TSA May Recommend Stowing Laptops In Cargo For US Domestic Flights (cbslocal.com)

Matt.Battey writes: According to WJZ in Baltimore, the TSA may force passengers to check laptops on domestic U.S. flights. Based on the common fear, uncertainty and doubt that supports the TSA's security theater, the terror attacks in Great Britain could result in laptop bans in the U.S. TSA officer Camille Morris is quoted as saying, "A AA battery is fine. A AAA. A 9-volt battery is a huge power charge. The size of the battery that can take down a plane when attached to an explosive." Backed up by comments from Ben Yelin of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, his statement confirms the problem: "Airplanes have been the common threat that we've seen over the past several years." Personally, I'm just glad we have the TSA to recommend we "arrive two hours before a domestic flight, and three hours before an international trip."

Comments

Insurance

[neilo_1701D]

I assume the TSA will now be assuming liability for every laptop now put into checked luggage.

I wonder how my employment contract will now stand up, where it reads that laptops must not be checked but carried into the cabin.

Re:Insurance

[Calydor]

You should probably ask HR directly about that last part, linking to this article. Cover it as wanting to give them a heads up. It would be very interesting to hear what they say.

Re:Insurance

[bobbied]

I assume the TSA will now be assuming liability for every laptop now put into checked luggage.

No, but the airline will, up to the limits specified in the contract.. Which amounts to barely enough to pay for the luggage required to pack the laptop in.

Re:Insurance

[imidan]

They absolutely can't impose this rule and maintain the current rate of pilfering valuables from checked luggage by TSA and baggage handlers. I learned long ago not to pack anything worth stealing in a suitcase that I'm going to check. In fact, last time I flew with my girlfriend, she didn't know about the level of theft and packed some jewelry in her checked bag. This was a totally domestic itinerary. The bag that contained all of her jewelry disappeared from her luggage. Happily, it was all relatively cheap stuff, so it wasn't a huge loss, but it's sad to me that I thought not packing valuables in checked bags was just common knowledge and didn't think to mention it to her.

I absolutely would not check my own laptop. Or, for that matter, anything else that I value that some TSA loser might want to pawn.

Re:Insurance

[AvitarX]

I'm just excited that lithium ion batteries in the cargo hold are safe now. Otherwise I'd be worried.

Re: Insurance

[saloomy]

That's the point. With GoGoInFlight, everyone is taking their valuable iPads and laptops into the cabin, reducing the poor baggage handlers and TSA agents opportunity to help themselves to it.

It's pretty sad, kind of like watching polar bears struggle to catch seals on shrinking ice platforms. Think of this law as the Paris Accord for TSA agents... poor little guys.

Re:Insurance

[BlueStrat]

I'm just excited that lithium ion batteries in the cargo hold are safe now. Otherwise I'd be worried.

The lithium-ion batteries will even have each other for company so they don't get lonely, likely as it is they'll all be placed in one container, so they can...share their feelings...feelings...of impending doom...doom...at 37,000 feet...[cough]...umm, yeah.

Don't worry! Be happy! [whistles]

Strat

Re: Insurance

[Hachima]

Most airlines specify electronics are not covered for damage. This may have to change but for now don't expect electronics to be covered. If it's like the current international ban items lime DSLR cameras and even lenses (they contain electronics) are also banned.

Re:Insurance

[dgatwood]

For domestic flights within the US, airlines are liable for up to $3000 for lost or damaged property. That's plenty enough to replace a laptop.

No, it isn't. It isn't even in the right order of magnitude. The maximum configuration of MacBook Pro is $4,000 before you factor in the value of the data on the computer, which offers the potential for nearly unbounded loss under the right circumstances.

For example, if that laptop contains an unreleased feature film, and if that laptop gets stolen and the contents get leaked while in the airline's care, we could be talking about tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, and I would not expect their damage waiver to hold up in court under those circumstances.

I don't think the TSA has really thought this through, and if the airlines agree to it, we need to subject them all to mandatory drug tests; there's not enough crack in the world for this to make sense, and we all want to know what they're smoking.

Re:Insurance

[dgatwood]

No, they aren't. In fact, it is illegal to transport even Lithium ion batteries in the cargo hold of an aircraft under current FAA regulations, precisely because the halon fire suppression system inside the cargo hold is not particularly effective at putting out lithium fires, whereas there are means of suppressing a lithium fire in the cabin of an aircraft as long as a human being can get to the fire in time. Thus, the general consensus among experts is that a Lithium fire is considerably safer in the cabin than in the cargo hold.

