Hubie
Member 9.6 mile high club
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2002
- Posts
- 68
Hey, cool, I was in the market for a few hundred thousand sets of nail clippers........
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 28 — How hard up is California, the nation's richest state?
So hard up it is peddling pocketknives, scissors and even the occasional hatchet seized by airport security staff to raise cash for a recently launched state program.
The California Department of General Services is taking potentially dangerous items confiscated from passengers at airports in Oakland and Sacramento and putting them up for bids on the popular Web site of Internet auction company eBay Inc.
And plans are underway to start hawking items seized from passengers at airports in Los Angeles, Ontario, California and Orange County.
California has raised more than $16,000 -- split with the federal government -- since November by auctioning the items, which are too numerous to return to their owners, Robb Deignan, spokesman for the California Department of General Services, said Friday.
''The most common items are probably Swiss Army knives and corkscrews,'' that are being seized by screeners from passengers' carry on luggage and pockets, Deignan told Reuters.
''We're not appraisers of pocketknives and corkscrews, so using eBay is a pretty sensible way of doing this, allowing the market dictate the prices.''
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.''
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 types of box-cutters used by the Sept. 11 hijackers continue to be seized by airport security, Deignan noted.
''This (program) only expands as long as people don't leave these items at home,'' Deignan said. ''This program could be over tomorrow ... This is not necessarily something we want to be in the business of doing.''
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 28 — How hard up is California, the nation's richest state?
So hard up it is peddling pocketknives, scissors and even the occasional hatchet seized by airport security staff to raise cash for a recently launched state program.
The California Department of General Services is taking potentially dangerous items confiscated from passengers at airports in Oakland and Sacramento and putting them up for bids on the popular Web site of Internet auction company eBay Inc.
And plans are underway to start hawking items seized from passengers at airports in Los Angeles, Ontario, California and Orange County.
California has raised more than $16,000 -- split with the federal government -- since November by auctioning the items, which are too numerous to return to their owners, Robb Deignan, spokesman for the California Department of General Services, said Friday.
''The most common items are probably Swiss Army knives and corkscrews,'' that are being seized by screeners from passengers' carry on luggage and pockets, Deignan told Reuters.
''We're not appraisers of pocketknives and corkscrews, so using eBay is a pretty sensible way of doing this, allowing the market dictate the prices.''
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.''
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 types of box-cutters used by the Sept. 11 hijackers continue to be seized by airport security, Deignan noted.
''This (program) only expands as long as people don't leave these items at home,'' Deignan said. ''This program could be over tomorrow ... This is not necessarily something we want to be in the business of doing.''
What a scam!
