Posted on 02/28/2005 6:25:25 PM PST by sailor4321
Lighters to be banned on airline flights
2 hours, 38 minutes ago
By Kimberly Morrison, Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Airline passengers will have to ditch their lighters or lose them to airport security screeners when a new ban on lighters takes effect in April.
The ban reflects Congress' fear that lighters could be used to ignite bombs on planes or otherwise damage or destroy them. The Transportation Security Administration until now had banned all but butane lighters and said each passenger could carry no more than two.
TSA's new ruling extends the ban to all butane lighters, effective April 14.
Proponents of the ban, including Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., cited the case of convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who tried but failed to light explosives in his shoes with matches. Had Reid been using a lighter, he might have brought down the plane, Dorgan said. Reid was sentenced to life in prison in 2003.
The butane lighter ban is expected to streamline security procedures, because in the past screeners had to distinguish between butane lighters and types that were banned.
The Department of Transportation bans lighters in checked baggage, so passengers wanting to keep them have few options aside from returning to their cars to stow lighters or handing them off to non-fliers.
The U.S. Postal Service considers lighters to be hazardous material and will not mail them.
Passengers can continue to carry up to four books of matches, but that, too, is under reconsideration, said TSA spokeswoman Amy Von Walter.
In a related development, passengers will not be allowed to breath on their flights.
According to TSA official Bertha, (an important government official) 'They will just have to hold their breath.'
I think it is a scam benifiting the U.S.A (united smokers association)
Why don't they just ban passengers? Would solve everything in one quick step.
wouldn't it be easier for the 30% of the population that still smokes to just not fly anymore
Are they going to ban matches, too?
Even easier would be to make flying an "at your own risk" activity--just like everything else in life.
Having an airplane fall out of the sky on you would be such an "activity" too. And unlike traveling on the plane, there would be no choice to the victims about taking the risk.
Sometimes, people overlook the obvious in their single minded panic.
Consider, we take 2 water bottles, and take a syringe and remove the water. We fill one with Ammonia, and the other with Bleach.
Habib carries one, and Mohammed the other. They then simply dump them on the carpet once airborne; and everyone aphyxiates on Chlorine Gas.
Instead of fishing for every conceiveable method of stopping terrorists, how about we let the passengers carry knives. One or Five idiots with box cutters will be overwhelmed by 200 knive weilding passengers.
Hey, the network works just fine as long as everyone else stays off...
Wouldn't it be easier to just go ahead and handcuff and blindfold airline passengers?
that might work but they still might pull something...the only way to be sure is to ban 'em from flying..Problem solved!
"Consider, we take 2 water bottles, and take a syringe and remove the water. We fill one with Ammonia, and the other with Bleach."
Restricted "hazardous articles" and not allowed. You wouldn't get them on the plane if the screeners do their job.
I still think that Naked Air has the solution...
I have total confidence that the TSA screeners are (a) competent and (b) not abusing their authority to fondle women and get back at The Man. /sarcasm
Never forget that the ultimate purpose of terrorism is to destabilize a country by turning the target population against its own government. The trick is provoke the government to such oppressive overreactions that the population will fear its own government more than it ever feared the terrorists...
I have total confidence that the TSA screeners are (a) competent and (b) not abusing their authority to fondle women and get back at The Man. /sarcasm
And your better solution is?
I think you mean the united ANTI smokers association.
If a smoker can't carry a lighter, he/she can't have a smoke after getting off the plane. and so it then benefits the gift shops because all smokers will have to buy a new lighter once they get off the plane in order to have that smoke..............of course they still have to go outsie into the fresh air (fresh air??/at an airport????? ROFL)
What a bunch of touchy-feely-feel goodness NONSENSE.
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