UK Flight Ban On Devices To Be Announced (bbc.com)

The UK is due to announce a cabin baggage ban on laptops, tablets and DVD players on certain passenger flights, after a similar US move. From a report on BBC: It is understood the UK restrictions may differ from the US Department of Homeland Security's ban, although details have not yet been released. Flights from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries are subject to the US announcement. US officials said bombs could be hidden in a series of devices. BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford said the expected move was "obviously part of coordinated action with the US." The attempted downing of an airliner in Somalia last year was linked to a laptop device, and it appears the security precautions are an attempt to stop similar incidents, our correspondent added.

Comments

All these bans are useless security theatre

[Anonymous Coward]

These days terrorists could kill more people detonating their explosive belts while standing in the waiting lines of TSA screening in airports.

Re:All these bans are useless security theatre

[AthanasiusKircher]

If the point is to spread terror, the destroying an aircraft seems to be more effective than blowing up a queue. Not only is the visual of an aircraft crashing to the earth more vivid, but it demonstrates that security itself is ineffective.

Depends on the size of the bomb. Anything that could get through airport security is likely going to be somewhat limited in size. You could have multiple suitcase-size bombs in security at once and effectively blow up an entire airport with several of them. You don't think the "visuals" of that would spread terror?

The empirical evidence is absolutely clear -- if terrorists REALLY wanted to spread terror, they have opportunities EVERYWHERE to do it. And many countries which have actually had a terror problem have seen it: buses blowing up, people blowing up in a major city square, etc. That kind of stuff would be much more effective in spreading terror, because it impacts people's everyday lives... getting on buses or subways or going to work. Most people don't fly on planes everyday, but if they start worrying that going to the mall puts them at risk because people are congregating there, that starts to seriously disrupt everyday lives.

As we saw clearly a few months ago, if you really wanted to spread terror, it's just as effective (if not more so) to do it in an unexpected way -- e.g., rent a big truck and just drive through a crowd on a holiday. The fact that this doesn't happen on a regular basis (despite extremist leaders calling for people to run over people with trucks for nearly a decade -- seriously, look it up) just goes to show how small the number of mentally ill people willing to execute terrorist acts really is.

Re: All these bans are useless security theatre

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not about bombs.
This is about cloning hard drives. The ones that aren't stolen along with the laptops

WTF

[vux984]

Wow... just nuts.

Everyone doing short hops / day trips for business is going to howl... that's basically their entire luggage. One laptop bag. Now they have to all pack them and check them? That's a huge waste of their time.

And everyone doing long hauls and bigger trips - the laptop is the entertainment for the cabin, to get work done in the cabin, and above all nobody wants to put their several thousand dollars relatively fragile laptop in checked baggage where the TSA gorillas and baggage handlers will either play frisbee with it or just steal it.

How is anyone ok with putting up with this nonsense?

Re:WTF

[monkeyxpress]

Jordan isn't on the ban list though? Are you sure it only applies to flights from those countries - the guardian was reporting that 13 are involved.

I doubt boris/may would have asked for anything in return. As you say they are desperate, and the UK has always been a bit of a lapdog for the USA anyway. They will just be hoping that showing obedience to the Don means they are rewarded with his favor when the UK is left floating in the atlantic without easy access to the 500+ million person market of rich westerners that it was previously able to trade freely with.

Re:WTF

[AthanasiusKircher]

Actually, the countries were singled out by the Obama administration.

Why do people keep saying this? Trump issued the ban. Trump has told us almost every day for the past year that he's smarter than everyone else, that he's the one "with the facts," that he's got "tremendous" people working for him who are the smartest and greatest, etc.

So why are you (presumably a Trump supporter) so anxious to "pass the buck" and claim this has anything to do with Obama? Surely the man who's smarter than everyone else and has all these "tremendous" people working for him should be able to make changes to a list of countries if all of his superior access to facts warranted a change, right?

(And regardless of what the Obama administration may have said or done about this list of countries, they obviously didn't think a travel ban was necessary, so claiming this is in anyway related to Obama is completely disingenuous. And I say this as someone who thinks Obama's presidency in general was a horrific disappointment, by the way.)

There are, however, travel restrictions that affect incoming flights from certain countries known to harbor large numbers of people who have threatened to kill large numbers of Americans in as spectacular a fashion as they can muster.

Hmm... and yet we don't get countries that actually are KNOWN to harbor terrorists and which HAVE actually been the origin of terrorist events in the U.S. on this banned list. Biggest example: Saudi Arabia, but there are plenty of others known to have large numbers of people who hate the U.S. too.

Oh wait, restricting travel with a place like Saudi Arabia might interfere with business deals and such.... well, we can't have THAT happening. Who cares if some more pesky terrorists get through from there, as long as our business deals are intact? (The true priorities here are very clear.)

Re:WTF

[AmiMoJo]

And there is no ban on Muslims -- that would be illegal.

If you hadn't noticed both of the executive orders have been found to be illegal by the courts. The second time it was largely because Trump and his staff had repeatedly called it a Muslim ban.

Re:A Bit Of Racism Here, No?

[Anonymous Coward]

No racism. It has to do with the level of screening at those locations and the trust the TSA and UK equivalent have in those screenings.

Will increase risks of theft and cargo hold fire

[wired_parrot]

And as TFA says, the UK tried a similar ban in 2006, and the result was that theft of electronic devices skyrocketed. The risk of in-flight fire also increases, as it is easier to detect a battery fire in the passenger compartment while the fire is restricted to the device and easy to contain , than in the cargo hold. If anything, this ban will make flying less safe.

Re:Muslim laptop ban?

[Motherfucking Shit]

Well its obviously Islamophobic as are so many things like, for example, not wanting to live under Sharia law.

Christian extremist law is a far more realistic threat to the United States than Sharia law.