Why is the TSA deliberately trying to make air travel less safe?

Re:Insurance

[Cmdln Daco]

Random lithium ion batteries, all in varying condition and all packed randomly with other materials.

Re: Insurance

[ShanghaiBill]

the MPAA and such claiming they loose millions of dollars because someone pirated one movie.

If your drive is encrypted, that is not an issue.

Re:Insurance

[MangoCats]

In cases where company policy contradicts local laws, local laws prevail.

Re:Insurance

[AvitarX]

Because the DHS wants to snoop data.

I hate to be conspiracy about it, but it seems to me the most logical explanation.

Re: Insurance

[KGIII]

Did you just cite a TSA rule to argue that the containers in the cargo hold aren't explosion resistant?

They are correct, by the way. With the exception of some pretty old planes that haven't been had the containers replaced, they are explosion resistant. The TSA rules aren't usually indicative of reality. That's why they call it security theater.

If curious, there have been a whole bunch of recent articles that mention that they are now explosion and fre resistant and have been for quite a while now. I have no idea why you'd think TSA regulations have any bearing on this, actually.

Re: Insurance

[WarJolt]

Alarmist bullshit from the TSA and the University of Maryland prevails. How many airliners have blown up this year? Your chance of dying on an airplane from a bomb can go up several orders of magnitude and air travel still wouldn't hit the list of shit you should worry about.

Re: Insurance

[Voogru]

But if you encrypt your hard drive, you're probably a terrorist or child molester.

Re: Insurance

[thsths]

Which is true. You are much more likely to be killed on the way to or from the airport than in the air. But those are individual cases, and nobody cares about those.

Re: Insurance

[currently_awake]

So you can't take a laptop into the passenger cabin because of "bomb risk", but it's ok to put that same laptop in the cargo hold where an explosion could still take down the aircraft? Or is there some other risk here, like the NSA/CIA needs time alone with your laptop unobserved?

Re: Insurance

[Jason Levine]

I saw this image online recently: https://i.redd.it/pcolaqktpx1z.jpg

It shows in a nice, graphical format, just how many people die from various causes. Heart disease and cancer are huge circles. Terrorism is a tiny dot. Yet, politicians (and security theater agencies like the TSA) act like we should be living each moment of our lives in fear that a terrorist will kill us. If we did, then we should be paralyzed with terror over heart disease and cancer so much that we give ourselves a heart attack.

Re: Insurance

[almitydave]

My understanding from minimally following this, is that they're concerned about the explosive being held up against the wall of the plane, where an explosion could damage the structure. In the center of the cabin, the amount of explosive you could fit in a laptop wouldn't be so dangerous. So if your bombtop is checked, you don't know if setting it off would damage the plane, and odds are low of anything catastrophic happening.

That's the thinking, anyway. Although setting off any kind of explosive in a crowded plane cabin, or in multiple plane cabins, would still have some kind of effect, one would think. Certainly psychological.

But this just further goes to show that the combination of the wide availability of soft targets (including infrastructure and crowded public places), the woeful ineffectiveness of the TSA, and the complete lack of any realistic terrorist attack since 9/11 only highlights how miniscule the threat of terrorism really is. More people die in the US from car accidents per day (on average) than did on 9/11.

Re: Insurance

[david_thornley]

And it doesn't cause buildings to fall down.

Neither do bombs on airliners. What does cause buildings to fall down are terrorists piloting airliners into them, which requires access to the cockpit and acquiescent passengers. We've changed those things, so what's at risk is the airliner and passengers. That's a much smaller risk, but the security theater gets worse and worse.

They have seen the enemy

[Patent Lover]

They have seen the enemy, and it is us.

Re:They have seen the enemy

[msauve]

...and "we're" idiots:

A AA battery is fine. A AAA. A 9-volt battery is a huge power charge. The size of the battery that can take down a plane when attached to an explosive.

Uh, no. The energy storage for an alkaline AA cell is about 4.2 watt-hours. For a 9V battery, it's about 5.49. That is not a "huge" difference, and definitely not enough that one could rely on the difference constituting a go/no-go for a detonator. A D cell - that would make a difference. And, most devices which use AAs use multiples, 2 or 4 is common. It's pretty uncommon to find a device which takes more than a single 9V battery. Beyond which, the whole comment seems a non-sequitur. How many laptops/pads use AA or 9V batteries?

