A lot of comments very critical on the ban. America has intel - and good intel from a raid - that shows that ISIS has the capability and intent to hide a bomb inside laptop batteries to blow up passenger planes containing lots of people. Don’t the American people have the right to take steps to protect themselves from this?
This is a simple requirement that laptops be checked baggage and not carry on. That hardly seems draconian or extreme by any measure. I realize that this will inconvenience some people but against the very real and imminent threat of an actual discovered terrorist plans to use a laptop to blow up a plane, this seems like a very reasonable and rational step.
If certain people don’t want to visit or do business with America for that reason . . . I don’t think it’s such a terrible loss to lose dealing with people who are so self centered that they would demand that Americans risk the very real threat of deadly terrorist attacks rather than suffer the minor inconvenience of being required to check their laptops during flights.
As an American who frequently travels to Europe for business and pleasure, it's more than the inconvenience. Luggage handlers frequently lose or damage luggage--not rarely, but frequently. Most of my bags are pretty beat up. Just watch them load baggage onto a plane sometime, then tell me you feel comfortable leaving $4000 in equipment in a baggage hold.
Furthermore, there are many, many instances of lithium batteries unintentionally catching fire mid-flight. While the device is in the cabin, passengers can douse the flames. Now imagine a device in a cargo hold...over the Atlantic...with dozens of other flammable batteries...catching fire...where no one can get to it and there's no place to land...
Most importantly, this fear of being killed by a terrorist is getting ridiculous. We give up everything just on the off chance somebody might try to disable a plane. But we still get into cars, walk down streets, attend movies and plays, go out in public, go to work--all activities people are killed on almost a daily basis. As a Colorado resident, we've had schools shot up, movie theaters, even the building down the street from where I work had an "active shooting" situation recently. If we treated the risk of death honestly, we'd spend all our time on planes and none of our time out in the world.
> people who are so self centered that they would demand that Americans risk the very real threat of deadly terrorist attacks (...)
Europeans being self-centered? It's us not wanting to hand our computers to USA agencies, known to clone your harddrive and/or implant other crap on it. Agencies who can hold you indefinitely and are affiliated with other 3 letter agencies who do worse. ( See https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... )
Do you think it would be fair to treat Americans going on vacation to any European country like this? Just let me clone your phone and laptop friend, it's for your own safety /s
I dont think that Europeans are self centered, I think the people complaining about being required to check in their laptops to prevent likely terrorist attacks are being self centered in doing so.
The government cant clone or access your information just because you put it in storage rather than carry on.
I will complain because we have zero evidence of credible threat, and a huge amount of evidence of incompetence on the part of the agencies tasked with securing air travel. I will complain because the world is full of people who confuse "we did something" with "we did the right thing". I will complain because people seem to turn off their critical-thinking faculties when it comes to travel and security. I will complain because there is a long history of "temporary" restrictions which become permanent and serve only to enrich suppliers of screening equipment. I will complain for many reasons.
Most of all, I will complain because the world is a dangerous place and I know this, and I know that 100% "safety" is impossible, and even if it were the price would be far higher than I am willing to pay.
> I think the people complaining about being required to check in their laptops to prevent likely terrorist attacks are being self centered in doing so.
Since the current administration has a credibility problem, people just think it's ridiculous security theater. Incredible claims require incredible evidence.
>the very real threat of deadly terrorist attacks
Are you trolling? The following is a list of "threats" more real than terrorism: (Note that money would be better spent on teaching the Heimlech maneuver by several orders of magnitude)
Heart Disease
Cancer
Lung Disease
Stroke
Alzheimers
Diabetes
Flu
Kidney Disease
Suicide
Car accident
Falling
Assault by gun
Choking on food
You'd save infinitely more lives since spending on any of these since there will most likely be 0 deaths from airline related terrorism.
So, people are concluding that this is theater designed to deflect away from the firing of Comey, which was executed in the dumbest manner possible.
> The government cant clone or access your information just because you put it in storage rather than carry on.
Of course they can. Someone can go in the hold before takeoff and have their way.
You make it sound like Donald Trump himself dug up the terrorist plans and issued the order. In all likelihood he wasn't even aware of it until after it was issued, it's not the president's duty to oversee stuff like this. This order was issued by the DHS, the head of which is John Kelly who is hardly a Trump lapdog.
If the position of the users of this forum is that everything to US government does for the next four years is wrong just because Trump holds the executive seat - then we need to have a 4 year politics ban because this is going to be unbearable. This has nothing to do with Trump and the fact that he is even being brought up in this discussion is crazy.
Please stop making this a Trump issue. It has nothing to do with him. As I stated, the threat from terrorism is so tiny as to be not worth mentioning under our current security status. The order itself is ridiculous beyond belief. You can still have phones, tablets or any number of other electronic devices than run on lithium ion batteries made into explosives. You wouldn't need much blast force in a confined space like an airplane cabin since the explosive pressure increases because of reflection. Simple solution to this ban, carry on two iPads.
