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TSA To Allow Laptops In Approved Bags
mnovotny writes "TIME is reporting that TSA will be allowing laptops in approved bags through security checkpoints. 'The new rules, announced Tuesday and set to take effect Aug. 16, are intended to help streamline the X-ray inspection lines. To qualify as "checkpoint friendly," a bag must have a designated laptop-only section that unfolds to lie flat on the X-ray machine belt and contains no metal snaps, zippers or buckles and no pockets.'" Don't you feel safer? I wish an independent 3rd-party group could get together and see what they could get through security without being arrested for the experiment. So little of what the TSA is doing is any more than illusion.
It's all black leather covered in studs, spikes and chains.
gotta love a Vampire goth laptop bag to get you wierd looks when wearing a 3 piece suit.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes I said worthless.
I have 22 screws, couple of plates, and pins. I should light up a metal detector like a christmas tree. Yet when I fly, I often get waved right through without any apparent reaction. This has happened at multiple busy airports in larger cities. Yet when I go through my local airport (where, oddly enough, they know me) I get the beep and separate pat down.
People meekly accept this BS (along with the liquids ban, et al) as "security" when it's really BS.
Poor, false security is worse than none at all. The only explanation is that when it is busy, they turn down the sensitivity to a ridiculously low level.
People say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Why? Is there any shortage of bad ones?
Next year, TSA plans to allow people wearing clear body bags through security faster. While you do give up some privacy, think of the minutes you'll save.
But anyone who showed that it could be done would be arrested and spend serious jail time.
This is all theatre. It's so the TSA can justify their budget. It's all a joke. If a terrorist wanted to make a point now, he'd drive a car bomb into an airport terminal during a major holiday rush.
We could go back to the "pre-9/11" screenings IF we made sure that every plane had a flight deck door that was secured against anyone in the passenger section getting through it for long enough for the pilot to make an emergency landing.
Instead we live in fear of 4 oz of toothpaste.
Its more than that. Its about making money. For private corporations.
Why else would the TSA allow you to get special ID for a few hundred dollars to bypass security.. designed and maintained by a private company? Specially designed TSA approved bags.. designed by private companies. Not to mention the billions of dollars filtered through to private corporations for those expensive x-ray and other fancy security devices.
And they do shit all. I've flown twice in the last two years with a swiss army knife in my pocket without realizing it.
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yes... and NO.
Once you are trained to buy new 'stuff' to put your other 'stuff' inside for traveling, you will have been trained for the next measures. None of what the TSA does is about real security. It's all about getting citizens to do as they are told and with no more reason than that it is required for security according to some obtuse DHS ruling.
At the rate that this is going, the next plane based terrorism will probably be a bomb planted by TSA in a traveler's luggage while being screened routinely. This will allow for further restrictions and meticulous searches.
Yesterday we hear of a company whose business model is based on TSA bs security and they lost a laptop... then found it again in the same room? I bet the NSA borrowed it but forgot where to put it back? Now this little trick to sell you more American Tourister luggage. You know the model? The one with a DHS approved RFID tag built right into the handle of it. It starts with laptops, but will move on to any carry on luggage only being permitted in the 'new' DHS approved TSA sponsored RFID luggage/bag.
Soon, you won't even have to go to the airport to be blamed for causing bomb scares. Oh, sorry, just an RFID mixup. Still, we need you to come down to the station with us.
Land of the Free.... to be searched.
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It would make a point, but I fear that the reaction would be the opposite of what many of us would like. If we showed holes in the security theater that has been built, stricter measures would be put in place and all travellers would be inconvenienced even more.
I'm actually really surprised that the summary suggests that.
The result would be that most travellers would realize how ineffective and useless the current TSA security is, then things might change for the better.
Right now, you can't test them without commiting a crime, and if you do see that they have a weak spot, and speak about it, you have also probably commited a crime. If you photograph them, you have commited a crime.
Basically, criticizing the TSA - except for in the vauges of terms - or investigating it has become a crime.
Look for the Targus lobbyist that pretty much eliminated every existing laptop bag requiring new bags to be purchased for everyone that wants to take advantage of this rule. Right after Xmas he may be looking for a new revenue stream and TSA approved goth might be hot.
The TSA's mainly bull shit and bluster by little tin-pot tyrants.
If I was so inclined (and not crippled,) I'd high jack a FedEx or a UPS plane.
Why mess with security if you don't have to.
A fully fueled and loaded plane will go into a large federally owned building regardless of whether there are a hundred passengers plotting a coup on your ass, or a crew lying quietly dead in the back of the plane.
Private aviation is a lot more vulnerable than the cash strapped public carriers.
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And so one of the many restrictions of post-9/11 flight security goes the way of the dodo in the name of convenience. I predict that we'll see more and more of this in the coming years. Soon, we'll not be required to X-ray our shoes when people forget why we started in the first place.
This is an illustration of how a knee-jerk reaction to tightening security instead of innovating causes us to be less secure than we were before. If we had rethought airplane security from the ground up as opposed to ramping current practices up, we might have actually learned something from 9/11 in terms of air security. As it stands, I don't think we learned very much at all.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
A fully fueled and loaded plane will go into a large federally owned building regardless of whether there are a hundred passengers plotting a coup on your ass, or a crew lying quietly dead in the back of the plane.
Which could easily be shot down.
When you hijack a plane with enough people on board, shooting the plane down can still give a huge image hit on the ones that did the shooting, even if it was the right thing to do.
On a plane with only terrorists onboard, it would be very easy to give order to have it shot down.
