Airports to ban cigarette lighters beyond checkpoints

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http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/du...n/10539621.htm

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Posted on Fri, Dec. 31, 2004

Airports to ban cigarette lighters beyond checkpoints

BY BRYON OKADA
Knight Ridder Newspapers

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.
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Oh. God. What have we done.