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TSA Limits Lithium Batteries on Airplanes
yali writes "The U.S. Transportation and Security Administration has issued new rules limiting travel with lithium batteries. As of January 1, no spare lithium batteries are allowed in checked luggage. Batteries carried in the cabin are subject to limitations on per-battery and total lithium content, and spare batteries must have the terminals covered. If you're returning home from the holidays with new toys, be sure to check out the new restrictions before you pack."
And as usual, there is no explanation as to *why* lithium batteries are now illegal to carry. I assume this is to reduce the possibility of a lithium battery shorting out, but if the batteries are contained in their shipping packages, they should be no more dangerous than many other items that you can carry on planes. This of course means a whole new hassle for those folks that use lithium batteries for their work such as photographers who need to travel by air to many of their assignments among many other folks and carry with them batteries to sometimes remote locations. What is the rationale? Have they examined the potential impact before coming up with yet another new restriction on travel? Are they worried about this as a terrorist act? Because, look, if someone really wants to bring down a plane, there are many ways to do it even without using lithium batteries. Think sodium metal or any explosive really, that is keister stashed until the terrorist gets to the lavatory. Think any common item on a plane that can be used as a weapon including newspaper, components of the interior finish and cabin materials,
Every time I come back into my own country after spending time abroad, I am frustrated and depressed over how bad things are getting here. I talked about some of it including the marketing problem we are manufacturing for ourselves here after my last trip to Japan.
It also makes one wonder how much all this is costing the US in terms of lost business, lost productivity, airline delays, increased cost burdens on airlines and passengers and more... And this is all being done in the name of safety and terrorism, but you know... it's funny because I remember flying back in the 70's and 80's where people routinely carried firearms on planes. The restriction was that they had to be long guns and unloaded. I even remember one Texan getting on a plane and commenting to his friend that he would never check his shotgun because it might get damaged by the baggage handlers. I also routinely used to carry a pocket knife with me wherever I went even up to a few years ago on planes before they were outlawed... which leads me to wonder if the per capita risk of hijacking is any different now versus what it was back then.
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Given how well current TSA rules are implemented by the agents, I expect that there will be considerable confusion at the security checkpoints.
Hell, I'm a geek, and I'm not sure how many grams of lithium metal are in my laptop's batteries. How should I expect a nontechnical person be able to size up a battery and tell which batteries should be allowed and which shouldn't?
And, are they even going to count batteries in cellphones and iPods?
I expect that many spare batteries will simply be seized and tossed in the trash.
Spare batteries are more dangerous than installed batteries? Maybe it's just me, but the large majority of the lithium batteries that I've read about exploding were ones that were installed. I've yet to hear about a spare one going jihad on the luggage next to it.
Does this mean I can't bring the external 4-hour battery I bought for my laptop? My laptop's battery lasts ~2 hours, and I bought the external with the sole purpose of USING IT ON THE FREAKING PLANE for the additional four hours it takes to get from East Coast to West Coast...
Gotta go, fill out my patent application...
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I have LIon batteries in my laptop, my cell phone, my Bluetooth earpiece, my Nintendo DS, and probably my shoes for all I know. I already have to remove my screwdrivers from my carry-on bag and place them in checked baggage or leave them at home, because they are Official Threats To The Integrity Of The Republic ("Take this plane to Cuba or I'll unscrew the wings from the plane").
Someone needs to slap around the retards coming up with this stuff and force-feed them a clue.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
At this point, I don't care anymore. Really, is anyone actually bothered by this? Should've seen it comming though. This is a waste of my tax money. Hell, it would be worth it if they were transparent and we knew the reasons for all of these rules. This goes far below checking shoes for bombs and even not allowing nail clippers on board. Whatever. Hopefully the next administration would bring some sense (*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*) to the US government.
Maybe they want to see what they can make us do. They said one time you couldn't carry water bottles on-board. Then you could carry them on as long as they were purchased after the security check. I don't know what it is now... then they said that cosmetics, shampoos, soaps, etc. containing liquids had to be less that 4 oz and all of them had to fit in a quart bag, my sizes might be off, but something like that. Why quart size? Maybe it's a carefully determined threshold, above which everyone is still resentful, but not so much that they'd protest. Or maybe they made it up, as long as they were making stuff up anyway. Or maybe the water-boarded guy said they had a plot to use 2 quart bags.. then they water-boarded him some more and he said one-and-a-half qt bags; so they decided they'd allow only 1 qt bags so that the evil ones did have anything to blow up. Now it's 1 spare battery (or whatever number). I suppose we hear that and go, hey, they allow a spare, and that's good around. I mean, who needs a hundred spares anyway? And so we accept one more thing, more or less unquestioningly.
I know this sounds like a slippery slope argument, but this stuff is being made up as we go along. They got the idiot shoe guy trying to light a match, so they said we've got to take our shoes off and run them through the machines. I mean, this could go on ad infinitum.
1. convince the American sheeple think that the .gov is actually doing something about terrorism
2. instill fear in the sheeple so they continue making poor risk assessments re: terrorism, and thus support wingnuttery like the TSA.
The TSA hasn't done jack shit to prevent terrorism. Terrorism is defeated by police work and good intelligence, not invading far off countries. Terrorism is not defeated militarily. It is defeated politically and socially: politically through a practice of non-intervention and socially through a process of co-operative engagement. To put it in more common terms: respect others and trade with them. Don't invade and steal resources. Present yourself as something to emulate. Over time, people will leave you the hell alone, because you leave them the hell alone.
The TSA is a crime of an agency, and should be disbanded. Airport security is one thing. Tin horn fascist fear mongering is another.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I may not carry a laptop, but I do travel with a few cameras. I have my dSLR with one spare lithium battery, a small point-and-shoot camera with a bunch of spares, and a video camera. I need a bunch of spares for my old P&S camera since it eats them like there's no tomorrow and if I use that camera much I'll easily go through 3-4 batteries before I can get back and have a chance to charge them. Granted, the batteries are quite small but I don't feel like replacing it just yet.
Being limited to one spare battery for everything absolutely sucks and is unacceptable. I could see carrying one spare for a laptop, but this will really suck for photographers.
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Having "enjoyed" airline travel over the holidays this year, I suppose I can comment a bit on what I dislike about the state of airport security in the US these days.
Mostly, I feel it's rather demeaning. I used to travel a lot in the late nineties, when security was much less invasive, and I feel that it's no safer today than it was back then. There have been many instances of prohibited materials being slipped past TSA security, and oftentimes the regulations are overly restrictive and do little to nothing to improve actual security. I'm not going to be hijacking an airplane with my Swiss Army keychain (1" blade). I don't feel that I should be hassled about taking off my shoes for the X-ray machine when I've just watched eight people go through the metal detector without doing so. If we're going to have substantial airport security (which I would suggest is not necessary), it should be evenly enforced by well-paid, well-trained individuals with policies that are shown to have an impact. What we have now does little more than inconvenience travelers and provide a false sense of security.
This may be middle class whining, but I feel that it's not unreasonable.
Schlock Mercenary
Airport security has become a ridiculous game of "Simon Says," only in this case Simon has a taser and the ability to ruin your vacation plans. Every congress-critter from any tourism-oriented state should be holding daily hearings with the head of the TSA asking for cost:benefit analyses on all of these stupid rules.
I know some of these policies make sense, even if not implemented correctly. The limit itself is ridiculous. They should just enforce proper packaging during transit.
:)
Flying in this country is going to get to the point where EVERYTHING will be packed according to a 1000+ point policy and checked. Carry-ons will be banned entirely. Ohhh, and you will have ditch all of your clothes, submit yourself to the "high colonic" security scanner, and travel in a one size does not fit all jumpsuit. I just hope when safety and terrorism inevitably bring us there that I can at least choose the color of my jumpsuit.
The sad fact is that with the corruption of the airlines and FAA still allowing critical design flaws to exist, that the military itself corrected over 20 years ago, you will be flying very safely in a progressively unsafe plane. Makes perfect sense.