The main point is I'm more worried dying on my daily walk around the block than this "threat" as the TSA has never stopped a would-be terrorist from boarding a plane.
I think the core of the issue here is that at some point, the nuisance outweighs the risk. How long will this ban be in place? Until the terrorists forget how to make laptop bombs? In the meantime, how many hours of productive work is being lost?
To put it another way, let's say the US got intelligence that terrorists now are able to make bombs out of, say, shoes. Should everyone be forced to remove their shoes before boarding? A silly and contrived example, to be sure, but it is meant to illustrate a point: Where do we draw the line between safety and inconvenience?
Uh, didn't we have the mandatory shoe removal for a while already after the shoe bomber? Shoe removal is still commonly demanded if the metal detector gets triggered and many places have special shoe scanning devices too.
And we still have the liquid ban, thanks to one plot that wasn't even realistic to start with.
So sadly "safety" and security theater where you get to show to your electorate that you are "doing something about it" will always win over inconvenience and common sense.
Its not just ability to make bombs out of laptops, but also discovered plans to do so. If in our silly senario it came out that we did a raid on a terrorist hideout and found plans to hide bombs inside shoes to bomb planes, and that shoes are more suitable than other items to making these bombs and that terrorists had been perfecting shoe bombs - then yes it might be prudent to ask people to remove shoes during flights. You are right - its a balancing act between risk and precaution, in this case I dont think its unreasonable to ask people to check in laptops when we find terrorist plans to blow up planes with laptop bombs
> America has intel - and good intel from a raid - that shows that ISIS has the capability and intent to hide a bomb inside laptop batteries to blow up passenger planes
So your argument is that when the US says they raided an ISIS compound in Yemen and discovered plans to hide bombs inside laptops to blow up planes - this does not qualify as good enough intel to act on? You seem to be using snark as a substitute for defending your proposition through thoughtful analysis and argumentation.
Whether consciously or as satire, your writing imitated Donald Trump's speech style for a second. I believe that's what the other poster was pointing out.
America has intel, the best intel, that shows that..
Whether someone sounds like Donald to you is not relevant to the facts at hand . . . like the fact that they raided an ISIS camp and found plans and a video which was widely disseminated. Which was mentioned in the article. What or who I sound like when I point that out, whether that be Donald or Kim Ill Sung or Jack the Ripper or whomever is not relevant
> has historically been full of shit and completely made up from time to time. Therefore there is no reason to believe it now.
Then why do you believe them about the terrorists being the bad guys, or even existing at all. Why not set up a nice rendezvous with ISIS and maybe talk about what you have in common.
Why believe the government about anything ever. Why do you think they are telling the truth about vaccinations or the benefit of public schools or anything if you have deemed them to be constant liars.
So you see no distinction between saying "the US has a track record of creating security theatre and using dubious excuses based on worthless and even fabricated intel" and literally joining ISIS?
Either you seriously believe the US government apparatus is the only source of information other than literally ISIS or you're being unhelpfully hyperbolic.
1. Discovering a terrorist plot to hide bombs inside carry on laptop batteries - and then not taking any precautions at all and allowing laptops on planes as normal: A prudent and smart thing to do.
2. Discovering a terrorist plot to hide bombs inside carry on laptop batteries - and then taking purdent, minimal precuations by asking people to deal with the minor inconvenience of checking their laptops during flights: OH DEAR GOD THIS IS SOOO STUPID IT MAKES ME CRINGE AGGG
While I agree that the prior comment was condescending and not very helpful, I think the key arguments (already put forward elsewhere in this discussion) against the "they have good intel" argument still stand and so far have not been plausibly refuted:
a) I would assume the U.S. would share such intelligence at least with their allies. So why has no other country except the U.K. implemented similar measures? Do they all willingly risk their citizens lives?
b) Why only flights from certain countries (until now Middle East, starting now apparently also Europe)? Don't you think a plane bomber from the Middle East would just put their bomb-infused laptop into the cargo hold, fly to the U.S. and then take it out there and into carry-on on a domestic flight?
The counterargument to b) is that the countries on the ban list have lower carry-on security measures in place than the countries not on the list. I personally would doubt this, especially given the variety of countries not affected by the ban, but I don't have hard data on that.
They have shared the intel with their allies and with the general public. If you guys want to get ahead to conspiracy theroies saying that is is fabricated then you need to explain why other stuff like the moon landing and vaccinations and global warming is not fabricated. You cant have it both ways where all the stuff you like is all true and all the stuff you dont is some kind of conspiracy
>Why only flights from certain countries (until now Middle East, starting now apparently also Europe)? Don't you think a plane bomber from the Middle East would just put their bomb-infused laptop into the cargo hold, fly to the U.S. and then take it out there and into carry-on on a domestic flight?
Because its not designed to be a perfect barrier against all conceivable terrorist attacks - such a system would be burdensome and crazy, that why we take precautions based on the risk posed by the targets.
