I don’t know what would happen to business travel if they prohibited carry-on electronics because I’d never trust my gear to the cargo bay.
In response to recent revelations of a suspected bomb plot targeting some UK flights travelling to the US, transport and security agencies in both countries have issued strict new guidelines, which international airlines such as Qantas must observe.
The UK has already banned all electronic devices such as MP3 players, mobile phones and laptops from hand luggage on all flights departing from the country, while the US has taken the more conservative step of only banning liquids, gels and beverages from in and outgoing flights.
However, given the nature of the threat uncovered by British security agents, which is believed to involve liquid explosives that could be triggered by an electronic signal, tight restrictions for carry-on luggage might spread far beyond UK borders, said an Australian security expert.
At what point does it become too inconvenient to fly? Does that mean the terrorists win?
That’s why I plan on making millions and chartering my own private flights.
… Can I borrow five bucks?
Does that mean the terrorists win?
Take a look around. They have already won. They won when the “PATRIOT” act passed.
I think we may have violated the rights of these Islamic men by illegally monitoring their phone conversation. I’m very upset about that!
They probably had difficult childhoods, it’s so unfair!
I tell you this – they’ll hear all kinds of hell from people if they can’t take their cell phones, ipods or laptops on the flight.
What else would you do on the flight?
#4 – you are quite right. But the predictable official response will be ‘better safe than sorry’ and that will be very hard to refute since all the intel will be classified.
sh – sarcasm seldom translates properly in a forum post or comment field, but I think your point comes through…and it is, well, stupid. To simply compress all of the issues you throw-in together in your comment is asenine and infantile. Yes, rights have been violated in the grand sweep of things…and, yes, some people deserve some slack for having had a bum life…but, no, there isn’t a huge conspiracy to let bad guys go or to pretend it is more fair to let the bad guys win. The point is still very relevan that The Terrorists ™ have scored substantially if we come to a place where we can’t conduct civilized life. Wasn’t it the George Bush Bunch ™ who told us to go shopping the days after 9-11…because if we let them interrupt our sacred life of consumption, they’d have won?
The fact that they are considering this means the terrorists win. Why don;t they just tie up every passenger and shoot them up with drugs.
I’ll make sure to bring that idea up at the next meeting, JCD.
I’ve often wondered about what types of dangerous materials would be possible to smuggle onboard an airplane. In the past even in my own carry on I have had materials that, when mixed, could have started a fire hotter than any lighter or even a blowtorch. There are probably hundreds of various compounds that, alone, are harmless, but when mixed with others can be devastating. It won’t be possible to stop them all.
If they are going to ban all electronic devices….why not just make everyone turn in their clothing and jewelry as well, and put on orange jumpsuits and fly in shackles. Honestly there are a THOUSAND ways to bring illicit materials onto an airplane, and there is no way to entirely prevent that unless you allow the passengers to bring nothing at all on board. And even then, what’s to keep a terrorist from ingesting some bomb-making substance before entering the plane?
Wow this is getting long..i feel a blog post coming on…
“He who protects everything protects nothing.” Sun Tzu.
There’s always a reactionary backlash when these plots are uncovered. It takes times for the threat to be analyzed and the public to calm. What keeps an external source from triggering an explosive device? Couldn’t a cell phone trigger be called and detonated while the aircraft is over land? Maybe the answer is RF shielding in the baggage containers. Then there’s a very small timer trigger. You can never get the risks to zero. Someone could even highjack a smaller aircraft and crash it into a large liner. We could bring back the days of the transatlantic steamer. A four day crossing will help you relax also.
I have had enough, it is time to admit that the people doing this are Islamic and mostly Arabs. How about we just accept this and screen the hell out of all Arabs and Islamic named people and let the rest through. Maybe this will piss off peaceful Arabs and Muslims enough to help put a stop to this crap from the few. Main stream Islam is a tad too quiet anyway about all this.
Sure, call me a racist, not true, or a Nazi, again not true, just a guy who wants to travel on business and pleasure without a strip search. When white, black, Asian and Hispanic people start blowing up stuff then we widen the screening process. Until then make it hard as hell for them to get on a plane.
