Items seized at airports for sale online
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SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- 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.
Corkscrews for sale
 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. 
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-- Robb Deignan, California Department of General Services
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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, said Robb Deignan, spokesman for the California Department of General Services.
"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 said.
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."
Messages not sinking in
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 September 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."
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Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
