"Checkpoint inconsistencies"

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Editorial
Checkpoint inconsistencies
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times


Travelers walking through the security checkpoint at Tampa International
Airport with a pocket knife, lighters or one of the other 66 items banned on
airplanes have about a 32 in a million chance they'll face steep fines.
Flying out of Orlando? The likelihood drops to just five in a million. 

>From airport to airport throughout the nation, individual security directors
show extreme discrepancies when administering fines to travelers carrying
banned items, according to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis. The
result: a very skewed system that highlights yet another shortfall at the
Transportation Security Administration.

Penalties for carrying banned items aren't chump change, ranging from $250
to $1,000. Federal guidelines spell out how local officials should
administer the fines. In reality, they take matters into their own hands.
Most travelers carrying forbidden items aren't fined at all. But the few
unlucky ones face severe penalties. A traveler's attitude can determine how
steep a fine will be. Travelers facing fines don't even learn of the penalty
until long after the incident, making the appeal process extremely
difficult.

The process is completely arbitrary. Congress established the agency after
the 9/11 terrorist attacks to standardize security procedures, but clearly
that hasn't happened.


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