Im sorry but the mere fact that you dont think the ban is implemented in a very effective way is not in itself evidence of conspiracy or fraud on the part of the government.
Just to set the record straight: I never once in my comment talked about "evidence of conspiracy or fraud on the part of the government". You are putting words into my mouth here.
All I am saying is that in my opinion the intel isn't that strong, because otherwise a) other countries would have acted on it as well and b) you would implement the ban in such a way that it isn't trivial to circumvent.
This has nothing to do with conspiracy or fraud. Faced with the same evidence, different people can come to different conclusions and cost/benefit trade-offs, and apparently the U.S. government (for whatever reasons) has come to a different conclusion than most of the rest of the world. Is this a sign of a conspiracy? No. Does this mean these new U.S. policies are per se reasonable and a good idea? Also no.
But thats exactly what you are saying when you say that they made up a terror threat and lied about the contents of information in the raid to justify policies. That is the definition of fraud and conspiracy
I also never said that "they made up a terror threat and lied about the contents of information in the raid".
There are thousands of pieces of intelligence being gathered every day from various sources about potential new terror plots. They aren't black or white and most of the time very hard to interpret. In the end, it will always come down to interpretation of the actual factual evidence at hand. What is "strong" evidence for one person can be "pretty weak" for someone else. Even if everyone agrees about the actual pieces of evidence you can arrive at very different conclusions about what is actually going on. And even if you were to arrive at the same conclusion on what is going on, you can still have very different opinions on what the best course of action in this situation is.
Nothing of this is "making up a terror threat", "lying", "fraud" or "conspiracy".
We had this before with the "binary bombs" and the "shoe bombs", each of which turns into a permanent ban. We already have explosives sensors at airport security queues.
Every time the subject is discussed every thread suggests a whole new bunch of obvious ways to smuggle things onto planes, or otherwise commit acts of sabotage. Not to mention that the terrorists seem to have adapted to the simple, hard to stop plan of driving trucks into crowds.
We are talking about things to do on a plane seat.
The last (and only) time I did a long distance flight, I did 3 things: I watched movies (using plane hardware), I slept (badly), and I used my laptop (I played and worked a bit).
Without my laptop, I could only watch movies or sleep. With a paper notebook, I could do some work, but not much. I could also talk with my neighbours if they feel like it.
Also, I have reserved a flight this summer to see the eclipse. There's no way I'll let my laptop in the cargo hold, for 2 obvious reasons (theft and accidental destruction). So, no laptop for the entire trip. I'll guess I'll have to make do with my palmtop. Not great.
And this is a leisure trip. For a business trip, I would need a computer with my personal settings, that I'm used to: custom keyboard layout, unusual window manager, a GNU/Linux OS… Borrowing a computer can easily be a major hassle.
>intel is just bullshit just to implant those measures
If you are going to assume without evidence and offhand that everything the American government says is bullshit, you might as well go ahead and join the terrorists because you seem to believe that we support and work for an evil, manipulative and deceptive regime.
I am going to believe what the US government says about the raids until there is evidence to the contrary. I believe things on evidence and not because I hate or have an ax to grind with certain countries.
>Or do you think that terrorists are naive and won't use other airlines and origin airports?
Maybe they are just applying greater precautions to areas deemed high risk for attacks, like they have always done - did you consider that. I am not angry because the precautions cannot perfectly protect us from attack, because that would be as unreasonable and irrational as being angry that they are taking any precautions
Step 2: OK, it doesn't look that risky. Still, you never know.
Step 3: I know, that new security check/ban/whatever has non-trivial costs. But we can't do nothing, can we?
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It's a matter of assigning blame. If whoever calls the shots change nothing, and something happens, his head will fall for ignoring that new threat (even if he didn't and made an actual cost/benefit analysis).
Similarly, taking someone off a watch list is very hard. Also see how we are sliding towards a total surveillance state, ostensibly to stop terrorism and child abuse, but actually to stop particular forms of copyright infringement.
> America has intel - and good intel from a raid - that shows that ISIS has the capability and intent to hide a bomb inside laptop batteries to blow up passenger planes containing lots of people.
Citation needed on that one.
Also... Adding a timer to a laptop battery bomb so that it goes off in the storage department is... probably very easy?
It is just as likely that ISIS are putting out a huge campaign of misinformation in the hope that given enough bad intel the good intel doesn't get acted upon.
There have been murmurs of bombs being surgically placed inside people; but I don't hear any increase in security in response to that very real threat.
This is a simple requirement that laptops be checked baggage and not carry on. That hardly seems draconian or extreme by any measure. I realize that this will inconvenience some people but against the very real and imminent threat of an actual discovered terrorist plans to use a laptop to blow up a plane, this seems like a very reasonable and rational step.
If certain people don’t want to visit or do business with America for that reason . . . I don’t think it’s such a terrible loss to lose dealing with people who are so self centered that they would demand that Americans risk the very real threat of deadly terrorist attacks rather than suffer the minor inconvenience of being required to check their laptops during flights.