and times it is threatening."
Pennsylvania collects truckloads of items from airports, including New York City's JFK, LaGuardia and Newark. The state has raised $700,000 from selling them since 2004, Thompson says.
The most sought-after items by buyers are among the most often left behind: pocket knives, scissors and corkscrews, which are typically sold in boxes of 100. But occasionally machetes, samurai swords and even an African spear are trucked to the state warehouse in Harrisburg, he says.
Passenger shakedown
About 30 states have collected TSA relinquished property since the agency was created to provide stricter baggage screening following the terrorist attacks 9/11, according to Scott Pepperman, executive director of the National Association of State Agencies for Surplus Property.
Because the TSA had trouble coping with the accumulation, with 10 tons of contraband piling up at Los Angeles International Airport alone, Pepperman helped negotiate an agreement a decade ago with the federal government for states to take possession of the surrendered items. .
"It was of no use to TSA. It's of no value to them. The cost and care of storage and handling was exceeding the commercial value of it to them," Pepperman says. "Some (states) put them up on eBay. Some have their own websites. Others have auctions."
Some states, he says, donate useful items to schools, fire departments and non-profit groups.
Some items have questionable resale value. Items that crossed Pepperman's path while he worked in the Pennsylvania surplus agency until two years ago included machetes, meat slicers and a box of rocks.
"We collected more fuzzy handcuffs than you would ever see in your life — boxes and boxes of fuzzy handcuffs," he says.
Despite a policy of not carrying sharp objects on planes that dates to just after 9/11 and one that limits liquids and gels that dates to 2006, the TSA continues to collect objects that clearly have malevolent possibilities.
This month, a spear gun showed up at Newark, joining assorted hatchets, chains, inert grenades, metal throwing stars and bullet-holding bandoliers.
