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Are the TSA's New Electronic Device Screenings Necessary?
First time accepted submitter Amanda Parker writes In July the US warned of a terrorism risk which led countries, such as France and the UK, to step up their security screening for flights to the US. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson directed the TSA to implement enhanced security measures. In his statement on 6 July, Johnson warned that passengers could also be asked to "power up some devices, including cell phones" and stated that "powerless devices will not be permitted on board the aircraft". In light of the US Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) recent tightening of airport security to include stricter screening of electronic devices, is the TSA right to be cautious or have its actions caused unnecessary hassle for passengers?
... Grabbing at my balls and pushing me into a microwave oven isn't really what I call laying out the welcome mat. But hey, it's your country.
A turkey posting on Slashdot? Maybe you should just visit with vegetarians.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
i have a postage sized mp3 player from china with a tf/sd card slot it boots up shows a menued screen and plays mp3s. a fake phone that has a plastic explosive bomb could easily use a 'fake' power on screen with menu and the menus would be browsable and possibly functional and also be a bomb.
so no this doesn't make airplanes safer.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Riddle me this: Has the TSA ever done anything to actually make anything more secure? I've never seen an example of the TSA catch any attempt. I've heard of passengers catching people who made it through TSA screening. I've seen people carry pocket knives on aircraft after going through that retarded microwave scanner. I've heard of Air Marshals stoping people.
Not once have I heard of the TSA doing anything useful.
On the other hand, the terrorists pretty much did exactly what they said they were going to do, make our lives more difficult and made people feel less secure. Of course they didn't make people feel less secure, the TSA makes us feel less secure.
Israel doesn't do the silly bullshit that the TSA does, yet they catch more people trying to blow them up and actually have a daily threat from their next door neighbors. Of course they also care more about being effective than security theatre to make certain friends of politicians rich or bullshit faux political correctness. They do intelligent profiling, and no that doesn't just mean go after the guys with brown skin, for obvious reasons.
If I can get enough explosive or poison into an iPhone to be effective, making the screen light up isn't going to be that difficult. A laptop? Give me a break, trivial to fake.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
is the TSA right to be cautious or have its actions caused unnecessary hassle for passengers?
The TSA has done about ten billion screenings since its inception. They have caught zero terrorists. They have missed three. All three failed, for reasons completely unrelated to TSA. TSA screenings are ineffective and unnecessary. This has been apparent for years, this story is just one more bit of security theater. TSA panders to the terror that is the terrorists' only weapon when we should be fighting it.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Sealing the cockpit is necessary. Random bomb sniffing dogs is a great idea. Pretty much all of the rest is extraneous.
I remember when Americans thought pre-WWII German security was outrageous. Papieren, bitte (Papers, please)!
Americans were proud that they could go anywhere they wanted without being stopped and harassed or even asked who they were, and made fun of those not so lucky.
These days, if Americans were only asked for papers, they would be confused.
It has become a land of chickenshit cowards who shiver in fear, and behave like cattle being prodded.
No, the terrorists have not won, but we have lost far more than what the terrorists could have hoped for: Our hearts.