As I and others said at the time the ban on lighters was stupid.  There is no practical way it can be enforced.  The newspapers are talking about the results now:

Last winter, when federal transportation security officials began discussing a ban on cigarette lighters in airline cabins, they warned that the lighters might slip past their screening equipment. Some airport managers were skeptical for the same reason.

Turns out they were right, at least if the recent experience of a handful of Twin Cities air travelers is any indication.

A dozen times in the past several weeks, those passengers sailed past airport screeners with at least one lighter in their carry-on bags.

…

“They really can be somewhat dangerous on a plane,” said Roth, a former Secret Service agent. “But the ban [also] is like a no-parking sign — if you find a lighter, it gives you an opening to look for something else that isn’t supposed to be in the luggage.”

One of the strongest congressional advocates for the lighter ban was Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who cited shoe bomber Richard Reid’s attempt in December 2002 to blow up a plane using matches.

If Reid had used a lighter, “the FBI said he would have blown up — the shoe bomber would have blown up the airplane,” Dorgan said during a Feb. 15 hearing.

Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt said his boss “is keeping his eye on” the lighter ban but has indicated no dissatisfaction about its comprehensiveness.

“Nothing works 100 percent,” Piatt said. “That doesn’t mean things aren’t significantly improved. I think he wants to allow them time to work this. I don’t think anyone expected perfection in the first couple of months.”

‘Improved’?  Yeah, right.  They only lighters they are finding are the lighters people forgot about.  Anyone with a room temperature I.Q. can hide one such the screeners won’t find it.  Hence they are taking lighters from people that had no plans to do anything wrong with them.  The only ‘benefit’ to this policy is making some candidates for mental help feel better–and that especially applies to Sen. Dorgan.

As for Roth–Ayn Rand has him pegged.

They just don’t and won’t stop.  Here’s another one:

For at least 25 years, the Federal Aviation Administration failed one test after another when it came to airport security. Undercover agents walked through airport checkpoints toting machine guns on their backs and bombs stashed in their carry-on luggage. Agents easily breached security precautions, breezing past locked doors to enter empty planes, mingling behind the scenes with ground crews.

…

“The facts remain the facts,” says Steve Elson, a former undercover FAA security officer who tried to warn the agency it was on the edge of disaster. “It is still child’s play to knock down 50 airplanes in a few hours’ span with near 100 percent chance of success, and probably quite easy to fly a plane into the White House or Congress.”

I contend it’s simply not possible to make airplanes any safer with the current approach.  We need to completely rethink the problem from a clean slate, do some simulations, and reimplement our security based on solid science rather than pandering to the mental disorders and power cravings of a few people.

TSA has installed some new explosive detection equipment to screen passengers:

The federal Transportation Security Administration has finished a pilot program, which started in June 2004, by installing explosives detectors for passengers in 14 cities. By the end of September, 44 detectors will be installed in 10 additional airports, including Pittsburgh, the TSA said.

…

The explosives detector looks like a doorframe, like the metal detectors now used at the airport checkpoint. Passengers will stand still for a few seconds while the detector releases several puffs of air.

The detector collects and analyzes the air for traces of explosives, according to TSA. A computerized voice will tell passengers when they can step out of the doorway, said Ann Davis, regional TSA spokeswoman.

The machine, which costs more than $3 million, is an added layer of security, not a replacement for any existing security measures, Davis said.

The pilot program gave the TSA the opportunity to fine-tune the machine’s operations, “and it certainly helped improve customer service by reducing the number of individuals selected for pat-down procedures,” Davis said.

Currently, the only way to check passengers for explosives in Pittsburgh is through pat-downs and random searches, Snell said.

“The machine is also very sophisticated and sensitive, and can detect even the smallest trace element of explosives,” Davis said.

That means heart patients who take nitroglycerin, which is one of the prohibited chemicals, could set off the alarm, Snell said. They might smooth the checkpoint process by carrying the medication in the prescription bottle or have a prescription with them, though they probably would be sent to secondary pat-down procedures.

 Cities in the pilot program were Baltimore, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York (Kennedy), Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego, Tampa, Jacksonville, Fla.; Gulfport, Miss.; Providence, R.I.; and Rochester, N.Y.

Those to be added along with Pittsburgh are Dallas/Fort Worth, Washington, D.C. (Dulles and Reagan National), Charlotte, N.C.; Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, Fla.; Newark, N.J., New York (LaGuardia) and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

$3 Million for each machine???  My guess is the machines will either generate far, far too many false positives or else not detect explosives carried by someone that put reasonable effort into sealing them up.  There is simply far too much overlap in the residue between someone walking through a recently fertilized lawn, an gravel pit, or construction site or other innocent activity and someone who purposely hid explosives on themselves.  I believe that money is being completely wasted.  Well, perhaps not totally wasted–it will make people with certain types of mental problems feel better.