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TSA Recovers Over $1 Million in Loose Change From Airport Security Bins

By Chris Nolan . Posted July 1, 2008.


Small windfall for TSA, like finding lunch money in the couch cushions...
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The Transportation Security Administration recovered over $1.05 million in loose change from airport security bins over the past three years, USA Today reports. The money is abandoned by passengers who are asked to empty their pockets at checkpoints:

The TSA has been keeping change since October 2004, when it lobbied Congress to amend federal law and let the agency use the money to defray security costs. Previously, money left at checkpoints went to a general fund in the federal treasury.

The cash leader: Los Angeles International Airport, where passengers left behind $89,375 from Sept. 30, 2004 to Oct. 1, 2007, according to TSA reports. Las Vegas' McCarran International was a distant runner-up.

The cash laggard: Chattanooga (Tenn.) Metropolitan Airport, whose 300,000 departing passengers in 2007 left just $1.20.

Biggest underachiever: New York's Kennedy International Airport, the nation's sixth-busiest, which generated just $5,228 from 2004 to 2007, including a mere $607 last year.

Coins are left by passengers who are either too rushed to bother collecting their change or too color-blind to see it, the TSA says.

"The money blends in with a lot of the gray bins we're utilizing," said Earl Morris, TSA security chief at Salt Lake City International Airport, which collected $6,317 from 2004 to 2007.

Kind of a conflict of interest, wouldn't you say?

(Via FedBlog)

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See more stories tagged with: security, change, airport, tsa

Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.

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View:
Use the "Shake Down" Money as Reparations to Give to Guantanamo Torture Victims - Lawsuit Pending
Posted by: colleenwhalen on Jul 1, 2008 1:23 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Six recently released Guantanamo P.O.W.'s (I refuse to call them "detainees" an Orwellian euphamism for P.O.W.'s) of Guantanamo who were recently released after enduring 6 years of sexual torture, physical torture, psychological torture, denial of medical care, denial of legal counsel, denied visits from family, denied letters, given rotting food, subjected to sleep deprivation, excessive noise, forced psychiatric drugg...........well, the recently released 6 Guantanamo P.O.W.'s have filed a lawsuit against the Bush Administration for being locked up for 6 years and being totally innocent.

The Guantanamo P.O.W.'s were released about 2 months ago because the Bush Administration and Guantanamao Commandant admitted there is NO EVIDENCE they had any connection to terrorists.

The "shake down" money collected at airports by Homeland Security should be put in a trust fund to help settle the multi-million dollar lawsuit against our govt. for illegally keeping these INNOCENT men in prison for 6 years and torturing them.

What I want to know is if Bush has a 76% disapproval rating and 73% of Americans want the obscene, illegal, genocidal war in Iraq to end NOW - what hasn't that sociopath been impeached and why hasn't the war ended?

Well, because Americans are lazy, complacent and too lazy to get off their ass and quit watching trash reality TV to become politically active and force Bush out of office and force our govt to end the war.

I don't know who I am disgusted with more, the American public who doesn't seem to give a crap about anything - or the media who still is too gutless and cowardly to ask hardball questions to Bush, McCain and Obama?

McCain, Bush and Hillary all want to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran - but not ONE journalist has asked them how they plan to deal with all the nuclear fall out DRIFT which would float from Iran to our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq within 48 hours? We would be killing our own soldiers with nuclear drift if we drop a nuke on Iran.

BTW - Iran has not invaded, nor attacked any nation since the Ottoman War. I do not like the President of Iran, and Iran has human rights abuse - but they haven't invaded Israel, nor has Iran invaded the USA. Iran is a soverign nation with NO PLANS to attack anyone, yet Bush, McCain and Hillary want to drop nukes on Iran by August. There is very little protest from Americans, who frankly do not give a shit about anything except who is going to win American Idol or who is the father of Brittney Spears out of wedloc baby

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