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US Might Ban Laptops On All Flights Into And Out of the Country (reuters.com)

The United States might ban laptops from aircraft cabins on all flights into and out of the country as part of a ramped-up effort to protect against potential security threats, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said on Sunday. From a report:In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Kelly said the United States planned to "raise the bar" on airline security, including tightening screening of carry-on items. "That's the thing that they are obsessed with, the terrorists, the idea of knocking down an airplane in flight, particularly if it's a U.S. carrier, particularly if it's full of U.S. people." In March, the government imposed restrictions on large electronic devices in aircraft cabins on flights from 10 airports, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey. Kelly said the move would be part of a broader airline security effort to combat what he called "a real sophisticated threat." He said no decision had been made as to the timing of any ban. "We are still following the intelligence," he said, "and are in the process of defining this, but we're going to raise the bar generally speaking for aviation much higher than it is now."

8 of 498 comments (clear)

  1. Real Test: Other Countries by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 5, Informative

    The real test about whether this is warranted is whether other countries will adopt similar bans. The ban on devices from Middle Eastern countries had a half-hearted and variable adoption in the UK and Canada. I also wonder if this is not a ploy of the terrorists. The IRA (Irish terrorist group not a US retirement account) used to phone up the police with fake bomb warnings for major London train stations to cause widespread disruption without actually having to do anything other than once every few years leaving a real but small explosive device just so the police could never ignore their warnings.

    It seems that the current breed of terrorists might be playing the same game. Talking about a laptop device to bring down a plane when they think it is likely to be picked up simply to cause widespread disruption while sticking to bombing open venues, driving lorries through crowds or whatever similarly evil but security avoiding schemes their warped minds can come up with.

  2. Re:More security theatre by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Taking down an airliner costs about a billion bucks when the final bills are paid. Driving over a few people in the street... doesn't.

  3. Re:More security theatre by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except that you're wrong because the American tourism industry has already taken a divebomb, and is sure to continue even further if you can't take your laptop on a flight.
    https://www.independent.co.uk/...

  4. Re:Ruining it for everyone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    We (United States) should dial back our involvement (interference, imperialism) in the Middle East.

    Subjugated people fight back. Funny how Middle Eastern terrorists aren't attacking China, Africa, and South America, isn't it? They are attacking the countries that subjugated them, and continue to be a lightening rod in that area of the world.

    It's a cycle, and assholes on both sides keep feeding it - the bombings (jihad and airstrikes), fake news, lying politicians, dehumanization, religious extremist, etc.

    Until we recognize our part in this we will continue to suffer

  5. Re:Maybe this opens up a market for modular laptop by houghi · · Score: 5, Informative

    The thing is that it does not solve the real issue. The problem is NOT the PCs. The thing is the security theater and people being ok with it.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  6. Re:Ruining it for everyone... by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 3, Informative

    You claim the Orlando nightclub shooting is an "angry Republican type" and get modded up? That was perpetrated - not surprisingly to anybody paying attention - by a Muslim, like almost all terrorist attacks are. We just had another smaller incident that the looneys are trying to pin on right wingers - turns out it was a Jill Stein supporter.

    Sorry, narrative fail.

  7. How do they justify this? by dweller_below · · Score: 4, Informative
    If the TSA is going to make a change, they must prove that the overall benefits justify the costs. Remember that time they said they needed porno scanners? It turned out that the porno scanners didn't work. And, TSA upper management made money off the sale of the porno scanners. At this point, we should just assume that any proposed TSA change is simply another "make TSA management rich" scheme. While we wait for the TSA's analysis, lets review a few facts:

    Here are some reference pages on various types of death in the US:

    So, your chance of dying of various things in the US is:

    • - Heart disease & cancer in the US: (about 1 in 7 deaths.) For every terrorism death, there are 35,000 deaths by heart disease and cancer.
    • - Dying in a motor vehicle accident: (about 1 in 100.) For every terrorism death, there are about 2,200 deaths by motor vehicle accidents
    • - Drowning in the US: (about 1 in 1200) For every terrorism death, there are about 200 deaths by drowning.
    • - Being killed by police in the US: (about 1 in 2300) For every terrorism death, there are about 105 deaths by police
    • - Dying in a plane crash: (about 1 in 10,000) For every terrorism death, there are about 25 deaths by plane crashes
    • - Killed by lightning in the US: (about 1 in 160K.) For every terrorism death, there are about 1 and 1/2 deaths by lightning.
    • - US Citizen killed by terrorists from 2005 through 2014: (about 1 in 240K deaths.)

    The TSA failure to find weapons and explosives rate is 95%. IE, they only find 1 out of 20: https://www.theguardian.com/co...

    It looks like you could show a decrease in deaths by shutting down the TSA and spending the money on all kinds of other things. For example, you would probably save thousands of people every year, if you took the TSA's budget and used that money to give a daily carrot to everybody in America.

    Of course, the future of the KID (Karrot Issuance Daily) agency is not all shiny orange. The yearly number of carroticides might even exceed the number of US people killed by terrorists. But, even factoring in the increase of death by carrot, there still would be tremendous net positive benefit.

  8. Another odd aspect of these proposed changes by zuki · · Score: 4, Informative

    If they are considering banning laptops on flights out of the US... can someone/anyone please explain how a domestic outbound flight is different from an international one. This argument doesn't even make sense.

    Lest we forget, it bears remembering that the hijacked flights that took down the Twin Towers were domestic ones... why would a terrorist only take his explosives on to an international flight? If they enact this ban, it would have to be on every flight, domestic or international.