And that's the caliber of people who claim to be protecting us, and that's giving a benefit-of-doubt that they were somewhat misquoted and can actually construct complete sentences.

Re:They have seen the enemy

[msauve]

ITYM "Mouser", it's pretty hard to find a RadioShack these days. And it will be delivered to your doorstep.

They'll also sell you a lithium AA for <$10, with over 8 watt-hours of energy, and which can also provide much more power than an alkaline.

Sidenote: Mouser and Digikey are the modern versions of Lafayette and Allied Radio. Tandy/Allied/RadioShack was a downhill move, Mouser and Digikey have brought it back up.

What's a Laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

- classic 'Laptop' only?
- Tablet ?
- 14" Tablet with Keyboard?
- Surface tablet without Keyboard?
- Bluetooth Keyboard with Smartphone?
- Desktop Mini-Tower with Smartwatch as Display ;-) ?

Re:What's a Laptop?

[0111 1110]

Presumably it will start with the classic laptop and then they will gradually close the edge case loopholes you mention so that everyone will be bored on flights just like before we had portable computing devices. The goal of the TSA is not only security theatrics but to increase human misery and suffering and discomfort in any and every way they can.

Vague threats

[kqs]

When the going gets tough, the tough create vague terrorist threats. Does locking up our laptops make us great again?

Re:Vague threats

[Anonymous Coward]

No, and not one single thing the TSA does is making us great or safe either. The TSA has caught a sum total of ZERO people intending to do harm to anyone and they will never catch someone either.

The TSA servers no other purpose than to employee otherwise unemployable people. Meaning they have created jobs for those who couldn't get a job in most other places and have inconvenienced 100s of millions of people and have done nothing else.

Re:Vague threats

[kqs]

Not so vague:

The security source said both bans were not the result of a single specific incident but a combination of factors.

"Combination of factors"... that's kinda the definition of vague.

But you seem to think that I said there was no risk. Please don't build strawmen. Of course you can put a bomb in a laptop. So we'll take away laptops, and someone will put a bomb in a camera. So we'll take those away, and so on, and eventually we'll all be flying naked and the terrorists will surgically implant bombs inside their bodies.

WE ARE NOT SAFE. WE CANNOT BE SAFE. EVER. A terrorist could blow me up on a plane, or (more likely) a car could splatter me against a building, or I could have a massive stroke tomorrow. A terrorist could be driving that car, but probably not; I'm betting that far more people were killed by non-terrorists in cars this year in the UK than by terrorists. Life is unsafe, and you have a 100% chance of dying.

BUT THAT IS NOT WORTH GIVING UP OUR FREEDOMS.

I'm willing to trade a little bit of freedom for effective security; that's the definition of civilization, after all. But the TSA is not effective, and a laptop ban is not effective. So, no.

Re:Vague threats

[drinkypoo]

While no fan, I at least recognize the deterrent they serve.

You are a supporter, because you imagine that they serve as a deterrent. They do not. The armed air marshals do that. The TSA exists to terrorize the populace and sexually molest them, nothing more.

Re:Vague threats

[drinkypoo]

Granted, re-inforced cockpit doors were something that should have been there for ages... but other than that... to what to you ascribe the lack of attempts?

Look, I have a rock that keeps away tigers!

Le sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

AA battery - fine
AAA battery - ok
9V battery - Danger Will Robinson!

Please tell me that SOMEONE in that department is aware that a 9V battery is simply 6 AAAA batteries in a fancy wrapper...

Re:Le sigh

[adolf]

Sorry, but "AA battery" is how we commonly write it.

If you want to be pedantic and avoid ambiguation with war machines, then the correct nomenclature would be "AA cell", as a single cell cannot form a battery.

If you really, really want to be an ass, then call it an IEC LR6 or an ANSI 15A.

But spelling out like double-A? So the series goes:

A
Double-A
AAA
AAAA

?

No. Get out. And then get the fuck off of my lawn.

Re: Le sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

A disposable camera flash uses a single AA battery to generate a 300V charge.

I don't know about this...

[Frosty Piss]

So... The bomb goes off in the hold and starts a fire? Jets don't usually recover from that... At least up top, you might confine the damage to a hole next to whoever has the laptop bomb (Egypt Air...)

