The magic key that opens checkpoints and clears the way to travelling around the occupied territories, that provides at least some illusion of normal life. But there is a caveat to all this: every closure, or encirclement or curfew immediately renders the tasrih invalid. Even worse: a tasrih may be acceptable at one checkpoint and rejected at another, and any soldier can, on a whim, decide to invalidate the document. The body that issues the tasrih is the DCO (q.v.): “Why have you come to the checkpoint if you haven't got a tasrih”? the soldier asked. More than anything else that it may do, this permit underlines the fact that its bearer is not a free man: he is but one level higher than a slave and his fate hangs on the caprice and the mood of anyone in uniform.