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US Ends Controversial Laptop Ban On Flights From Middle East (theguardian.com)
The United States has ended a four-month ban on passengers carrying laptops onboard US-bound flights from certain airports in the Middle East and North Africa, bringing to an end one of the controversial travel restrictions imposed by President Donald Trump's administration. From a report: Riyadh's King Khalid international airport was the last of 10 airports to be exempted from the ban, the US department of homeland security (DHS) confirmed in a tweet late on Wednesday local time. Middle East carriers have blamed Trump's travel restrictions, which include banning citizens of some Muslim-majority countries from visiting the United States, for a downturn in demand on US routes. In March, the United States banned large electronics in cabins on flights from 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa over concerns that explosives could be concealed in the devices taken onboard aircraft. The ban has been lifted on the nine airlines affected -- Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Royal Jordanian , Kuwait Airways, EgyptAir and Royal Air Maroc -- which are the only carriers to fly direct to the US from the region. A ban on citizens of six Muslim-majority countries -- Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, -- remains in place, though has been limited after several US court hearings challenged the restrictions.
Does anyone know whether this ban, (now no longer in place), has been of consequence under any measure one can think of?
I personally doubt.
Its main aim was not to improve security so much since any idiot can figure out that people can re-reroute their flight plan to circumvent this ban. Its main goal was to create hysteria over terrorism, to point the blame at specific countries and to show that the guvmint is trying to do something about it.
It was not well researched or implemented but its goal was never that.
How? The original concern was that these airports/airlines were doing an inadequate job in screening potentially explodable materials, and so had this put in place. If someone flying from Riyadh to Dulles decided to change airlines & airports at, say, Brussels, wouldn't the Belgians already be managing that differently?
What's worse is: Why have the ban if you're only going to implement it for a couple of months? Did they think that the terrorists were using frequent flyer miles that would expire?
I can't speak for overall measures, but anecdotally it was pretty annoying to be on a 15 hour flight back from Dubai to Chicago and be unable to use my surface pro or iPad to actually get any work done.
And this has affected life in the US exactly how??
Hmm....so far, it looks like we haven't missed them any.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
US customs agents have been stationed in Canadian airports for decades. I assumed the reason they didn't do this overseas was more due to cost.
The short term bad was put in place because security procedures at certain airports were not enough to guarantee the security of flights departing from those airports.
That the ban has been lifted is likely due to the practices and procedures at those airports being improved such that the methods that would have previously gone undetected will now be detected.
Whether this is just tools used by staff in the airports or also staff themselves isn't clear. And I don't expect that they will say.
Given that whatever the problem was before is likely to still exist, something must have changed to move the high risk from being the terrorist getting away with it to being the terrorist getting caught.
Here is the thing.
The US War on Terrorism, is really the war against Saudi funded Wahabi Sunni Aggression. Saudi Arabia is the philosophical Nazi Germany (bad analogy) of the War on Terrorism. They are behind the ideology that started all of this. What we are seeing as "The Islamic Invasion of Europe" Is more like an attempt by the Saudis to expand their colony states, to Europe and beyond. Many refugees from Syria are exactly that, Refugees. Some are Saudi Sunni Colonists.
The Saudis have made "colonies" of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Maldives, and a few other places. They are indirectly funding Proxy armies, like ISIS, the Taliban, and Al'Queda. While ISIS has been pretty much defeated in Iraq and Syria, eventually, a new Sunni Proxy Army will show up, they will attack the Shia first, the west second. A vague Analogy to this is Protestant vs. Catholic conflicts during the 16th Century. Its the closest Christian Parallel I can draw.
Wahabi Islam is as incompatible with Liberal Western Democracy as Oliver Cromwell and 16th Century Protestantism would be if it existed today.
The thing is, this has the potential to threaten the very existance of the Human species circa Global Warming/Climate Change. The US Protects Saudi Arabia, despite the fact they are possibly the worst Regime on Earth except for maybe North Korea. The Saudi controlled Sunni states have no concept of Environmentalism or concept that their actions in Green House gas production could render the entire world uninhabitable. They have a Fatalistic cult like view of history and will drive the Human species into extinction if not stopped. For them, Fossil Fuels made them rich. If the cash flow due to the energy demands of the west stops, they die poor. Alternative Energy isn't even a question.
The issue is, all the US Does is make it worse and sell them Weapons. The US Representative Democracy has imploded into a Right Wing Oligarchy. Congress is filled with lunatics that are in entrenched Gerrymandered districts who have been there for decades that are impossible to remove. They have put a complete incompetent in the Presidency. They just ram-rodded a far right Corporatist into the Supreme Court.
