In more security theater, the Trump Administration has ordered airlines flying from eight relatively friendly Muslim countries to ban passengers from bringing any electronic devices larger than a smartphone into the plane’s cabin. Folks flying from Amman, Kuwait City, Cairo, Istanbul, Jeddah, Riyadh, Casablanca, Doha, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi will have to trust their laptops to the baggage handlers.
Arbitrarily stopping folks from working on their computers on the way to the U.S. on just 50 incoming flights out of some 4,000-plus international flights a day won’t substantively increase our security:
The steps are likely to have limited success in curbing the terrorist threat since people will still be able to fly from the Middle East via hubs such as Frankfurt, where there are no limits on in-cabin devices, to target U.S. services, said Mark Martin, an aviation consultant in Dubai. “When it comes to aviation, there’s a very thin line between paranoia and precaution,” he added [Deena Kamel and Michael Sasso, “Mideast Airlines Braced for Trump Ban on Electronic Devices,” Bloomberg, 2017.03.21].
Requiring passengers to check their laptops won’t stop the clever bomb-maker from rigging a laptop to explode on remote signal from a phone. If anything, the cabin-electronics ban will increase the risk of theft and plane wrecks:
Another aviation-security expert, Jeffrey Price, said there could be downsides to the policy.
“There would be a huge disadvantage to having everyone put their electronics in checked baggage,” said Price, a professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He said thefts from baggage would skyrocket, as when Britain tried a similar ban in 2006, and some laptops have batteries that can catch fire — an event easier to detect in the cabin than the hold [Alicia A. Caldwell and David Koenig, “US Bars Electronic Carry-ons from Mideast, N. Africa Flights,” AP, 2017.03.21].
Chalk another failed policy up to the Trump Administration.
Meh. Most security procedures, when it comes to flight travel, are nothing more than a security blanket. I swear there is a specific term for it, but I do not remember, where a security policy is implemented just to make people feel better and make it look like something is being done by the authorities. The TSA historically fails when its policies are actually tested (even the policies that make sense): http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/tsa-failed-undercover-airport-screening-tests/
Yeah, if I can control my home’s thermostat from Mexico using a telephone……….
“Security theater,” Joe?
I wonder if the motivation for this laptop ban is less security and more crony capitalism. Remember how last month Trump met with airline CEOs? Those CEOs complain that airlines from Arab countries are heavily subsidized by their governments, creating unfair competition. Banning laptops on flights from the above-listed countries will drive businesspeople from those airlines to U.S. airlines departing from other airports, because they don’t want to spend a whole workday in the air not able to work on their computers.
See this report from Marketplace Tuesday:
Security theater for profit?
Oh, and U.S. airlines flying out of those listed airports don’t have to follow the ban!