Re:I don't know about this...

[toonces33]

Not only that - they just got through telling people that they didn't want people checking lithium batteries, because of the risk of a garden variety battery fire. Now they are thinking of *requiring* these things to be checked because of some unspecified threat.

Re:I don't know about this...

[ColaMan]

Jets can't recover from sudden depressurization via gaping hole in the cabin

Jets certainly can, because it's happened a few times in the past - most notably that Hawaii Airlines one where a stewardess got sucked out. Flight crew have "proper" emergency oxygen masks and are trained in their use. Passengers, if they're strapped in, well they tend to black out in about 30 seconds at 30,000+ feet, and you won't be at that altitude for long, because the pilot be descending at 10,000+ feet per minute, pronto.

Down there in the cargo bay however you have a lot of vital aircraft components going past - power and hydraulics, the avionics bay, centrally mounted fuel tanks, etc. If I had a choice between blowing out a door in flight (for example) or blowing a door-sized hole down below, I'd pick the hole in the passenger cabin every time.

Gate check the laptop?

[toonces33]

If you could gate check the laptop bag, you would minimize the potential for mischief, and also make it possible to do something useful while waiting for the flight to take off.

Re: Waiting for someone to make explosive clothes

[Matt.Battey]

Exploding Trousers is a real thing, apparently.

Budget cuts

[mishehu]

As soon as somebody tries to cut off the blood money that TSA gets, the TSA starts shrieking about every shadow out there. Seriously, wtf is the connection between what happened in London and what you're allowed to bring into the cabin of an airplane? And what the f'ing f, a 9V battery is somehow worse than 6 AA batteries???? If they try to enact this, I hope they get run out of the airports and told to stick it where the sun don't shine.

Explosion on cargo compartment vs cabin

[Guillermito]

What's the idea here? If terrorists can disguise a bomb as a laptop, is it any safer if the explosion occurs in the plane cargo compartment? Would a timer trigger be easier to spot using x-rays, as opposed to a manual trigger? They plan to fly the luggage in a separate plane without passengers?

Re:Explosion on cargo compartment vs cabin

[Anonymous Coward]

The threat considered is shaped charges that a terrorist could hold against the inside cabin surface to create a hole in the fuselage. If the terrorist cannot predict where and how the explosive will be positioned, the amount of explosive (given those they can acquire/make) would have to be increased to achieve the same damage, probably beyond the available space in the laptop.

seriously? ugg

[rogoshen1]

and everyone with a brain who read this says to themselves "I'm now officially more concerned about the TSA than any terrorist organization on earth".

Re:seriously? ugg

[mrchaotica]

"I'm now officially more concerned about the TSA than any terrorist organization on earth"

You write that as if it wasn't equally true on the day the TSA was invented...

Re:Waiting for someone to make explosive clothes

[TWX]

At least it will be easier for them to search it for contraband that way.

Re:Papers please !

[interkin3tic]

"In order to fight terrorism we will commence terrified running around and tossing away our freedom..."

“With today’s terrorism, you can’t trust anybody,” one passenger said.

I'll show that fucking unamerican asshole some terrorism. IF YOU CAN'T TRUST ANYONE WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING OUT OF A FUCKING STEEL BUNKER SHOWING YOUR WORTHLESS ASSHOLE TO A REPORTER WHO MIGHT BE WITH ISIS YOU SPINELESS IGNORANT COWARDLY FUCK!?!

Coming soon

[Dunbal]

It's only a matter of time before the TSA realizes that the common denominator threatening aircraft security is the passenger and they start banning all passengers from flying. Out of an abundance of caution, of course.

Most airlines...

[DewDude]

have policies against having electronics in checked baggage. If the TSA says you have to check them...and the airlines say you can't; now what?

That battery-comment is complete BS

[gweihir]

A 9V battery does not deliver more power than an AA cell. It delivers less. (AA alkaline cell: 1.5V@0.38A = .57W, AAA alkaline cell: 1.5V @0.3A = 0.5W, 9V alkaline cell: 9V@0.05A = 0.45W, all taken from Varta datasheets for fast discharge currents.) A 9V battery delivers more voltage, which in times of cheap, low-input voltage capable and super efficient (90% efficienty) step-up converters means exactly nothing. Also, depending on detonator-type, you can detonate with 1.5V directly.

The TSA has stepped from merely ridiculously incompetent to fully incompetent.

