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U.S. Bans Tablets and Laptops on Flights From Eight Middle Eastern Countries [Update: U.K. Plans Similar Ban]
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I believe that the reason are the last year Daallo Airlines incident, where a passenger in wheelchair smuggled a laptop with implanted explosives. And that likely either Al-Shabaab or Al-Qaeda in Yemen have probably have similar plans, which have been leaked to US or allied intelligence.
But there have been several attempts on items checked in luggage. Most famous is PETN explosives embedded in a printer cartridge. Interestingly enough, constructed so that a cell phone could set it off. There is chatter of cell-phones bombs for several years as well.
But there have been several attempts on items checked in luggage. Most famous is PETN explosives embedded in a printer cartridge. Interestingly enough, constructed so that a cell phone could set it off. There is chatter of cell-phones bombs for several years as well.
As the updated note says, the UK is also putting these bans in place, indicating there may be specific intelligence around a plot involving these devices. It'd be one thing for the Trump administration to push this. It's another when other countries do the same.
I must point out 2 fallacies:
Detonating bombs on aircraft are not always fatal to aircraft. There is a number of cases of on-board bombs detonating not resulting in loss of aircraft.
I also must point out that in cases the bomb does results in aircraft destruction there was a few cases of people on ground also killed, best example is Lockerbe Pan-Am flight. Very small remote village had 747 land right on top of it.
Still, there is a high probability of bomb destroying aircraft but with very small chance of ground casualties.
Likely very similar, however it will affect a wide range of airports as there are more flights to the UK from the Middle East and North Africa. And then EU will follow suit, and likely other countries as well.
Seems like a phone would be more dangerous than an e-reader, but I wonder if they are concerned about packing one with explosives?
I do not see Trump tweeting on this (yet??), so it is not Trump/WH doing this.
Trump is very big on protecting US citizens, so this is something he would tweet about,.. in large letters.
The fact we're even having this debate is the problem. Trump's childish antics have wrecked the credibility of everything he is associated with or in control of. Nobody was taking this seriously until a different country confirmed it. That's ridiculous, and that really shows how harmful the last few months have been.
Not only those countries but all countries in the Middle East. (And then of course travelers in transit from mostly Asian and Australasian countries).
No, the problem is that people like you don't accept that sometimes DHS has a plethora of professionals ready to take action because they can't kick the can down the road. Some people here even saw a conspiracy to enhance US airliners.
....which will put big suspicion on those middle eastern countries.
Watch for Trump Tweets.
Sorry, not here to debate politics as piles of data have shown that it's totally without gain. Nothing positive comes from doing so and no opinions will be changed.
[doublepost=1490109965][/doublepost]Keep in mind that very few middle eastern countries offer direct flights to the US. The number of people this impacts in the US is fairly small. Most flights must go through other areas in order to get to the US and they will not be impacted by this.
As noted:
Those airports only offer a very small number of flights direct to the US. +95% of their flights go through other connections first in order to get to the US.
I'm not talking about the specifics of this threat or the policies implemented to address it. I do not want to debate whether or not the threat is real, I do not want to debate whether or not the response is appropriate. I'll defer to other people just as unqualified as myself to do that.
What concerns me is that, seemingly for the first time in modern history, there has been displayed a serious lack of trust stemming from the incompetency of the executive. Sure, there have always been and will always be fringe conspiracy theory people. But this time was different.
This rule change came down and most normal people that otherwise trust their government and live causal tax-paying law-abiding lives did not immediately believe the threat or the response. I don't believe for a second that the Romney/McCain voting republicans would have questioned a similar thing had it come from an Obama-led executive branch. These folks normally give US intelligence the benefit of the doubt, because safety and 9/11 and yada yada.
But this time we have a tweeting-loud-mouth, brown-people-hating, white-supremacist-supporting, always-lying, making-up-conspiracy-theories, man-child leading the executive branch, who in the past few weeks has issued orders directly affecting movement of people to and from the middle east and who has started many international dipolomatic clusterf*cks with countless idiotic things he has said or policies he has proposed.
Against that backdrop, it is completely reasonable for normal pick-up-driving Joe Americans to not give him the benefit and to not trust anything that comes down from the executive branch related to brown people flying on planes. Since talk of this began yesterday, everyone on both sides of the ideological spectrum were questioning whether it was even serious. That is bad. That is very bad. Trust is a very important thing, and Trump has been wrecking it from day one of his campaign.
It isn't until an entirely different sovereign nation with their own sophisticated intelligence operation confirms this threat and response do regular Americans begin taking it seriously. Do you not see how messed up that is?
Our lower-case-p president is so untrustworthy that when a department under his branch warns of us a serious terrorist threat, we have to assume he's full of it because 75% of the time he is full of it. It's a classic boy cries wolf situation, except with bombs on planes.
I'm proud that you served, but what does being a Marine have anything to with commercial airline passenger safety?
More information from UK;
http://news.sky.com/story/electronic-devices-ban-on-some-uk-bound-flights-10809743
"The UK ban will apply to inbound direct flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, a Government spokesperson said."
http://news.sky.com/story/electronic-devices-ban-on-some-uk-bound-flights-10809743
"The UK ban will apply to inbound direct flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, a Government spokesperson said."
That's like saying all politicians lie. Yes, they do. But Trump takes it to a new unprecedented low. Likewise, the same is true about trust. I said it, there will always be some that question anything the executive branch does. But today, the lack of trust is troubling and is at (reasonably so) unprecedented levels.
I'm pretty sure Americans trusted Nixon's white house on August 7, 1974 (the day between the release of the smoking gun tape and his resignation speech) more than they trust Trump's white house today.
Yes, cargo inside a metal container, most likely surrounded by more baggage, more distance to exterior of the plane, and scanned. My guess, a bomb in cargo would need too be significantly larger then one carried on, thus easier to detect. Still very inconvient and higher risk if loosing an important piece of electronics. I would change my travel routing, avoiding direct routes.
I'm not a Marine. The gentleman I was responding to is. I would expect a marine to have an understanding of threat assessment.
There are also a lot of people out there who would kill for an iPhone 8 -- or a MacPro update.
The metal container barely protects itself, and the distance to the fuselage is more or less irrelevant. 350 g Semtex I believe they estimated the Lockerbie bomb to be made of, and explosives have rather high density so that is not particular large. Other PETN is probably the same. That is the equal of two iPhone 7 plus in weight. The other luggage may contain the explosive to some extent, but I think that is negligible.
UK flight ban on electronic devices announced
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39333424
There goes the liberal argument that everyone is racist. Hahahah
[doublepost=1490116875][/doublepost]
It doesn't, liberals are terrified of my screen name so they made that a topic to avoid talking about terroist that want to kill us all.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39333424
There goes the liberal argument that everyone is racist. Hahahah
[doublepost=1490116875][/doublepost]
It doesn't, liberals are terrified of my screen name so they made that a topic to avoid talking about terroist that want to kill us all.
Sounds like a big pay day in the offing for light fingered baggage handlers. I suspect this is no more a temporary imposition than the liquids ban has turned out to be. It will be here forever. Does it apply to professional digital cameras? Yes I really want to leave thousands of pounds worth of these relatively fragile and theft prone objects in my hold luggage. I also can make sure that the sensors are in a vertical position when in hand luggage, so that they are less prone to being hit by pixel killing high energy cosmic particles, which then requires a visit to the manufacturer to have the sensor remapped. I normally use Emirates or Qatar for long distance flights, which use Dubai and Doha as their interchange hubs, so it will affect me.