InkUnderNails

Well, this should get interesting.

I travel with a lot of electronic devices. And spare batteries. I generally have a dozen or so 9V alkaline (deemed a terrorist threat in SLC) and about the same AA lithium batteries.

Most of my electronic devices are analog. How does one boot an analog device?

Some that are not analog are USB powered. How do I turn on a USB powered device? (I know, plug it into the computer, but I have to wait for my windows computer to boot and we know how long that takes.) Still, the unit does not come on. Some LED's will flash but nothing else.

Still others are device powered, as in 18V (the reason for the 9V batteries) ICP integrating accelerometer power supplies.

That is a fun one. The bag checker will pull it out as it looks like the dummy detonator they saw in class and ask what it is. I say, "It is a regulated 18V DC ICP analog integrated accelerometer power supply." And then I wait. Best ever answer: "That's what I thought." Worst ever answer: "I think it is a detonator for an IED" and started flipping switches. Good thing he was wrong.

Blogndog

Ny Times has a piece on this in today's paper -- it says that if your device will not power up, you will have the opportunity to charge it. If it still will not power up, it will be "confiscated," and it is "not clear" what will happen to confiscated devices.

chollie

Well, actually, I think it's pretty clear what will happen to them...

Initial reports from BA were that if the device wouldn't power up, pax wouldn't be allowed to fly - no mention of confiscation as an option. That in itself was interesting, because TSA wouldn't hesitate to say the item will be 'surrendered' but I'd be surprised if you weren't allowed to fly.

What BA's not mentioning is: if your device is broken/won't power up/whatever and you have to be rebooked, are they really going to pull your bags from the flight? Wouldn't it be an obvious security risk if they didn't?

fischi

Interesting - the Telegraph is saying (as I read it) that you won't have the opportunity to charge a dead device; you will simply be denied boarding.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...y-is-dead.html

chollie

Perhaps they're reconsidering. If a pax isn't allowed to charge the device but has to be rebooked on a later flight, any checked bags have to be removed from the aircraft, plus there's the extra work entailed in rebooking the pax.

Odd that BA is making explicit statements about how they're going to handle things, but I haven't seen similar statements from Delta or UA or from other cities with the new restrictions.

fischi

I wonder how many devices the average traveler carries: I often have 2 or 3 phones, maybe a music player, a laptop, maybe a camera (that is forever running out of power). If I'm flying with my kids, there will also be 1-2 iPads and some handheld game machines. I often turn the phones/laptops completely off to save battery life. It can take 1-2 minutes for an iPhone to boot. If I'm typical, though I'm probably not, we are talking 3 minutes or so of extra screening time per passenger. USDOT estimate a weighted average value of time of $42.10/hr for air travelers in the US. At 3 minutes of additional screening time, that is a time cost of $2.11 per passenger. With 738.6 million emplacements in 2013, that would be about $1.5 trillion of time cost in the US. I'd love to see that regulatory impact assessment. Even if I am twice as device loaded as average, it would take a lot of "benefit" to justify a 750 billion cost per year.

alanR

Better travel with one of these

FredAnderssen

I've always wondered how they remove bags from the aircraft. Flying out of AMS on fully packed flights to MSP, the hold is literally packed with three or four hundred suitcases, and in some instances, less than 15 minutes before takeoff bags are still being loaded onto the plane. Are they saying that they're going to root around in the hold until they find my (two) bags which are more than likely separated into different areas in the short amount of time left before the flight leaves? Or do they have some magic GPS which leads them directly to my bags?

Also, I often travel with one of these as do tens of thousands of others every day:



How do you power one of these up to the satisfaction of screening?

FredAnderssen

Looks interesting, but unless that's an LED at one end, how do we know for sure that it's not a bomb?

FredAnderssen

Here's an interesting take on it from the Young Turks on Youtube.

GUWonder

The same kind of "credible" intelligence that said SH's Iraq needed to be invaded and that would help set the world right.

The same kind of "credible" intelligence that got the CIA to lose multiple people in a single incident of a turncoat attack by a turncoat a handful of years ago.

The same kind of "credible" intelligent that got us the airport liquid restrictions after some losers whipped up a fantasy that they had no ability to pull off but that "allied" "intelligence" intercepted and thus resulted in a rush by the British and US "security" services.

That intelligence may be considered "credible" doesn't mean it is right and that it should necessarily be acted upon.

GUWonder

As Edward Snowden has also known and stated (as much to Greenwald and others), powering on a phone, tablet or laptop may enable the government to monitor/meddle with such devices even if a device holder/owner thinks the device is not connected to a network; this may hold true even if the phone is powered off or thought to be powered off. [The same ability to monitor/meddle doesn't hold true anywhere as commonly for chargers.] Proximity to the device helps to monitor or meddle with it. The device being on or having power helps in monitoring or meddling with it. Want to reduce the chances of a device being monitored/meddled with? Then draining the power and removing the battery generally helps.

Apple thrilled with this move? This should help cut back on gray market exports/sales this fall, if this show continues all summer and into the fall.

84fiero

Being denied boarding is one thing, but I'd like to know how the security agency would have authority to confiscate private property simply on these grounds.

And let's say for the sake of argument that it is credible...the US has now tipped off the intended perpetrators that they will be looking for this specific type of "weapon". So, if I'm one of said perpetrators, sure I may still try this angle since perhaps not every pax will be asked to power up..and I guess suicide bombers are by definition expendable anyway. But why wouldn't I now shift gears to some other means of disruption of the US airline world, ideally something that the crack intelligence community hasn't yet thought of and which would have a higher chance of success?

petaluma1

I, for one, have a difficult time believing that terrorists are "chattering" about their intentions - unless that chatter is a disinformation tactic.

Spiff

Nonsense. Jeh Johnson has been chattering on all week.