How absolutely stupid.

[thesandtiger]

If people wanted to take down aircraft, they would be able to take down aircraft. They don't want to take down aircraft - they want to terrify the easily frightened so that the easily frightened will overreact and do insane stupid shit like we have in the US.

If the shoe bomber or the underpants bomber or any other kind of person they sent had been ACTUALLY tasked with taking down a plane rather than sowing fear and absurd responses, guess what? They would have set the fucking things off in the bathroom, not tried to do so while sitting in their fucking seat where people could see them. They sent morons to do something moronical, and the morons in charge ate that shit up.

If they actually wanted to kill people, they would have suicide bombers go and wait for security screening lines to inevitably get backed up. They'd kill way more people that way and they wouldn't have to go through the security theater at the airports that weeds out the dimmest bulbs in the bunch.

What they're doing now - attacking soft targets by ramming into crowds with trucks and shit - can only be meant to do one thing: terrify morons and get them to overreact, just like the morons are doing.

Fucking cowards. By that I mean the "terrorists" and the pants-pissing weaklings who vote the "leaders" into office who try this shit. Literally anyone who is legitimately afraid of being killed by a terrorist and doesn't live in a literal war zone is a fucking moron.

Know what killed and injured more people than the attack on London Bridge last week? FUCKING EVERYTHING. More people - by a fucking MILE - get killed every day from drunk driving in the US. More people get killed - by 10 fucking miles - by tobacco use in the US, every day. Domestic violence kills more people than terrorists do. Fuck, having to DRIVE instead of FLY because the airports are so fucking toxic kills more people, I'm sure.

Re:How absolutely stupid.

[mrchaotica]

What they're doing now - attacking soft targets by ramming into crowds with trucks and shit - can only be meant to do one thing: terrify morons and get them to overreact, just like the morons are doing.

TL;DR: the terrorists won the day the USAPATRIOT Act was signed into law.

On the plus side...

[Theaetetus]

I won't have to fly anymore for business, since who's going to send employees anywhere without their laptops? Thanks, TSA, for making teleconferencing even more appealing!

Re:Two to three hours ahead of time

[AvitarX]

To airport 45 mins
Wait for flight 2 hours
Get luggage half hour
Get rental car half hour
Get to destination 45 mins
The car has a 4.5 hour headstart.

I generally put the cut off at 8 hour drive, but that's more six hours door to door with the flight, driving just being more pleasant.

I generally am closer to 1-1.5 hours before my flight too.

Re:But will you protest?

[bill_mcgonigle]

How many people will protest this by cutting out trips by plane?

I haven't flown out of the US since they put in body scanners. Yeah, it's cost me opportunities, but just because the country is full of unprincipled cowards doesn't mean we all have to be.

If people stop flying because of laptops, it's not going to be from courage, it's going to be out of inconvenience.

Anyway, wasn't TSA supposedly justified because "airplanes aren't blown up anymore, they're used as missiles?" Are we back to airplanes not being taken for missiles? Because TSA can fold up and go home then, returning airplane security to airlines.

You are missing the point

[Roger W Moore]

I think you are missing the point here. Taking the statement completely at face value the argument seems to be that they want to ban batteries which have enough charge to detonate an explosive. If a terrorist has a battery and some explosives on a plane the problem is NOT that they have a bloody battery!

Re:Two to three hours ahead of time

[dgatwood]

Think again, genius. Two hours in the air comes to around 750 miles (assuming that the two hours includes time to reach altitude and descend again). At highway speed that's 10+ hours of driving at highway speeds - likely more than that if you hit traffic at either end of that driving trip.

The problem is, two hours in the air comes to 750 miles, but unless there's a direct flight, half of your travel is probably in the wrong direction, and you have layovers during which you're just sitting there.

For example, suppose you want to travel from Nashville to Daytona Beach. By car, the trip is about 10 hours. By plane, you get to the airport and wait at least an hour. Southwest has the only direct flight, so if you don't want to be packed into a cattle car, you'll have a stopover in Atlanta. So you spend an hour and 10 minutes for that flight, followed by a 1.5 hour layover, then another 1.5-hour flight to Orlando.

