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.
Last I heard homeland security was saying those bombs were tight wrapped around the middrift and were quite thin. That is their current justification for groping your wife.
Of course what they don't say is the russians never bothered to look under the burka.
So what I want to know is where did this Body Cavity claim come from?
SAD TO SAY, THEY ARE ALREADY BANNED
Matches are not banned. They are also virtually FREE. When was the last time you paid for matches?
But matches are about to be banned. What happens when you have a layover. See what I wrote in #11.
>>>SAD TO SAY, THEY ARE ALREADY BANNED
You are mistaken. The ban on fingernail clippers was lifted over a year ago.
http://www.alaskaair.com/www2/help/faqs/CheckedBaggage.asp#DoNotBring
Two words: Quit flying.
Strike anywhere matches are already banned, book matches are still allowed. I've seen nothing about any plan to ban those.
Jeez.............fercryinoutloud.
What next? We have to travel nekkid because we could strangle the flight crews with our boxers???
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.
Clippers are ok -- nail files other Leatherman, Swiss Army-type implements are not.
I completely understand why the few people I know who own their own jets would never give them up.
What about dental floss, it could be used to strangle people?
Did you read the article????
There is great wisdom in this. But doing it randomly won't have the effect.
What is needed is a no-fly month, where everybody who can possibly avoid it simply does not fly. For a whole month. Need a big internet campaign to promote it and get the word out.
It would scare the hell out of the airlines and they would be beating the hell out of congress.
Personally I feel an airplane is the most dangerous place to act up and start making trouble or start acting threatening. Perfect strangers will jump you in a heart beat and hog tie you with belts and computer wires. No one is going to try to hijack an airplane in the US for a long time. They might well try to detonate something, but that something is just as likely to be in the luggage as in the passenger cabin.
As could shoe laces, scarves and belts .. I think that guy is right: we're gonna have to fly naked.
He had the detonator in there. The fuse he was lighting went to the detonator. It would have blown up...
If I had been on that plane, we would have been having a body parts roast with the rest of his matches all the way home. He would have given up every name he knew.
It would scare the hell out of the airlines and they would be beating the hell out of congress.
If Congress' recent dealings with the airlines are any indication, all that would happen would be that the airlines get several billion dollars more of our tax money.
Then we damn well better get to pick and choose who we're going to be seated by!
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