Great News for Smokers and Shoe Bombers

Great news smokers, you will once again be permitted to carry your Bic lighters on that coast-to-coast airline flight, meaning no more fussing with those oh-so-aromatic matches while sneaking a puff in the lavatory.

WASHINGTON, July 19 — Federal aviation authorities have decided to stop
enforcing a two-year-old rule against taking cigarette lighters on airplanes,
concluding that it was a waste of time to search for them before passengers
boarded.




The ban was imposed at the insistence of Congress after a passenger,
Richard Reid, tried to ignite a bomb in his shoe in 2001 on a flight from Paris
to Miami.




Lawmakers said that if Mr. Reid had used a lighter, instead of matches, he
might have been able to ignite the bomb, but Kip Hawley, assistant secretary for
the Transportation
Security Administration, said in an interview on Thursday that the ban had
done little to improve aviation security because small batteries could be used
to set off a bomb.




Matches have never been prohibited on flights.

Much of what we do in the War on Terror is a waste of time.