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

Posted by msmash on from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.

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.

16 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. All these bans are useless security theatre by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:All these bans are useless security theatre by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I'm not sure why they ban in the cabin, but allow it to be packed in checked luggage...?

      Wouldn't a bomb blowing up in the luggage hold do just as much damage?

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    2. Re:All these bans are useless security theatre by TWX · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      It also might be difficult to rack-up the body count in a queue. A 747 carries more than 500 passengers in a two-class layout and an A340 carries 350 in a two-class layout. It may be difficult to kill that many people with a single terrorist in a security line, especially when it seems that airport security staff have made efforts to avoid serpentine lines that switchback upon themselves when possible.

      Lastly, your comment on TSA screening lines is predicated on the terrorist already being in the United States. I expect that the point of arrivals from foreign countries is that security at the airports those flights originate from might not be as good as from a domestic airport or an otherwise Western airport. Blowing up the security line in the originating overseas airport probably won't induce the kind of terror in the West that the terrorist wants to get, so they have to get to the destination country or on a flight bound to that country to drive-home the effect. That plane needs to be on its way for the terror tactic to be attributed as they want, instead of just as local terrorism at the originating airport.

      So terrorist plays on the weakness of the security at the foreign airport where they have a greater chance of sneaking through their bomb, or else they've had a better chance of making inroads with the local security staff to smuggle their bomb through. This means airlines now have to take the step of their own security, prohibiting these kinds of devices and basically having airline staff declare an emergency if prohibited items are seen in the passenger cabln, or even to re-screen passengers at the gate prior to letting them board.

      --
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    3. Re:All these bans are useless security theatre by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's especially weird, as I'm not allowed to put a laptop in checked luggage because they don't allow large lithium-ion batteries in the hold.

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:All these bans are useless security theatre by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re: All these bans are useless security theatre by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  2. In-seat entertainment price rise by Palms1111 · · Score: 5, Informative

    In completely unrelated news, charges for in-flight entertainment units have gone up.

  3. WTF by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:WTF by monkeyxpress · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:WTF by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.)

    3. Re:WTF by brantondaveperson · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'd love to see your cites and stats re "police standoffs gone wrong" in 2016.

      According to the Washington Post, 963 people were killed last year in the U.S by police. I filtered that down to people that had guns, in order to kinda hit your 'standoff' thing, and got 518 people. I assume that if someone has been killed, then it's a standoff 'gone wrong', but I suppose there's no clear definition of what it means for a standoff to 'go wrong'. You might argue that if the bad guy got killed, maybe the standoff went right, so let's instead use the number of police killed in action. That's 46 officers for the year 2016, according to the BBC.

      Now, how many people were killed by islamic terrorists in 2016 that arrived here by plane from one of the 'banned' countries?

      It's none, isn't it? There were terrorist attacks for sure, but Omar Mateen was 'self-radicalised' and was from New York, Dahir Ahmed Adan was from Somali (the country is on the list), but he didn't kill anyone, Ahmad Khan Rahami was from Afganistan (not on the list) and didn't kill anyone, and Abdul Razak Ali Artan (also from Somali) also didn't kill anyone. Names from here.

      So, you are more likely to be a police officer killed in the line of duty, than by a terrorist that's arrived from one of the banned countries.

      Furthermore, as you no doubt very well know, Trump himself has publicly stated on more than one occasion that the ban is about religion. This is why it has been struck down in the courts, because there is no other basis for his choices. There's certainly no public safety basis, that's for sure.

  4. Remember that guy who had a bomb in his underwear? by Zorpheus · · Score: 3, Funny

    And we all know what rules must have followed on this incident.

  5. In a logical follow-up... by Archtech · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... all passengers will have to travel naked. Clothing can conceal bombs.

    --
    I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
  6. Re:A Bit Of Racism Here, No? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Theft is a bigger problem than damage.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    There are people who will be delighted at all the new stuff there is to steal.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  7. Will increase risks of theft and cargo hold fire by wired_parrot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  8. No common countries on the two lists by Comboman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It only applies to countries that are part of Trump's Muslim ban. The US government must have offered the UK something to follow suit and give their scheme legitimacy... We are kind of desperate with Brexit coming up and a desperate need for trade deals.

    Actually, there are NO countries on the new flight restriction list (Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Morocco) that were on the Travel ban (Iran, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and sometimes Iraq). It's possible the new restrictions are based on actual intel this time.

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