Now that’s a surprise, seems keeping passangers from taking lighters on airplanes is a waste of time and resources:
… 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 Reed, 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.
“Taking lighters away is security theater,” Mr. Hawley said. “It trivializes the security process.”
The policy change, which is to go into effect on Aug. 4, applies to disposable butane lighters, like Bics, and refillable lighters, like Zippos. Torch lighters, which have thin, hotter flames, will continue to be banned.
The emphasis above is mine, I ownder if politicans did any research on if lighters were a threat or not or just acted irrationally. As Bruce Schneier keeps calling most of the security at US airports, “security theatre”!