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Knives To Be Allowed in US Airplanes

U.S. veteran Senator John McCain on Saturday called for a congressional hearing into the transportation authority's decision to allow small knives on planes, which has been banned following the September 11 attacks.

"We need a congressional hearing on the whole issue of what is a danger to the entire flight," McCain said in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced Tuesday that travelers will be allowed to bring small knives and some other once-prohibited sporting equipment in their carry-on baggage. The change will take effect on April 25, which marks the first loosening of restrictions for carry-on baggage since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Items allowed include knives that do not lock and have blades that are 6 cm or less in length and are less than 1.27 cm in width, novelty- size and toy bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two golf clubs.

"They are obviously not making the case to the American people in a way that Americans find satisfactory," said McCain.

The senator also noted that improvements actually could be made to the entire operation. "My beef with TSA, my friend, is that our security procedures have basically not changed in the last 12 years. They are still having to do invasive body searches, we still wait in long, long lines. Couldn't we have a fast lane? Couldn't we develop a technology where we could just walk people through?" he queried.

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