New ban on flying with a laptop or tablet means the terrorists win
The U.S. and U.K. are banning larger electronic items, like tablets, notebooks and DLSRs, from being carried onboard flights from a small number of countries. If that ban spreads to include more international or even domestic flights, this will result in several nasty consequences:
1. Business travelers may be unable to bring computers on trips at all. Some airlines ban checking luggage with lithium ion batteries into the cargo hold. Nearly all of these devices use LIB. If you can’t carry them onboard, and you can’t check them, they must stay home, or be overnighted to the destination. Shipping those devices may work for some people, but it’s a sucky solution.
2. Even if you can check them, there may be a surge of thefts of these costly electronic goodies from checked baggage. I always carry my expensive pro-grade DSLR and lenses onboard, and never check them. Why? I’m worried about theft and about breakage — that stuff is fragile. If I had to check my camera gear, they’d stay home. Same with my notebook and tablets. There is too much opportunity for stuff to disappear, especially when anyone can easily obtain a universal key for those silly TSA locks. Yes, a family member lost a DSLR from checked luggage.
3. This messes up the plans of airlines who are moving to a BYOD-centric entertainment model. Forget the drop-down TV screens playing one movie. Forget the individual seat-back TV screens offering a choice of movies, TV shows and video games. Airlines are saving money, saving weight, and making customers happy by ditching the electronics and using onboard WiFi to stream entertainment to the passengers’ phone, tablet or laptop. (And they get to charge for air-to-ground WiFi.) According to the Economist, 90% of passengers bring a suitable device. Everyone wins, unless devices are banned. No tablets? No laptops? No onboard entertainment.
The answer to terrorist threats isn’t security theater. Address the risks in an intelligent way, yes. Institute stupid rules that affect all travelers, no. One guy tries to light his shoe on fire, and now you have to take off your shoes to go through airport screening. And now there’s a “threat” and so here’s a new limitation on people making international flights.
That’s how the terrorists win and win and win.
Take a leaf from the one country that does it right, namely Israel. I saw three things there:
– they use intelligence
– they show respect
– they avoid security theatre
If they can do,it, so can the USA.