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US To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights From Europe (thedailybeast.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: The Department of Homeland Security will ban laptops in the cabins of all flights from Europe to the United States, European security officials told The Daily Beast. An official announcement is expected Thursday. Initially a ban on laptops and tablets was applied only to U.S.-bound flights from 10 airports in North Africa and the Middle East. The ban was based on U.S. fears that terrorists have found a way to convert laptops into bombs capable of bringing down an airplane. It is unclear if the European ban will also apply to tablets. DHS said in a statement to The Daily Beast: "No final decisions have been made on expanding the restriction on large electronic devices in aircraft cabins; however, it is under consideration. DHS continues to evaluate the threat environment and will make changes when necessary to keep air travelers safe."
There are plenty of reasons not to fly, this is the second best one yet (being beaten by the airline for a ticket you paid good money for is #1, not sure how that will be topped).
We're all made to board nude and chained to our seats and made to row across the ocean? As it is, I'm just waiting for them to announce "credible" evidence that ISIS has converted baby formula into a bomb capable of bringing down an airliner...
"Have you not considered how much easier it is to control a walking population?"
Is there actionable intelligence to back up this ban or is this an attempt to whitewash the racist origins of the original anti-Muslim ban by including Europe?
Is DHS really this easy to manipulate? And are they really this stupid? If a laptop shell packed with explosives is enough to "bring down an airplane" (and with the right explosive, it certainly is)(but it would have to be packed with explosive, in which case what's all that swabbing and x-raying of passengers for if it couldn't detect that modification?), how does having it in the cargo hold help? It still makes a giant hole in the fuselage and down goes the plane.
I guess my real question is, are people stupid enough to be convinced by this security theater? And then I realize P.T. Barnum was right: you can't go broke overestimating people's stupidity.
They could never ever figure out a way to bring down a plane with a laptop bag, if you check the bag in, instead of carrying it into the cabin. Man! Our security agencies are truly ingenious to find a chink in their armor and to exploit it fully! We need to thank our lucky stars we are under the vigilant and effective aegis of our alphabet soup agencies!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Why do I put my whole carry-on baggage including a laptop through x-ray anyway?
As a US academic who is deeply concerned about people not willing or wanting to go to US conferences, this is going to make everything much worse. We've had enough trouble as is trying to get people to keep going to conferences here given the current climate. This is going to make it much harder.
It is not uncommon for TSA agents to help themselves to valuables from checked luggage.
Yeah, this is actually kinda funny. I suppose it's too late to short your airline stocks though. I guess there's enough domestic business to keep them afloat.
I hope there would be significant economic fallout from this, but given the history of such things, I don't really expect much reaction at all.
Maybe the airlines can build tablets into the seat backs.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If this is true, I'm horrified that the airlines would put up with having all those lithium batteries in uncontrolled luggage in the cargo hold. If it were my airline I'd refuse the fly the routes. I certainly won't get on a plane full of cargo hold batteries. I'm equally horrified that any business would put up with the loss of time and potential loss of assets due to theft, never mind the potential loss of employees if a cargo fire brings down a plane.
This will be a huge boon to Canadian air travel. If this astounding idiocy is enacted, my Europe travel will all be going through Toronto, assuming that it occurs at all.
seat back scenes to come back?
maybe even have sky Vegas with slots / blackjack and more at your seat with comps like free flights / free beer / free food and more just swipe your card and play!. must be 18 to play the tables or slots. For the kids we have the fun games zones for only $2.99-$10.99 a flight.
movies from $2.99 to $19.99 for stuff still in the theaters.
The big catch here is that you aren't allowed to check li-ion batteries. So you can't bring a laptop from Europe to the USA at all.
Extra ketamine for the crew!
love is just extroverted narcissism
Back in the day, flying was one of the few times the traveling businessman got to him(her)self. No computer to work on, no phone calls to make or receive. Then came laptops making it possible to do work on the plane, then in-flight phone calls, and now wireless Internet on flights.
Banning laptops would mean that the business traveler once again legitimately can't get any work done while flying, and has a good reason not to be reachable for the 8-10 hours of the flight (no computer = no real reason to pay for in-flight wifi). Nothing to do but take some time off work, kick back, relax, and catch a movie or two.
But you feel safe, right? Right?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Looks like he's on the right track if you ask me.
You have not seen the new economy seating then. The seat in front is right in your face, and your elbows are entangled with the neighbor. How would you fit a laptop in there? I never managed to use more than a tablet, and even that is going to be banned now.
Except it isn't, because the headline is pure click bait. Seriously, can slashdot get any worse?
They do. I believe that they run at 0.7 atmospheres. It makes people sleepy and docile.
I'm a ski instructor, you insensitive clod!*
3'800m is a pretty normal altitude for me.
I'm not abnormally sleepy at 4000m.
---
Well at least that's my week-end hobby.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'm not an expert. Nor do I care about the government out to get me. If they want me, it's quite easy to get me.
However... this would greatly affect my ability to travel. My laptop is my only saviour from the noisy, rude idiots around me, the cabin crew that want to CONSTANTLY interrupt me and make me do things, and the sheer boredom of many hours of sitting in a too-small seat that I have to disturb a stranger to move from.
