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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).
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?
Move the conferences. The US is no longer a viable venue.
Congressmen are basically stupid, scared children. They've got a surprising amount of shit to sift through, no bandwidth, and sheer impulse to run on; and they have to weigh in as experts on every issue, regardless of timeline or personal understanding. When national security, Internet crimes, or child pornography come up, they can't even understand what's possible and what's just nutty; they see the maximum threat, and they respond by screaming and flailing.
One day, I want to get myself voted into the House largely so I can respond to any topic that's not central to my interests with blunt detachment and input that's given on the stated condition that my understanding of the topic is limited and my interest is largely in bothering people with questions nobody's thought to ask. For most of it, I can cite firm attention to economics and risk as a primary reason to not take action for trivial things that might be real and scary, but also unlikely to happen with any frequency or to any great severity.
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The theory is that if you press the laptop up against the fuselage in the passenger cabin, you can bust a big enough hole to bring the airplane down; if it's in the hold, there's no opportunity to do that.
I think you're right about being scared children and seeing the maximum threat.
But, I think you give them too much credit. The only threat they are scared of is being voted out of office. No one ever got voted out of office for protecting someone's safety, but the first time you pass legislation that protects liberty, and some one gets a skinned knee, well the you're outa there buddy.
Even the personal liberty screamers in Congress never get any bills passed to ensure privacy and liberty. To much chagrin, it takes an action by a judge appointed for life (personal survival always trumps the greater good).
The theory is that if you press the laptop up against the fuselage in the passenger cabin, you can bust a big enough hole to bring the airplane down; if it's in the hold, there's no opportunity to do that.
So you're stating that all that scanning, "nude" photographing and feeling up crap that makes you arrive at the airport 2 hours early is completely ineffective?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
It doesn't need to be full, it just needs enough explosives that if pressed against the hull and detonated that it would rip a hole in the fuselage. The information I saw said that they had figured out how to cut a chunk of the battery out and fill it full of some explosive that's been shaped into a shaped charge, set one of the keys or switchs to detonate it.
The laptop would turn on a function like normal and would explode with enough force to breach the fuselage if pressed against the wall before being detonated. This arrangement was viewed to be virtually undetectable without disassembling the laptop. Experts that had reviewed the plans they recovered believed this was not only possible but that the groups in question were actively building these bombs. The crucial weakness is that the bomb wouldn't be strong enough to breach the fuselage if it wasn't pressed against the wall, so all you need to do is ban laptops from the passenger compartment to make the bomb worthless.