The type of person that does this stuff fits a very narrow profile. I fail to understand why someone so easily defined and identified wrecks travel for millions of Americans every day.
When does common sense enter the discussion?
# 12. Agreed! 1 billion chinese and not one of them a terrorist. Let’s push for racial profiling.
#7 Walters, Waaaaalters, take me to the bedroom. Save the expense (ours) of testing us for drugs or altered states of consciousness, which is surely on the drug czar’s menu. Or is he more interested in terrorizing the powerless. Oh yeah. Wouldn’t such a test, if effective, be a good filter against terrorists? Maybe a 5-second brain scan could tell all.
It would be double plus good to have a quick checkin AND be able to sleep on the flight.
There’s a lot screwy about how air fares work. For instance, luggage gets a free ride. That doesn’t make sense. Weight, alive or dead, burns fuel. If they charged for it (lowering the base rate of course) there would be less luggage to deal with. That alone would improve security. Also, “duty free” involves carrying something (usually an item of international commerce, available anywhere) on the airplane. No, it should be the other way around. You should be able to buy “duty free” at the destination airport, if at all.
A “travel kit” would be luggage you sent in advance by ground to your destination, or ordered over the web. It would be ready to pick up at the otherwise to be under-utilized luggage carousels. At the start of the return journey you could turn it in, getting credit for the re-usable portions. This concept would become more ubiquitous than rental cars.
RTaylor: Absolutely correct, zero risk is impossible and the over-reaction is probably necessary from a PR standpoint and will necessarily be loosened in time. But it’s your other remark that made me wistful; wouldn’t it be nice if business could revert to a time when ship or even train travel was the norm. Out of town business meetings allowed ample time for the travel. Now, it’s often expected that a business meeting one or two time zones away will be concluded in a day — leave your office in the morning and return to catch up on messages that evening. * sigh *
On the bright side, the makers of protective transport-cases will have a strong quarter! 🙂
Will we start seeing lots of “Zero Halliburton” cases on the baggage turnstyles, again?
http://www.zerohalliburton.com/index.jsp
/sarcasm
We’re just damned lucky that idiots have been making grandiose plans to take-out multiple targets… one-upmanship?
We will be feeling serious pain when the smart ones analyze where the bottle-necks are in security screening, and then just “bomb the bottle-neck”…
And, as we adapt our security to “the new threat”, they can watch to see where the new bottle-necks form… lather, rinse, repeat…
It is the one thing I have always found disturbing about that otherwise-stupid Chuck Norris movie Invasion USA…
Watch that in a post-911 world:
Random acts of violence against civilians, openly killing civilians – while posing as cops – so the public distrusts cops, openly killing civilians while posing as National Guard troops, blowing-up school buses full of children…
Whoever wrote that part of the screenplay knows how to destroy a free society.
Next thing we know they will outlaw all cary-on and checked baggage. Everyone will be stripped, have a compleate body cavity search, x-rays or other scans of the GI track, tagged, DNA taken, and knocked out and placed into individual human shiping containers and loaded onto the aircraft…
As long as we can wear clothes and are not stripped search, people can find ways to bing things on. Just think, a person with baggy pants could easily have a plastic container taped to their leg with some explosive, gas, or… and pass right through security.
Or the creative person find a way to use what is allowed (wait you don’t even need to be creative) to cause harm to others if they realy want to.
Two words: FLY NAKED!
The “baggage handlers” are going to have a field day. I would look for your stuff on e-bay being sold by the terrorists that work at the airport.
I may never fly commercial again.
I dunno, if you do the research the mainstream muslims are actually very vocal about all this, except nobody seems to notice and we all prefer the more incendiary commentary from the radicals. As for profiling there is already a lot of it going on although nobody wants to admit it. It’s just done on a de facto basis and people deny doing it and that’s the way things have to operate to be efficient.
And as for flying naked..this could save the airlines! It would be an amusing situation! Can you imagine?
