(need to request fare)Discount May CostAir Marshals Their Cover(Dress code

[papau]

Your tax cut at work,,,,,,


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-marshals22aug22.story

(need to request fare)Discount May Cost Air Marshals Their Cover(Dress codes, special hotels?)
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Times Staff Writer

August 22, 2004

WASHINGTON — Travelers checking into budget hotels near major airports might be surprised to find themselves standing next to undercover federal air marshals. They'll be the guests asking for "the air marshals' discount."

So much for working undercover.

Under a new policy, when air marshals travel they will have to stay at a short list of selected hotels. They also will be required to identify themselves as air marshals to receive a special rate their agency has negotiated with the innkeepers — a greater discount than the regular government price.<snip>


The dispute is the latest turn in an increasingly rancorous relationship between the marshals and their federal bosses. The marshals already were upset by rigid dress codes and grooming rules that they say make them so conspicuous among today's "dress-down" air travelers that passengers sometimes point them out publicly.

This month, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that two marshals were ordered off a Southwest Airlines flight departing from that city because a supervisor saw them without their sport coats on. That left the flight unguarded, the paper said. The air marshal service said the reason the marshals were taken off the plane had nothing to do with a dress code violation.<snip>