A friend of mine flew a commuter airline out of SeaTac a couple of years ago (after 9/11, well into the TSA era). He started out on a cross-state drive to a family reunion, but blew his transmission a few miles out of Seattle. After a rush to get towed back home, he booked a last minute flight, called a cab and made a dash to the airport. He caught the flight at the last minute and flew to Spokane. Upon arrival (with no other hassles) he discovered that he had overlooked the fact that he was carrying two handguns (one in his jacket and one in what ended p as carry-on luggage) plus ammo. He has a permit to carry concealed weapons and is so used to doing so that he simply didn't notice.
Neither did the TSA. There's one data point for your experiment.
Have gnu, will travel.
I can tell that it's worse to fly when you're obese than sitting next to someone who is obese.
Anybody who (like me) is feeling cynical about the whole idea of buying a new $100 laptop bag with the special TSA-approved laptop zone, the solution is pretty straightforward - just continue to put your laptop in the plastic bin.
The laptop, keys, and pocket change thing take up maybe 10 seconds of my time - 5 seconds to take out and 5 seconds to put back where they belong (but that's because I have my shit together unlike the guy in front of me who inevitably manages to spend the better part of 5 minutes putting his stuff on the conveyor belt). Laptop is no big deal, really ... it's the shoes thing that pisses me off and makes me feel like every last vestige of my dignity has been removed ...
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
IMO, the existence of the TSA is one of those "the terrorists have already won" things. Most of the changes that have taken place in the U.S. are not that bad singularly, but when taken as a whole and the magnitude of the number of people affected, it's had a serious negative impact on our society and I'd argue our productiveness as well.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful, but it's quite obvious to anyone here that none of these measures, the ones that merely inconvenience us at best, are disguised forms of monitoring for things besides potential acts of terrorism. How easy it is to violate the fourth amendment by just indefinitely taking away someone's laptop without cause.
The last time I traveled out of country with my wife and kids, we got the "random star" on our boarding passes... which singled us out for special scrutiny. Right. Because a family of four, including a two year old and a five year old are prime suspects. I don't think they do this anymore, but the absurdity of all the restrictions is just incredible.
And how about the recent "clear pass" article? What kind of extortion is that? We'll make you wait on line for hours unless you pay us $100/year! That's effectively how I see it, since the security measures are a joke.
Ok, rant off.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Why exactly are we not allowed to carry screwdrivers etc on board and then (I did this last week at DTW, Detroit) you receive a sharp metal knife and fork in the restaurant after security?
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If the president hijacks Air Force One and plows it into the White House, then I'm not gonna vote for him in the next election. Just sayin'.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
You haven't flown since 1999? What value could you possibly bring to the discussion then?
I think the whole notion that terrorists will even try to hijack a plane again is absurd. Even if they get on board and were strapped with explosives, I think people on board would still act. They might blow up, or they might get to kick the shit out of a terrorist. Either way, I don't think we will have a repeat of 9/11. No, the next act of terror would be a car bomb or something similar. If the terrorists really want to strike fear into the heart of Americans, they would send a dozen of their people with machine guns into a shopping mall and cut loose. It's low tech and a lot easier to do than hijacking a plane.
If I were president.....
given the choice between saving several thousand people in a skyscraper, ...the airplane would be shot-down. It's one of those situations where people WILL die no matter what happens, and it's better that a hundred die than several thousand. If the american people are too pussy to deal with death, well then, they can fire me as president and elect a different guy who would do nothing & let the skyscraper be destroyed.
and saving a hundred-or-so in an airplane,
I'd save the skyscraper filled with people...
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
I'd high jack a FedEx or a UPS plane.
Only if you wanted to be there overnight.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
I'm not the guy you're responding to, but I have to say that me losing weight would have no effect on my airplane seating problem.
My ass fitting between the armrests is not the problem, and I don't have fat overflowing into the next seat... I am so broad that my arms go straight down to the armrests on both sides. Losing weight isn't going to make my shoulder width any smaller. I know I'm not alone, and I've had the displeasure of sitting three across with people who were just about my size. I had the aisle seat, and was leaning to my right the entire trip - not particularly comfortable.
But the sad fact is people wanted cheap, and they got cheap. In order to meet the financial demands of customers, they had to reduce space to increase seating capacity; I don't blame the airlines, I blame us. Same thing with WalMart... complain all you want, but if people continue to shop there, they will continue to take over and close out smaller businesses. People prefer cheapness over quality.
On my last Air-Tran flight, even though it was a business trip, I paid out of my own pocket to be upgraded. But then Air Tran has reasonable upgrades, whereas most airlines charge a ridiculous amount. Regardless, I actually DID put my money where my mouth was and paid more for a better seat.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Actually the choice is "save several thousand people in a skyscraper" and "save nobody". The people in the airplane can't be saved.
But that's assuming you know what will happen, which you don't. All you know is that radio contact has been lost with a plane and it's veering off course. It could be some failure on board and the crew is trying to do find a suitable spot for an emergency landing.
Are you going to give the order to kill several hundred people? Do you still think it's such an easy decision? You know what they say about hindsight?
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
3) Now you have to shoot it down. You may not realize this, but a passenger jet is FREAKING HUGE. One missile isn't going to take out a jet with 2, 3, or 4 engines. You're going to have to really go to work on that bad boy... and now it's just an out of control ball of metal and fire... braaaavoooo.
Right, and it's a good thing that the engines that get hit by missiles w/ 10 kilograms of HE (sidewinder) or 23 kilos of HE (amraam) aren't anywhere near the giant fuel tanks in the wings. Explosive decompression shouldn't be a big deal - 10 PSI isn't a huge difference.
And "drag" created by gunshot / explosive impacts shouldn't be a worry, as the plane is only traveling at ~900km/h.
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When I take an important political hostage, I don't ship him via FedEx or UPS. I send him USPS book rate to save money.
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