Posted on 12/31/2004 10:16:18 PM PST by wagglebee
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) - In what could become a major hassle for air travelers who smoke, the Homeland Security Department will ban all cigarette lighters beyond airport checkpoints beginning Feb. 15.
The Intelligence Reform Bill that President Bush signed Dec. 17 orders the Transportation Security Administration to review its banned-items list and to prohibit passengers from carrying butane lighters aboard planes. Legislation stipulates that the ban must be in place in 60 days.
"We are reviewing the necessary changes that the Transportation Security Administration will need to make based on the new intelligence legislation," TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said.
The TSA may also expand the banned-items list to include matches, aviation industry sources have said. No decision has been made, according to one TSA official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But if a ban is enacted, it isn't clear how screeners would detect matches, short of a time-consuming physical search.
In 2003, former TSA head James Loy determined that two lighters and four books of matches were "an acceptable level of risk" to balance security and customer service. But over the next year, Loy's decision was criticized as too lax.
After all, two U.S. senators argued last year, would-be terrorist Richard Reid was one match strike away from igniting explosives in the heel of his shoe aboard a Paris-to-Miami flight.
Other industry observers have said it is disheartening that the TSA and Congress still must tinker with a security problem brought to light in December 2001, rather than focusing on larger issues such as air cargo security or general aviation security.
"You can point to bureaucracy, point to what you like," said David Forbes, president of Colorado-based aviation logistics and government security analysts BoydForbes. "Once you learn a lesson, you apply it. After three years and a huge taxpayers' investment, we have gained virtually zero."
And some question how effectively a ban on lighters, and particularly on matches, could be implemented.
"In some cases it may be difficult to enforce," said David Stempler, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Air Travelers Association. "Many won't show up on X-rays."
Some airports - Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta and Denver, for example - have smoking lounges or areas that could be equipped with lighters similar to car lighters, Stempler said.
But more likely is that airport areas beyond the security checkpoints will become de facto nonsmoking zones, officials said. Some airports, including Dallas/Fort Worth, ban smoking everywhere inside the terminals.
What about matches?
It says that they are probably next, but they don't know how they could find matches other than through physical searches.
How about securing the borders instead?
March 1st is suspenders.
April 1st is pantyhose.
Do we know how to fight a war on terror, or what!
Maybe I'll carry two sticks in protest. Or a stick, a bow, and a board with a shallow hole in it with a pocket full of tinder.
Blue tip matches are easy to carry.
For whatever the reason they seem more interested in making the lives of law abiding CITIZENS as difficult as possible. Illegal aliens are free to enter at will, but God help the guy who just wants a cigarette.
THIS is crazy!
Stupid Senators!
They ought to be old enough to know that the plastic the he had in his shoe cannot be blown up by lighting it, it requires a detonator. If he had lit it he would have had the all time hot foot, it burns real neat!
Shhh! Don't complain too loudly. They'll make smoking prohibited, yet.
"and to prohibit passengers from carrying butane lighters aboard planes."
Zippo stock in 2005?
I guess they haven't thought about someone running amok with fingernail clippers yet! That little metal file attachement could be used as a weapon-I say we ban those too!
Since I don't smoke or fly anymore, I can fart in your direction>
how did the body cavity explosive Chechen women detonate their hidden bombs? there is no reason to have a lighter or matches on a plane, you can't smoke anyway.
A lot of airports already have. Try a two hour layover in Detroit, no smoking anywhere and the checkpoint lines are too long to go outside and still have time to get back in.
Fingernail clippers were banned immediately after 9/11.
First FR post of the new year. You, like me, needs to get a life.
They'll get my Zippo when they pry it form my cold dead fingers!
;^D
The point is for when you land. You fly to a distant city, and have cigarettes in your pocket. Why should you have to buy a lighter?
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