Laptops To Stay in Bags as TSA Brings New Technology To Airports (bgov.com)

Air passengers at a growing number of U.S. airports will no longer need to remove electronics, liquids, and other items from their carry-on luggage at security checkpoints as the Transportation Security Administration rolls out new technology. From a report: The TSA took a major step in a broader plan to revamp its overall screening process with faster, more advanced technology when it signed a contract Thursday for hundreds of new carry-on baggage screening machines, Administrator David Pekoske said on a press call Friday. The agency has tested the new technology at more than a dozen airports since 2017, along with the relaxed protocols that allow passengers to leave items such as laptops and toiletries inside their luggage. The rollout of the computed tomography, or CT, machines will begin this summer, Pekoske said. The $97 million contract will buy 300 machines, but the list of airports receiving them has yet to be made final, Pekoske said. The technology creates 3-D images of bags' contents and will eventually be able to detect items automatically that the TSA now asks passengers to remove, he said.

Comments

so let me get this straight...

[nimbius]

Computed tomography is a cat scan. This is a life-saving medical procedure in American hospitals that could cost you upwards of two-thousand USD. Your insurance company could elect to accept or decline that procedure arbitrarily as they see fit.

However in US airports its now going to be a mandatory part of a theatricality introduced 18 years ago to stop terrorists we created after the fall of the soviet union through the funding and training of the Mujaheddin. This theatricality demands that we analyze nude photos of passengers through backscatter and millimeter wave systems, dump all our liquids out, and now requires we run our bags through yet another $80,000 machine to prevent terrorism. Smoking, cancer, diabetes, and even lightning strikes at 50 deaths per year kill more americans than terrorism.

hundreds of new CT machines paid for by the government could subsidize healthcare for poor communities, but no. We're going to use them to speed up an unreasonable, wasteful and cumbersome live performance art we could have eliminated a decade ago.

Re:so let me get this straight...

[apoc.famine]

The very reason that terrorism is a small percentage of the death rate is because we challenge it at every turn.

That's a whole load of bullshit. If we were challenging it at every turn we wouldn't be bombing the shit out of countries while cutting deals with their monarchs and dictators, and those of neighboring countries. We'd be working to push democracy, education, and leveling out the wealth gap between the rich rulers and the impoverished citizens. Hell, even starting with our own country might reduce a couple of our homegrown terrorist attacks.

Countries where the bulk of their citizens are doing well see very, very few homegrown terrorists. Countries with vast inequalities and human rights abuses see a whole lot more.

If we were serious about defeating terrorism, bombing the shit out of poor people in the middle east and africa would not be our favorite hobby.

Re:I don't do that today thanks to pre-check

[Daetrin]

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

.

Re:Bullshit

[drinkypoo]

'll address this specific case. The laptop has a significant battery that is very dense, and consequently fairly opaque to xray. The battery is very easy to replace with a nicely shaped chunk of semtek with a blasting cap inserted inside.

While this is true, removing it from the bag to scan it doesn't help prevent that attack. You have to make people turn it on. Some airports did this, some didn't.