Major airports across the country are incorporating new baggage and
identity checks on domestic flights
starting Jan. 1. A spokesman for New York-area airports said the new
regulations may slow down air traffic as they are first phased in. The new
measures include audio and video surveillance of all public and private
areas, including bathrooms; carefully searching the luggage of passengers
who match suspicious profiles, and removing baggage from flights if the
owner has not boarded by takeoff. The Federal Aviation Administration says
the new bag-matching and explosive-search rules will be based on both
computer and manual passenger screening systems. The FAA refuses to say how
the profiles of suspicious passengers will be developed. To avoid delays,
passengers are urged to arrive an hour before their flight takes off, bring
government photo ID, and clearly mark their luggage with their names.

    The average New Yorker is photographed 40 times a day. Video cameras are
installed at airports, toll plazas, in Times Square and now in Washington
Square Park. State of the art equipment is backed up by surveillance
teams...Roll over Orwell.

New York, January 2nd, 1998
Gulliver