WASHINGTON -- Congress began distributing high technology tickets Monday to President Bush's inauguration that incorporate color-shifting ink and other features aimed at preventing counterfeiting.
The tickets to the Jan. 20 event -- the first presidential inauguration since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- are about a third larger than the ones used in January 2001, when Bush was sworn in for his first term.
The tickets have a band of color that shifts when held up to light. Thomas Basile, spokesman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, would not reveal other security technologies used. Tickets for the 2001 inauguration were printed on plain cardboard and were about two inches by four inches.
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Bush plans to use the same family Bible this year, though Washington's inaugural Bible is still available if the president makes a request, said Ryan Johnson, a spokesman for St. John's Lodge and one of the Bible's trio of escorts....
The Bible is in good condition, though its pages are highly fragile. Former first lady Barbara Bush accidentally tore a page while handling it during her husband's 1988 inauguration.
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