DHS Cites 'Credible Threat' As Reason For Forcing Travelers To The US To Hand Over Powered-Up Devices To Airport Security
from the new-searches-and-screenings-because-reasons dept
The Department of Homeland Security still has the power to control the world's airports, or at least those of our Five Eyes' spying allies. New DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson issued the following statement on July 2nd.
DHS continually assesses the global threat environment and reevaluates the measures we take to promote aviation security. As part of this ongoing process, I have directed TSA to implement enhanced security measures in the coming days at certain overseas airports with direct flights to the United States. We will work to ensure these necessary steps pose as few disruptions to travelers as possible. We are sharing recent and relevant information with our foreign allies and are consulting the aviation industry. These communications are an important part of our commitment to providing our security partners with situational awareness about the current environment and protecting the traveling public. Aviation security includes a number of measures, both seen and unseen, informed by an evolving environment. As always, we will continue to adjust security measures to promote aviation security without unnecessary disruptions to the traveling public.The key part is in the second sentence: "enhanced security measures." The unspecified threat the DHS is reacting to has added a new requirement for passengers taking direct flights to the United States. In short, you'd better make sure all your electronics are charged before you reach the security checkpoint or you quite possibly won't be going anywhere.
Heathrow Airport has told passengers to ensure all electronic devices carried as hand baggage are charged before travel if they are flying to the US.Anyone who has absentmindedly allowed a battery to discharge will still have several options, according to Heathrow officials. They can use airport "charging points" to bring their devices back to life or stash them in stowed luggage. They can also mail the device to themselves if they don't mind being separated for a little extra time. This all sounds very accommodating, but simply having a drained device can place you under suspicion.
It posted details of the new rule on its website and Facebook page.
The move follows a request from the US that "certain overseas airports" implement enhanced security measures. The UK government has also revised its rules to state that if a "device doesn't switch on, you won't be allowed to bring it on to the aircraft".
Affected passengers have been told they may also have to undergo extra screening measures.There also seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the DHS and the affected airports as to which devices are subject to the new "charged and operable" standard. The TSA says "some devices, including mobile phones," but fails to be any more specific, exactly the sort of vague, malleable direction the TSA is fond of. Heathrow's list of electronics includes hair dryers, electric shavers, cameras and mp3 players and the wording below the list says nothing more than "make sure your electronic devices are charged before you travel."
This vagueness from everyone involved isn't a good sign. Having to present devices not normally inspected by security personnel and power them up lends itself to "incidental" device searches. The heightened suspicion of devices in general doesn't help. And wherever this "credible threat" the DHS cites in support of this move actually originates, it's apparently hoped that it will route itself through Germany, France or the UK. At this point, no other countries offering direct flights to the US have agreed to the additional security measures.
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Filed Under: batteries, devices, dhs, electronics, powered on, terrorism, threats, tsa
Reader Comments
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When some alien archaeologists come they'll really believe cellphones were used as weapons.
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DHS: Turn on all devices.
Our wonderful government is so screwed up, they can't even give the same instructions to its people.
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According to what the article says, they're already doing this, minus the protective chamber part. Oh, and that suspicious device is also OK in stowed luggage, apparently.
Did you perhaps expect a credible screening process rather than an extra bit of theatre?
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Yes, indeed they have. This is nothing but security theatre all over again. The lazy way out. "Does it turn on?"
Why not just eliminate public passenger flight in the US entirely and get it over with, because sooner or later every airline there will go bankrupt due to the excessive regulations as nobody will want to fly them anymore.
Oh, the government will bail them out? Thats makes it okay.
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Agence de Sécurité Theater
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no body cavity search?
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I also highly doubt whether there are new/extra charging points available on the airport. But I suppose tere aren't. Mailing service? On the other side of the airport, with of course limited opening hours. And with an airport price tag.
If they wanted to do it right, they would have charging points right where the inspection is, including the chargers themselves.
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Terrorist... who uses cords these days?
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No carry on anything allowed, and everybody flies naked.
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Putting devices that do not power up in the hold is slightly suspicious, unless they have definite intelligence about a suicide bomber, as a timer can be very small.
This is not to say that the opportunity for some extra searches will not be used, or some vague intelligence is providing an excuse for some extra searches.
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"Airport Security Officer: it's a dildo. Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a dildo, never your dildo."
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Pitiful.
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Note that Semtex can be detected by the X-Ray scanners they have been using for the last 1/2 century.
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They wanted you to power up your electronics to show that they still worked and that you had not replaced a component with some sort of incendiary device,
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Look on the plus side
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it's to look into your phone
Keep your phones encrypted.
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But what the hell is the point in this now? Especially if it only applies to hand baggage, not stuff that's going in the hold? I bet you could still fit a decent-sized bomb or a few grand's worth of cocaine into a modern laptop.
