04/23/2004: 
Criminally Absurd
Airport guard rejects cancer patient over ID photo
from CNN
ORLANDO, Florida (AP) -- Airport security screeners refused to let a cancer patient board a flight home to Denver because they said she no longer resembled her identification photos.
Athena LaPera, 35, finally flew out of Orlando International Airport on a Frontier Airlines flight Wednesday night, two days after she was turned away by security screeners.
LaPera said she has lost weight and hair because of chemotherapy treatments since the photos were taken for her U.S. passport and Colorado driver's license.
LaPera spent most of Tuesday trying to resolve the issue only to be told during a conversation with a federal Transportation Security Administration employee in Washington that she needed new photos and a doctor's note to explain her changed appearance.
"I asked the lady, 'So what happens if someone goes on Weight Watchers?"' LaPera told the Orlando Sentinel. "She's like, 'If you can get documentation from your doctor that you've lost weight..."'
