They're gonna love me...
Just got back from a trip - four tablets, two laptops, a handful of portable hard drives, and a few other gadgets.
(Yes, they were needed - work hardware I wasn't going to leave in checked baggage)
Domestic air passengers within the USA will be required to remove any electronic device larger than a smartphone from their carry-on bags for screening before boarding. A Transport Security Agency (TSA) announcement names “tablets, e-readers and handheld game consoles” as the target of the new rules, which “require travelers …
Try a network switch, a fiber-to-copper converter and power supplies for both, all zip-tied and taped together into a single lump with cables sticking all over. I had to carry that through the airport security in Amsterdam.
Was afraid of it needing a good explanation sooner than later, so put it in the carry-on bag. They looked at it once, asked if I was MacGyver, and would have waved me right through if the swab-test hadn't given a positive for something. Re-test was negative, though, so passed right after showing a card with the word "engineer" on it.
Thing is, Amsterdam had the "all electronics separately" rule in place already. But the security actually had the training and/or brains to see that the clump had nothing capable of exploding. In the U.S., I doubt I would have flown on the same day.
I thought this was standard practice. I have had to do this in Domestic and International travel in Oz, NZ, India and the Philippines for a number of years. Usually they want the devices (apart from mobile phones) in their own tray so I end up with a string of plastic trays with 2-3 laptops, 2+ tablets and 2-3 mobile phones plus of course the backpack for the computers and the carry on bag with the camera, battery packs etc. In some countries you even have to take off your shoes (and coat) and send them through the X-ray. Of course you then have to repack everything when you get through the security checkpoint...
One TSA jerk wanted me to take apart my £6000 Nikon 200-400mm F4 lens back in 2015.
After resisting the urge to use the thing as a club and batter some sense into him, I got his superior involved.
"If you can see through it and use the controls then it is fine,"
He checked and waved me through. How long before they mandate to see inside lenses etc?
While in the EU the need to remove PCs from bags has been an old one, other items were often at the discretion of the controller. I had my photo gear thoroughly checked at Charles de Gaulle once - probably they could not believe I was traveling with a film camera... (and I was quite worried about how the lenses were being handled...) another time in Wien when I had to remove the battery, the lens, put them in again and operate the camera. I wonder what could happen next when I travel with a view camera....
If these rules become widespread, I hope it's enough to put the backpack with the lid open in the scanner, while checking nobody around is going to make drop, or worse, steal, a lens which may easily cost some thousands...
These new rules suggest bad actors may be thinking outside the box, so to speak, to contemplate sparking something nasty with a Kindle or a Game Boy.
All they have to do is drop hints to the security agencies about how they might attack, then sit back and watch the TSA and other security agencies actually do all the work in making frightened, annoyed passengers.
Easy peesy, no fuss, no mess, no work by the terrorists, just let the TSA do it all.
Easy peesy, no fuss, no mess, no work by the terrorists, just let the TSA do it all.
Yes. This is what terror *is*.
Terrorism isn't about blowing up aircraft, it's about causing the State to become so oppressive that the country tears itself apart. States seem to like becoming oppressive, so it's a pretty easy gig, really...
Vic.
Needless to say they were all brought on board by US citizens to internal flights.
But this BS sounds like another effort to make a government more repressive.
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world" as Mary Shaefer put it.
Well obviously.
How is the D going to meet his "Getting America back to work"pledge?
Always puts me in mind of the last time I transitted through Newark Airport a few years ago and the two ladies on the incoming line.
I can't hear "It's raining men" without thinking of them.
Perhaps they need to update the security people at SFO ... flew back to from there last week via Amsterdam and at the hand luggage check scanners there was no provision to remove anything from bags to be scanned seperately - all there was was a female TSA employee screaming at everyone to push their bags into the scanner as fast as possible. Also, they seemed to have dispensed with the "we need to scan your shoes" rule and none of the hi-tech "naked body scanners" that were going to be the solution for everything were in use.
"Does america acutally recognise the IRA as a terrorist organisation though?"
I have a vague memory of being taught at school many years ago that the IRA was primarily a political organization that grew out of Sein Fein, not a terrorist group - the Provisional Wing of the IRA (Provos) on the other hand was an entirely different bag of ferrets.
I cannot get past the idea that GWB et all let the terrorists win in 2001. And its been running downhill ever since. I admit that electronic devices could be used to hide nasty nasty things, but we have yet to see some entity pull this one off at all, except perhaps Samsung. We're still stuck with the 150ml limit (unless its pesto and you're in Italy apparently), we still have this stupidity about shoes, and I'm surprised we don't have to show off our underwear yet.
But stupid folks still wander on to aircraft with loaded handguns, with one up the spout. I'm sure there have been dozens of cases of people with box cutters and nail files. What I do not understand, what completely escapes my comprehension is how it is that some 16 years later, after all this posturing, all this 'every little threat' kneejerk reaction tactic the entirety of the western world has not finally looked the idiot in the room in the eye and said enough of the bullshit. Provide your "Credible Threat" details or get the fuck out.
"I'm sure there have been dozens of cases of people with box cutters and nail files."
indeed. I can buy Swiss army knives between $1 (the tiny ones) and $20 (the very complex ones) at the State of Texas Surplus Store in Austin, that were taken away from passengers in airports. And box cutters for $0.10, etc.
Got pulled over once because on magnetic buttons on my shirt.
That prompted them to check my hands with the chemical detector.
It gave a positive - going to a conference, I had to do a last minute fix to our demo hardware right before heading for the airport. Two strikes.
Then they started messing with said demo hardware - that had already "passed" the x-ray, but by now she and I were "interesting". Lots of wires, etc. weird stuff. Got to have a behind the doors full undress check. Got through, but learned my lesson. I always get a second look to my carry on, because weird electronics, but this time it went way beyond.
Yes they are "stupid" here as well reiterate "unemployable out side the box". I have had female travellers arriving here America Samoa and these knuckle heads will even go through their used underwear. WTF.
They will never return. Ok got my Govmint paycheck; TSA application form no brain required and snooping on people over cell phones and anything with a camera connected to the net for their own pleasure and use.
Dough Jones (formerly of XCOR) did this one time.
He explained it was a)A piece of engineering equipment and b) As you can see it's not connected to anything.
It's best not to use the word "rocket" around a US airport, as it can result in lots of young men running round with automatic weapons. And that's how accidents can happen.