#7 #
The fact that they are considering this means the terrorists win. Why don;t they just tie up every passenger and shoot them up with drugs.
Comment by John C Dvorak — 8/11/2006 @ 11:05 am
You are right John… If they start doing that I’d start looking for reasons to fly more often…
Your Friend,
slaveboy420@yahoo.com
Also, you will probably have to ‘relieve yourself’ into the bucket in order to get on the airplane… and what about those explosive farts that you keep hearing about and seeing video’s on the e-net…
and “What did you eat for dinner last night?” BEANS????????
@Brian
“When white, black, Asian and Hispanic people start blowing up stuff then we widen the screening process. ”
Prior to the attacks on 9-11, who was responsible for the largest terrorist attack on US soil? I dont think it was an Arab, so apparently whites have already started blowing shit up.
You may not want to call yourself a racist, but based on your comments, you either have a very short memory, or really are racist.
JCD writes: “Why don;t they just tie up every passenger and shoot them up with drugs.” I’ve been joking about this for a while. We’re not far from this day. No need for first class. No need for meals or a movie. No need for an aisle or a toilet. Just give everyone a diaper and shove them into the seats.
I only wish I had a lot more money so that I could fly by private jet.
#12 When white, black, Asian and Hispanic people start blowing up stuff then we widen the screening process. Until then make it hard as hell for them to get on a plane.
Comment by Brian — 8/11/2006 @ 11:45 am
Timothy McVeigh, if I recall correctly, was a white dude who blew up a fairly important federal building. It’s been a while, but The Weather Underground committed so acts of terrorism. And at the end of the day, only 20% of the Muslim world is Arabic.
I am a liberal. True. I am not concerned about racial profiling. If someones feelings are hurt, tell them to buck up and get a helmet. But if you go looking for Arabs only, you will miss a number of your targets.
#15 # RTaylor: Absolutely correct, zero risk is impossible and the over-reaction is probably necessary from a PR standpoint and will necessarily be loosened in time. But it’s your other remark that made me wistful;
Comment by Don — 8/11/2006 @ 12:08 pm
You are all correct that it is an over reaction. 9/11 started a chain of over reactions. But in fact, risk management is something that most people are actually very bad at. Understanding probability and statistics are low on our collective skill set too. How else do you explain lottery tickets?
But the PR is needed? By whom? Not you. You are saying right now that it is an over reaction. I’m saying it. I think most people have finally realized that on rare occassion something bad might happen and that’s the stakes of the game. This is really just more of the same plan: take ineffective steps to create an illusion of safety.
Gee. We went to code Red a day after Lieberman loses. Cheney calls Lamont a win for Al-Qaeda.
I saw all this to come on 9-11-2001. I’ve not boarded a plane since then, as I knew the idiocy would continute escalating. I will not fly, unless it is to a funeral or to leave the country permanently.
Cut down on your business trips. Drive where you can. Take longer to get places. Just as well anyway, ’cause frankly we shouldn’t be wasting fuel bouncing around just to see people – it’s too expensive in many ways.. Our lifestyle will change whether we want it to or not.
since “1984” didn’t have commercial air travel, the best I can come up with is “we are at war with Eurasia. we have always been at war with Eurasia”
Another win for the VLJ (very light jet) market. I have seen business models for using these aircraft to provide on demand charter service for the cost of Y Class airline tickets. The numbers work. Point to point transportation from nearly any airport on the passenger’s schedule. In essence, cost effective charter. Although they are not practical for international travel, the advent of these aircraft (first models being certified this year) could not be more timely.
You know, an airport also has lots of people who could fall victim to a terrorist’s bomb. Especially when they’re all huddled together in, let’s say, a big line at the TSA checkpoint. So how long before there is a plot just to bomb the huge line waiting to be screened? What comes then– a screening before the screening?
This is just the thin edge of the wedge. As Drake points out, where do you start the control line? Soon they’ll extend that control into your living room. If you’re lucky, they’ll let you use rubbers in the bedroom, but as they could also be used in improvised explosive devices, don’t count on it.