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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.
would be a better headline.
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.
We never NEEDED to in the first place. That was just a bit of security theater against conveniently unspecified "threats". Just like the liquid restrictions. It made no sense that laptops were somehow special devices that had to be scanned differently from every other piece of electronics sent through the scanner.
...It's good to see that there's less stuff required on our end, but when will they finally get rid of the rest of the security theater?
I mean, okay, it's cool that we don't have to bang laptops around in bins anymore (and the rigamarole of answering dumb questions like "...why do you need two laptops, Sir?"), but the 4th Amendment violations in the name of reassurance continue apace - just that we're using electronics to do it. *shrug*
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has had this for some months now. It's great. It's like travelling in the future. I know because I travel there very regularly.
You unload your pocket contents into a jacket, bag, or onto a tray. You put your jacket, bag, etc, into the same or more trays. You don't take anything out of your bags. You also don't take your shoes off unless they are heavy boots.
It all goes through a scanner. You pick it up the other side. Maybe the scanner pass takes slightly longer, but you save time overall because you don't have to unload and reload everything.
The rate of secondary search is far less than with the old scanners, and after a few months' practice the staff are almost as fast with the old scanners too - queues are shorter than they used to be.I take all sorts of stuff in my bag (laptop and cables, several electronics, medicines, keys, carabiners, etc) and I still rarely get a secondary search. Yet, I know from shoulder-surfing the scanner operator that they can identify and check suspicious things more carefully - there's a great zoom-pan-rotate function for inspecting any item in detail. It's a little uncanny.
You can even take any liquid you like through - I often take a water bottle still full of water. Sometimes that gets a secondary check in a liquids inspector, but that's still not a problem.
It is far better than the current USA TSA experience. It is far, far less stressful and much faster.
The staff like it too; they're very pleased with the scanners and the smoother passenger experience. I've talked to them several times about it (try talking to a TSA agent...) and they are enthusiastic about how good the scanners are. Of course, the Dutch security staff are much more reasonable than the TSA overall.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
I'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. Of all the crap, the concern about laptops is completely reasonable.
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.
.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
We could go back to pre-911 security levels with two exceptions and be as safe as we are now.
Those two exceptions:
1) Locked cabin doors so any hijacker can't easily gain control of the plane. (And instructions to pilots that they are to land at the nearest airport in the event of a hijacking no matter how many passenger fatalities are threatened.)
2) Passenger awareness. It used to be that a hijacking meant you went to Cuba, sat quietly until the hijacker gave himself up, and then were returned safely. You were inconvenienced, but as long as you played along you were safe. 9-11 broke this script. Now passengers know that hijacking means nearly certain death if the hijackers get control of the airplane and they will fight back - even if outgunned.
With those two in place, we could roll everything else back to pre-911 levels and not lose one iota of security.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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.
So why don't we combine the two? Instead of going to the hospital for a $2,000 CAT scan, you take a flight from Newark to Las Vegas which will only cost $200. And the CAT scan is free included.
We would just need to replace some DHS folks with doctors:
"You are not carrying any explosive devices in your body . . . but your prostate will go nuclear in a few years."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!