The US Does stupid, ineffective things like Trump's Travel Ban that doesn't address the problem, and scapegoat's Minorities. I suspect that this will be how Humanity dies. Earth rendered uninhabitable because the US's Oligarchs were too addicted to Fossil Fuels and Saudi cash.
Inconvenient, yes, but it was in response to specific intel that terrorists had been plotting to hide bombs aboard common electronics like laptops. Obama instituted a similar temporary ban on Iraqi immigrants in response to specific intel that terrorists were trying to infiltrate the country by posing as Iraqi immigrants. That they've lifted the ban presumably means they think they've captured/killed the terrorist groups working on this.
Trump's temporary ban on immigration from certain muslim countries is controversial because it isn't based on specific intel.
I am glad that you just proved that violence has nothing to do with the religion, unless you are a Muslim yourself.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
AFAIK, if you fly from Dublin to the USA, you clear US Immigration and Customs before you get on the plane. I think that there are other airports where this happens as well.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
You should do some remedial logic, since that doesn't make any sense.
The end.
The ban was only temporary if the airports listed actually made the changes to security that caused the ban in the first place.
Oh, so it's temporary because all the airports got those new magic rocks that keep away laptop shaped bombs. Got it.
Not true. I value freedom. People are vastly less likely to be injured or killed by a terrorist attack than by being killed in an auto accident. I did not support the dismantling of the constitution as a response to the 9/11 attacks.
Oh no, everyone back up, he's armed with a Galaxy Note 7!
It certainly affected the life of people who's family and friends were banned from visiting, or those residents who were delayed being allowed to come back to their homes, business trips to and from the US were canceled, and so forth. Yes, big changes to life in the US for some people.
That's standard for Americans. There's the general security check for all passengers done first. Then for those flying to America there is a second check because we have added additional checks because they don't trust foreign airports to be as diligent as their minimum wage TSA agents.
There are people who consider time on a plane to be prime work hours. I think it's stupid. It's the one and only time you can tell your overbearing boss that you can't work and instead have yourself a nice nap or read a good book. It seems like sometime in the last couple of decades that the number of people doing last minute work on the plane has, er, taken off. We've turned into a country of self inflicted workaholics.
What likely happened is that someone rich and important complained.
Read what each airport on the list had to do to be granted the exemption from the law. Doesn't make them perfect but it makes them better than they were. It was temporary because they were found to be lacking in that area, they all corrected the issue, and they were thus returned to normal status. Why is this so hard for you and the other morons on this post to understand?
Dear lord almighty...how do you go through international customs and not know why it's two separate steps? Or was this a veiled attempt at one world government? Nope pretty sure you're just another one of the complete idiots on this post.
Does anyone know who supplied the intelligence that triggered the ban?
The new requirements include enhanced passenger screening at foreign airports, increased security protocols around aircraft and in passenger areas and expanded canine screening.
Still sounds like security theater. Measures which have no tested effect against non-existent threats.
Were there bombs that dogs could sniff out being loaded onto planes in the form of laptops? Because if not, guess what, it has as much effect as my magic rock that keeps away tigers.
"Get back to the herd"? Funny to hear that from someone who is scared of a variety of terrorism that has *never* occurred, only because TV told him he should be afraid.
What's worse is: Why have the ban if you're only going to implement it for a couple of months? Did they think that the terrorists were using frequent flyer miles that would expire?
Well its first aim was to make people think the Trump government was doing something(TM) about terrorism without having to spend money. Here it failed.
Now it's keeping you distracted from the other great failures of the Trump government. Security theatre is an integral part of bread and circuses.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Yeah, it would suck to not have my laptop on a long flight, but the ban made sense. Even if there wasn't evidence that terrorists were planning to pack them with explosives, it seems like an obvious method for getting a bomb on a plane. And it's not like someone is going to cancel trip to the other side of the world just because they can't bring their laptop in the cabin. If you don't have a tablet (couldn't they carry explosives too?), bring a damn book!
They're certainly acting like that was the worst crime ever committed.
I mean, think about it, if you support Western civilization in its jihad, that makes you a stupid tribalist.
FTFY. The ironic thing is that the West already won. There were vast Islamic empires a few centuries ago. Russia and Britain bought and traded them, and the United States has continued the tradition of arbitrary regime change.
I saw an image caption the other day, you know the type. Flag and gun waving, text read something like "I'll die before I let myself or any of my family submit to Islam." Not only is this pretty well described by the word "jihad", but it's also the case here that we hate most those we have most injured.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.