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.
Ink pens, too. A pen held properly could put a nice hole in someones neck or temple.
GROAAAAaaannn!
Happy new year!
They're not stupid. They are evil.
No only for old ladies and business men.
Arabs/Middle Easterners dressed in traditional concealing robes will still fly right through the lines.
We mustn't offend them. Even though the score for hijackers crashing airliners full of passengers into buildings or the earth is: "15" Arabs - "0" Caucasian old ladies or businessmen.
Boy, if you think that people are surley now while waiting in the security check-in lines, wait until you tell them that they won't be able to have a smoke for the next 6 hours!
Mark
When cigarette lighters are outlawed, only outlaws will have cigarette lighters.
Is a piece of flint and a small rock legal??
This is a myth. Tests have proven that bullet holes in the cabin do not cause explosive decomression in commercial airliners.
What Washington (they passed the law ... a law! ... prohibiting lighters, didn't they) and the TSA (totally stupid, awful) don't understand is that the passengers are the real security system now and that time and time again they have proved to be more effective than any sky marshal flying. ARM THEM, ARM THEM I SAY!!! What, pass through the metal detector without setting it off??? Arm yourself, man! Hand out nail clippers, knitting needles, pocket knives, and the oh-so-handy duct tape when you collect boarding passes. That gives the passengers the tools to deal with any problem that might occur. Stop making the passenger load a soft target. Think multiculturally ... imagine the shame of a terrorist put down by granny.
Enough time has passed to show that we're doing the terrorist's work by killing off passenger airlines. Outsource the whole deal to El Al, disband the TSA, and stop this silly nonsense.
Give'em time. The Feds will eventually ban those out of existence as "explosive devices". Some states have already banned "strike anywhere" matches completely.
I'm sure this has been expained to you before as being nonsense.
I'd explain it again, but you would only forget again.
They'd damn well better have a Zippo rep standing at the gate when people get off or things are going to get real ugly real quick.
Whay don't they just ban customers? It would save them a lot of trouble.
Then why wait until February to start the policy?
Next thing you know we will all be required to just fly naked...that way they can know with 90% accuracy that we aren't carrying anything...
and no, I do not have visual aids to accompany my post...
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