Posted on 02/17/2005 11:58:21 AM PST by Garnet Dawn
U.S. to ban flame sources aboard airliners Administration will prohibit lighters, matches on all flights
By Pete Williams Justice correspondent NBC News Feb. 15, 2005
WASHINGTON - In a move intended to further improve airline security, the Bush administration is preparing to ban matches, as well as lighters, for all air passengers, beginning in April.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
But can a ban on matches be enforced?
Under a plan now awaiting final approval, all passengers would be required to surrender their lighters and matches before entering security screening. That means no lighters or matches in carry-on bags, or even in checked luggage. Retail shops along concourses inside secure areas would be banned from selling them, and airport employees couldn't carry them either.
Smokers flying Tuesday wondered how it would work.
"If you smoke you have to carry matches and lighters with you to smoke," said one traveler at Los Angeles International Airport. "What do you do, do you purchase a lighter every time you fly in and out of an airport? If you want to smoke, I think it's carrying it just a little bit too far."
"I just think it's getting ridiculous," echoed another traveler at Seattle-Tacoma International. "Matches? Come on, I think it's stupid."
The proposed ban is partly based on the fears of another Richard Reid, who tried to light explosives in his shoes aboard a flight to the United States three years ago.
The intelligence reform bill President Bush signed late last year requires a ban on lighters. But the Department of Homeland Security decided to go further, calling for a ban on matches, too. Still, the agency acknowledged that it will be almost impossible to enforce the ban, since matches cannot be picked up by metal detectors or X-ray machines.
Even so, says an internal government memo, "total detectability is not a prerequisite for prohibiting a potential threat to airline security."
A senator who pushed for the ban says it's still a good idea to try.
"You can't smoke on an airplane so you aren't going to get on an airplane and light up," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "So what's the purpose of having a butane lighter or books of matches, especially when the FBI has said had Richard Reid had the butane lighter he would have blown up the airplane with a shoe bomb?"
Security officials hope the ban will at least reduce the number of matches that get onto airplanes and encourage passengers to call out if they see anybody aboard trying to light them.
© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
ARRRGGHHHH!!!!
My question is: What's the purpose of having a Byron Dorgan. NO ONE needs one of those!
Gads. Pretty soon they'll make everyone show up naked.
The TSA plans to impose a ban that they can't enforce. This isn't the intelligence reform bill Congress voted on and President Bush signed late last year. Homeland security decided to embellish upon the original.
"Security officials hope the ban will at least reduce the number of matches that get onto airplanes and encourage passengers to call out if they see anybody aboard trying to light them."
So you can have a gun in your checked luggage but not a book of matches? Next thing people will be putting lighters in condoms and swallowing them with the hope they'll come out in time to use them during their layover.
The TSA is out of control. Yeah, terrorism sucks, but loss of our freedom sucks more.
That will either save the airline industry or make it go bust (pun intended).
this is easy.......they can ban that stuff on board as long as they supply free matches upon deboarding.....no problem.
RE: Ban on Matches, Lighters Vexes Airports
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24774-2005Feb14.html?sub=AR
Was the congressional vote to ban butane lighters, or was it to ban all lighters and matches? Under what authority can these restrictions continue to be revised by the TSA, if initially congress had to vote on the issue? I checked the TSA website January 26, 2005 (IL Smokers Group post #805), and at that time it read:
http://www.tsa.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/Permitted_Prohibited_8_23_2004.pdf
"Disposable lighters and absorbed liquid lighters are allowed in your carry-on baggage.
Strike anywhere matches are NOT permitted. If you are uncertain as to whether your lighter is
prohibited, please refrain from bringing it to the airport."
Are participating in these discussion how government leaders are protecting our country now? If the TSA would have been satisfied with banning lighters, they wouldn't look like fools now. Chemical compounds already exist that will burst into flame on impact.
A "fire" ban will have no bearing on improving security. Implementing a "match" ban will only cause a greater percentage of us to become criminals by concealing contraband when we fly. It is sheer stupidity to implement laws that cannot be enforced.
"....But as airports and government leaders began discussing how to create flame-free airport terminals, the task became more complicated. Would newsstands and other small airport stores located beyond the security checkpoint have to stop selling lighters?"......
"......Would airports have to ban smoking and close smoking lounges? How would security screeners detect matches in passengers' pockets or carry-on bags when they don't contain metal to set off the magnetometers? And what about arriving international travelers, who might have matches and lighters with them as they walk through the terminal?......"
"......TSA Administrator David M. Stone is expected to face tough questions on lighters and on TSA budget issues before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today, as President Bush has proposed to cut several major programs from the agency and raise passenger security fees. "
This entire airport security concept grows more ridiculous every day! Can't our policy makers think beyond the end of their noses. Their paranoia is expanding beyond the limits of sanity. I'd like to know what genius conceived the idea to expand this "fire" ban on airports. The boogey-man terrorists are continuing to disrupt our society without even lifting a finger. I can't wait to read world opinion on this latest US airport fiasco.
The TSA has told airports that for now they can keep smoking lounges open, and perhaps airports can install wall-mounted lighters."
Wall mounted lighters in airports?? -- increased passenger security fees?? -- for now airports can keep smoking lounges open?? Shame on me, and this is based purely on my suspicious nature, but I wonder if the CDC and/or other powerful anti-smoking special interest groups are orchestrating the entire idea.
Ummm...so you can have a cigarette outside the terminal before you enter (so you won't have a nic fit and strangle the flight attendents) and then be able to smoke when you reach your destination? Who elected this box of rocks?
Being a pilot, I love to fly, but I haven't flown (commercially) since before 9-11. If they keep up with that nonsense I doubt I'll ever fly a commercial airline again.
I hate to fly now too, but how are people supposed to get from one part of the country to another in a short time? Driving is impossible sometimes, if the distance is great and the timeframe is short. This country is becoming a joke to the rest of the world.
Right, but how are you supposed to light up at the end of a flight, when you finally get outside the terminal for a cigarette, if you aren't supposed to have any way of lighting the cigarette and airports are supposed to ban the sale of lighters too?
I read in another news story that lighters and matches are to be banned from checked luggage too. That may have been an exaggeration by the writer, but we can't lock our luggage any more....so, whose to say?
Will the airports have plain clothes informants watching for travelers to pull a hidden book of matches from their clothing? Is our country determined to turn everyone into criminals with their asinine laws?
Stuck with matches every time anyone goes on vacation? Most of us have favorite lighters, and I'd really miss mine if forced to use disposables and matches for a couple of weeks.
yaayyyy! More government! More laws!
Lighters have been banned from checked luggage since well before 9/11 since they are much more likely to cause problems in an unattended depressurized baggage hold than in a passenger aircraft where, if they did cause a problem, people would be able to deal with it quickly and easily.
I never thought about it before. I always carried my lighter and matches with me. It makes sense. I'll still bet people start hiding lighters in their luggage now. I know I've packed an extra can of hairspray in my luggage, never thinking about the pressurization....
Guess that will be another problem for the geniuses in homeland security to solve. I wonder if airline travelers can begin expecting to find the contents of their luggage trashed upon arrival.
Now I know how I'll finally make my first million--I'll be a light-up valet at the cabstands and limo waiting areas outside the "Arrivals" doorways at O'Hare offering a flick of my Bic at a buck a pop--And the best part of it is.......I CAN SMOKE ON THE JOB!--
Cool!!--C
I think this whole stupid ass idea is designed to help some TSA thieves who want to create the world's largest Zippo collection.
Note to feds: It's effin' MOOOOSLIMS that are the problem!
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