I got an idea... Why not just go back to the way it was before? Where we accepted a certain level of risk to travel. People do stupid stuff all the time like drinking too much and smoking. I don't see how far fetched it is to get a little excitement riding in a plane that may explode due to a design flaw from the airplane manufacturers, Sony, or some fucked in the head terrorist
P.S - We had a close family friend die on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. My position has always been that the airlines themselves do not do enough to protect us. There was technology back then, and still exists today, that could have stopped that. It would cost a couple hundred thousand dollars but would essentially retrofit the cargo compartments with blast proof material. The containers themselves would also be fitted with it. Had that existed on Flight 103, they would probably not even have noticed that blast till they landed. So without trying to sound like a troll, I do believe these TSA policies are just window dressing and that they don't ever intend to focus on real security solutions that could be effective.
Do even /.ers get their science from movies these days? 1 atmosphere ~= 14.7 psi. A .45 hangun would likely punch a neat .45 hole in the skin of the plane. That's 0.16 square inches, or just over 2 pounds of total force if it were a vacuum outside and the plane was at 1 atm inside. Of course, neither of those would be true, so it more like 1 pound of force. Damn our education system is depressing me.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Generally it is best to avoid any kind of pellet/shot loads, also you absolutely must avoid hollow points
.25ACP for home defense either, but worrying about .357 vs. .44 is just silly. You want a handgun that is
.454 Casull or .480 Ruger puts you in an entirely different realm of energy, and the carbine will give you more rounds than the shotgun does. Fundamentally, it's up to what the individual feels comfortable with, but *anything* is better than nothing, and quibbling about .357 vs .44 or 9mm vs. .45 is just silly. Your standard AK/AR15/HK91 clone isn't a bad idea, either.
.500S&W (that's a half-inch diameter bullet). It's too much for carry, but home defense it would do well (of course like a 44, there will be no follow up shot). I think it is probably best for shooting a bear/lion/tiger when he starts eating your face though
.500S&W are completely ill-suited to that sort of barrel length. And it's not a surprise to me that I can't find this weapon in any of S&W's sales ads. It's not even on their homepage. There is a 2.75" barreled version, but even that's completely ridiculous and there's no *way* I'd rely on that in a bear-defense situation.
.308 out of a rifle. But compared to cartridges used for dangerous big game, it's puny. .460 Weatherby Magnum is over 7000 ft
This is completely untrue. Completely and thoroughly. Police departments, almost to a man, issue hollowpointed ammunition. Why? Because it has the highest chance of stopping the threat in the event lethal force is necessary. If you end up on the stand, yes, the prosecutor's going to ask why you were using hollowpointed ammunition. Then, since you've been prepared by your own defense, you're going to be able to say that you use them for the same reason 99% of police, including the police from the largest departments in the country such as the NYPD and LAPD, walk around with hollowpoints loaded: because they have the highest chance of stopping the threat and the lowest chance of penetrating to where they're not supposed to and hit an innocent person inadvertently. The cops aren't out there trying to be cruel, and neither are you.
What you want to avoid are hand-loads. You want to use factory ammunition.
Personally I would go with a 357magnum over a 44mag for home defense
ObJeffCooper:
The difference between any two handguns is this much: (holds fingers up about a half-inch apart)
The difference between a handgun and a longarm is this much: (stretches arms apart)
Handguns are marginal against human targets. If you're going to use one for self-defense, then arguing over things like "stopping power" and so forth is just so much intellectual masturbation. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't use a
a. reliable
b. reliable
c. isn't so expensive or unpleasant to shoot that you won't practice with it.
d. isn't so inaccurate that you'll get discouraged and stop practicing with it.
If you're defending your *home*, the only reason you should be carrying a handgun is to let you fight your way to your long arm. A shotgun or something like an 1892 chambered in something ridiculously potent like
S&W sells a 5-shot revolver w/ 2" barrel that fires
This is nonsense. What that will generate is an enormous muzzle flash as the majority of unburned powder rapidly combusts upon leaving the barrel and a mind-boggling amount of felt recoil. The internal ballistics of the
is a pretty serious cartridge, might even stop a rhino. (nobody has tried)
Nobody has tried, because it'd be just as much suicide as putting the thing to your head and pulling the trigger. In the full-length barrel, it develops just a hair over 3000 ft-lbs at the muzzle. That is indeed an enormous quantity of energy for a handgun, and compares to a