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J.K. Rowling challenges airport security
2006-09-14
J.K. Rowling says she won an argument with airport security officials in New York to carry the manuscript of the final "Harry Potter" book as carry-on baggage. Had security agents not relented, the British author said on her Web site, she might not have flown. "I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't -- sailed home probably," she wrote. The posting was dated Wednesday. The 41-year-old author had participated in an Aug. 1 book reading for charity with fellow writers Stephen King and John Irving. Security was drastically tightened after Aug. 10 when British police said they had intercepted a plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners. "The heightened security restrictions on the airlines made the journey back from New York interesting, as I refused to be parted from the manuscript of book seven. "A large part of it is handwritten and there was no copy of anything I had done while in the U.S." Eventually, she added, "They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands." America's Transportation Security Administration has "never implemented a ban on carryon luggage for flights originating in the United States," TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said. "A manuscript would certainly be allowed to be carried on." British Airways did ban carryon baggage on flights between the U.S. and Britain last month when the threat alert was raised because a terror plot was broken up in England. Rowling said she was still considering two possible titles for the last of the boy wizard's adventures. "I was quite happy with one of them until the other one struck me while I was taking a shower in New York," she wrote. "They would both be appropriate, so I think I'll have to wait until I'm further into the book to decide which one works best." ___ On the Net: J.K. Rowling: http://www.jkrowling.com
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