Citing state law, Seattle airport ignores federal directive SEATTLE (AP) =97 Citing state law, Seattle-Tacoma International and some=20 other airports in Washington are ignoring a federal directive to randomly=20 search vehicles along terminal curbside drives. The federal Transportation= =20 Security Administration issued the order about 10 days ago as part of the=20 heightened "orange" terrorism alert. Several major airports, including Los= =20 Angeles International and Dallas-Fort Worth International, have agreed to=20 follow the order, setting up a presence similar to a sobriety checkpoint or= =20 border crossing, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. Sea-Tac has=20 refused to conduct random searches, but does search any vehicles deemed=20 suspicious, spokesman Bob Parker said. "I don't want people left with the=20 impression that we're not paying attention," Parker said. "It's just that=20 we can't use the random checkpoint method." The reason, he said, is that=20 the state constitution provides a strong privacy protection =97 which courts= =20 have used to strike down other random searches, such as roadblock sobriety= =20 checkpoints. The Washington State Patrol last summer stopped randomly searching every=20 15th vehicle boarding a state ferry. The practice was costing too much in=20 trooper overtime, and the state attorney general's office had warned that=20 the patrol had no clear authority to perform the searches. "Just as this=20 state has learned on the issue of sobriety checkpoints and on the issue of= =20 searches of vehicles on state ferries," authorities need a reason to stop=20 someone and search a vehicle, Parker said. Spokane International Airport, which handled 204,000 passengers in January,= =20 is taking a similar approach, spokesman Todd Woodard said. After talks with= =20 the Transportation Security Administration, "we agreed to have airport=20 police officers remain especially vigilant in their review of vehicles=20 approaching the terminal building and to perform searches of automobiles=20 that match the probable cause criteria for our current alert level,"=20 Woodard said. Not all airports in the state were refusing to follow the TSA= =20 directive, however. Bellingham International Airport has been conducting=20 random searches since the order came down about 10 days ago, said Aviation= =20 Director Art Choat. The legality of the searches under state law "is not an= =20 issue I've looked at yet," Choat said. He said he planned to review the=20 Port of Seattle's analysis before deciding whether to halt the searches. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.trotters.net TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************