After five hours and ten minutes, you get to the airport in Orlando and spend about an hour waiting for luggage, getting a car from the car rental place, and getting out of the parking garage. Then you drive backwards towards your destination for another hour. So it took you 7 hours and 10 minutes instead of a 10-hour drive, but for that ~28% reduction in time, you've spent a couple hundred bucks per person plus over a hundred bucks per day for a car rental, and you're still stuck driving an unknown vehicle instead of your own.

Re:Papers please !

[apoc.famine]

I'll show that fucking unamerican asshole some terrorism.

And that's where I am right now, and where I have been for some time now. I'm left on the European scale, to give an idea of my political leanings. But fuck all these unamerican pussies. This pants-wetting, hand-wringing, gun-clutching, freedom-surrendering bullshit needs to die, and everyone who espouses it needs to die as well.
 
We didn't skip trying to go to the moon because a rocket blew up in another country. We didn't skip rebelling against England because they were mean to us. We didn't let the South succeed or not try to succeed as the South because we were afraid that someone might get hurt.
 
My fucking ancestors and relatives fought, bled, and died for this country to be free. I'm liberal to the point of making US liberals uncomfortable, and I haven't owned a gun in years. Why? Because I'm a gun hating liberal? Sure, a bit of that. But a bigger reason is that I'm not afraid of shit. Because I know that I live in a very safe country, and that if I die, it's likely because shit happens sometimes.
 
I'm not going to run around trying to hide my shriveled balls behind as many guns as I can carry. I'm not going to give up my goddamn freedom because a bunch of unamerican pussies are afraid.
 
So fuck everyone who has made it so that I need my balls fondled to get on a plane. Fuck everyone who made it so I can't bring a coffee into the airport with me. And fuck everyone who is not rebelling at this newest load of bullshit. Maybe people will die if we remove these restrictions. So. Fucking. What. People die every day from the cold, flu, car crashes, and falling in the tub. If you're that afraid of the safest way to travel, then I concur:

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING OUT OF A FUCKING STEEL BUNKER

Re:I recommend disbanding tsa.

[Imrik]

The majority of normal weapons would have little use on a plane now that passengers believe a hijacking will end in a plane crash. Unfortunately, the TSA's effectiveness on explosives or chemical weapons is likely on par with or worse than their effectiveness against guns and knives.

It's not safer

[RubberDogBone]

How is carrying a laptop in luggage any "safer" than carrying it in the passenger cabin?

The same laptop is still on the plane, either way. It has the same potential to explode thanks to shady battery manufacturing or because of malicious intent. Putting it in the cargo hold doesn't change any of that.

What it DOES do is prevent anyone from attempting to fight a fire if the laptop battery ignited. At least in the passenger cabin, there is a chance someone will notice the thing burning and take action to put it out or smother it as best they can. Meanwhile the same thing locked in cargo below will just burn until it sets off the fire detector, at which point nothing else happens because nobody can get to it. We know from history fires like that tend to take out the controls or emit enough toxic fumes to kill all on board. In flight fire is BAD.

Re: I recommend disbanding tsa.

[KGIII]

It amuses me that there is no TSA screening for chartered flights. You can charter a flight and drive right up to the hanger, skipping TSA entirely. I'm pretty sure that a jet, freshly filled with fuel, will cause all sorts of consternation if you crash it into something like an occupied sports arena. It doesn't even need to be a big jet, either. Burning fuel would fly all over the place, as would bits of wreckage, causing a rather spectacular scene. No air marshals, no cockpit doors, and not a lick of official security required before boarding...

TSA suggest people stow...

[Marful]

TSA suggests travelers stow their cash, jewely, and other valuable in a container they're not legally allowed to lock so that other TSA agents can steal them...

If it's ok to store in the cargo of an aircraft it's ok to take in carry on.

Re:Papers please !

[Jason Levine]

What gets me is that the chances of dying from terrorism are tiny. I saw this graphic showing leading causes of death in perspective. Heart disease and cancer are the two big ones. Terrorism is a tiny dot. I decided to look up the hard numbers too, figuring that the graphic could be exaggerating things.

There were about 28,000 deaths from terrorism world-wide in 2015 (Source). (If we limit it to US only, the number is much smaller.) Meanwhile, 610,000 people in the US die of heart disease every year. 17.7 million in the world (Source). You would need over 630 YEARS of terrorism deaths to equal 1 year of heart disease death.

So if we're supposed to be quaking in our boots over terrorism, what should we be doing over heart disease?!!!

So?

[BitztreamNotARealNam]

How's life in the hypocrite lane?