Literally, you just removed my state-of-the-art entertainment system with movies, TV, radio, games, working environment, and replaced it with...? A pack of fucking cards, basically.
Already I would have to ensure my laptop had NO WORK MATERIAL WHATSOEVER to travel to the US. Literally, I would have to break EU law to comply with US law in that case. I would possibly be asked to give up details that literally no-one else on Earth has any need or just cause to know without requiring a warrant issued by a court.
And now you want to take the only vestige of being able to entertain myself away. This adds massive amount of stress to an incredibly boring journey, which can only be escaped by using functions which may well start to become pay-for (e.g. in-flight movies, loan of tablets and the like).
Literally, this kind of crap would eliminate air travel for me just from the UK to, say, France. I just wouldn't bother. I'd rather get in my car, take five times as long and drive it myself. I already hate the 2 hour flight to Italy because of all the crap associated with wanting to sit in a metal box and be in Italy in 2 hours time (which often requires 4 additional hours of travel, parking, bus from the parking to the terminal, getting in plenty of time before arrival, sitting around doing fuck all, collecting luggage, etc. etc. etc.).
I am buy no means a stressed-out loon, but that kind of unnecessary crap drives me mad. If I had malicious intent, I could get on a train with the SAME NUMBER OF PEOPLE, with ALMOST ANY LUGGAGE THEY WANT (in any amount their car can carry, including the fuel tank), get enclosed in a similar metal box and still blow it to smithereens and kill the same amount of people and get the same amount of press... and not one bit of the same security theatre applies. The only thing I don't think you can carry in the Channel Tunnel (that's legal to have in the UK, at least) is an LPG car (LPG bottles are fine so long as they are stowed properly in the vehicle - another bit of bollocks that I do not understand).
I honestly don't give a shit that the terrorists built a bomb. That's what terrorists do. They put them in waste bins in London throughout the 80's. We removed waste bins. Now we have nowhere to throw fucking rubbish away. But people could still commit acts of terrorism.
The terrorists already won. We're like the kid in the playground who's worked out that if he doesn't bring in his ball, the bullies won't take it from him at break time. Well-fucking-done. How about we reclaim a bit of our dignity?
Every single "this could be made into a bomb" piece of crap from carrying little silly bottles in little silly plastic bags, to having my shoes scanned, to having to drink baby milk in front of a security officer to "prove" it's milk just makes me fucking hate people that think up the rules, tolerate them, and think we're somehow "winning" against the terrorists by "thwarting" their attacks.
Guess why there are so many different plots? Because every time you do something, we guard against that. And then people just go "Right, what next? Oh, look, laptops!". Now you have a new threat, massive expense on stupid rules and countermeasures, new crap to make people stand in queues for longer, new bollocks to make me hate my own government and country more for capitulating to it. And then all they do is say "Right... next up... let's put a bomb in a set of headphones."
This sort of crap puts me off domestic flights in my own country. I'd rather drive for 10 times as long than deal with this kind of shi
Is there actionable intelligence to back up this ban...
Even if there is actionable intelligence for the plan to work the terrorists have to be able to get the explosive filled laptop past security. If they can do get explosives past inside a laptop case why can't they do the same using clothes, books, shoes etc.? ...and if they can do that unless you ban all electronics you still have a major security problem for which the only solution is background checks for all passengers.
Requiring laptops to be put in the hold also increases the danger of an unnoticed lithium battery fire which is why we are currently required to have laptops in carry-on baggage and not in checked luggage. So this new security measure is one which carries a increased safety risk so it's something they should only do if there really is a significant terrorist threat.
True, but what about the all the travelers who have no checked luggage because they don't want to wait for an hour to get it back at the destination (if at all) ?
I often visit the US for 2-3 days to attend conferences with no other luggage than a small carry-on backpack. Depending on the location, the flight takes between 8 and 12 hours - I am definitely not interested in watching 5 movies back-to-back.
The only people that were not responsible for the outcome are the non-voters
They are also responsible for the result, because they were capable of acting, but chose not to act. The people who voted for the loser are not responsible for the outcome, because they acted, and their action did not result in their choice. How can you be responsible for the actions of the winner, when you acted to not put him/her in power?
if the voter turnout is south of 1% then that monster will have very little power.
We live in a Constitutional Republic, not a Direct Democracy. If only 1% of the population votes in the US, and results in a PotUS, that PotUS has all the power that the CotUS bequeaths to him. It would be a significant amount of power, whether there was 99% participation, 75% participation, 55% participation, 25% participation, or 1% participation.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
A bomb that was apparently in a laptop casing blew a hole in the fuselage and injured two people aside from the suicide bomber. The plane returned safely to the airport. The CNN article says there was a danger to the entire plane, bu the Wikipedia article doesn't. The apparent laptop did not board the plane by normal means, but was given to the bomber by airport workers.
In this case, the "laptop" needed to pass as one only to a cursory inspection. It didn't have to function, or even open up. The bombers apparently didn't trust it to get on board normally.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes