Quote of note:

Kentucky's Division of Surplus Property has sold enough of the airport items on the online auction site to be called a ''powerseller,'' a term given to eBay users with a lot of sales and positive customer feedback.

Kentucky makes about $2,500 a month -- about $30,000 a year -- from selling prohibited airport items on eBay.

Alabama's figures are lower -- about $6,000 a year. It tries to sell the items to nonprofit agencies before offering them to the public at live auctions, said Shane Bailey, director of the state's surplus agency.

Bailey said Alabama currently does not use eBay to sell airport contraband but will soon.

Our contraband profits others
Weapons and other items intercepted at Florida's airports are being sold on eBay and are making a profit for other states.
By EVAN S. BENN

Kentucky and Alabama are raking in thousands of dollars, thanks to Florida's airport scofflaws.

Pocketknives and scissors confiscated at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood and Miami international airports go to those states, for free, which turn around and sell them on eBay.com, for a profit.

Florida was offered a piece of the action when the airport-surplus program began several years ago, but officials turned it down.

''There would be a lot of itemizing and auditing, and our surplus division simply doesn't have the funding or the staffing to do it,'' said Jennifer Fennell, a spokeswoman for Florida's Department of Management Services. ``We have five positions in that division, and their time is 100-percent taken.''

By selling secondhand pocketknives and manicure scissors on the Internet, government agencies are turning a post-Sept. 11 security measure into a moneymaker.