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most credible threat to the US
I think their actions have shown them to be more than credible threats to Americans and their freedom.
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What is next? When will they be happy?
When will they realise that this is exactly the kind of reaction that is desired? They want us to give up our freedoms? They want to impose capricious authoritarian laws. At the rate we are going we are going we are going to achieve all they want without them actually carrying out any further atrocities in Europe or the States.
I for one would like to see a reduction in the FUD and a near blanket removal of most of the pointless security checks introduced since 9/11, Richard Reid and the liquid bomb plot.
Lets face it most of the security measures introduced won't actually stop any of these happening again. I do say most as clearly making it much harder for high-jackers to enter the cockpit and therefore take over the plane. But the rest of it? Really?
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I am wondering why a device that does power up is suddenly off of the suspicious list.
Stupid rules like this make it easier to get things through the screening process because rather than checking if a device is full of, you know, explosives or weapons, they start to focus on whether or not it functions.
It would not be difficult to take the guts out of an old IBM Thinkpad, replace it with components 1/4 of the size, and have a device full of empty space that powers up just fine.
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"Only terrorists have flat batteries."
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Re: What is next? When will they be happy?
For the humor impaired, I'm being sarcastic.
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Also, if you were planning to take a walkman with you on an airplane, better do so before the NSA sends this comment to the DHS.
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Does that not reek of Empire, implying that the TSA has jurisdiction in foreign countries?
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Sounds familiar
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devices (TM)
Idiots. Stop Paying to be spied on.
I Say..
Let Ma Bell Burn in Hell.
Restore the US Constitution
With all the spying going on, you'd be better off with a two way radio instead. Your not giving bank account last four's "accidentally" over a radio, since you will be doing your business in person. And if ya got CB, then you don't really even need a name. Not to mention with anal oath breakers out there, there's no contacts, addresses, phones, etc., inside a CB for them to illegally search.
I know, repetitive rant, but that's why you love my posts.
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unlock your device...
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Re: devices (TM)
How did you mail in your comment? Does TechDirt have a special dropbox to send them to?
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Re: Re: devices (TM)
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Re: 'pathetic' characters
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2684714/I-tell-I-m-going-jihad-Lol-I-ll-arrested-What-B ritish-terrorist-Birmingham-told-childhood-friend-travelled-Syria-join-rebel-fighters.html
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Heathrow Airport Security
No reason given, just every 4th passenger. Seems to me it was the, "Your country started it!" friends of mine got when flying out of Germany.
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I usually make sure it's plugged in to my laptop while doing anything like that. Having my phone drained would be a horrible thing for me, because that means I can't turn it back on when we land to check for messages. :P
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Now Semtex is annoyingly inert, so what you want to be looking for on your X-rays are strange wires and the rather distinctive standard detonators used with it.
I'd expect "sensible terrorists" to revert to different chemicals that are easier to blow up.
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Now of course a ghettoblaster is not common enough to receive no extra scrutiny these days, but you get the drift.
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What if the kids drain the battery?
However, what happens when a family charges their iPad, gets on a flight from London to New York, and their kid drains the battery while in flight?
Will the TSA let the parents charge the device or will they assume they're terrorists in disguise?
I'm sure the TSA will let them through, especially if they're a white family with a US passport. But heaven help the dark-skinned family coming from Iran through London to New York.
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...and since the charger happens to be the USB port these days, it's only a matter of time till the NSA will start putting some extras into those kindly provided chargers.
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I avoid flying year round except the minimal parent visiting I have to do other wise I do not fly.
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And that's why TSA wants to ensure that the battery of a suicide bomber's phone will last until the plane has landed safely and everybody left.
Who in his right mind would blow himself up while he still has a highscore to beat?
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Meanwhile....
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Now even less interest in visiting the USA
Maybe we should start calling it the United States of Angst, a much more appropriate title.
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Name of a female demon in a small number of Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts. The name of Jeh is commonly, but with little justification, translated as “whore.” It is the Middle Persian rendering of Avestan jahī- (or jahikā-). That word is used in a number of different meanings, but it appears to have originally meant “woman” and can still be recognized in this meaning in many Avestan passages...
From (and more at): http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jeh
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Classic security theatre
So if your electronic device is deemed too suspicious to be allowed into the plane's cabin, they give you the option of putting it somewhere else on the plane, or put it on another plane! How is this safer?!
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why assume it's about explosives?
has more to do with fingerprinting the devices in question.
Or something like that.
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Re: no body cavity search?
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Of course I'm sure such a stunt would never be used by the TSA or another agency working alongside them that would love to have access to countless electronic devices and the data on them... /s
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I remember that one (the story, not the URL)
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/08/beware-of-juice-jacking/
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Re: Now even less interest in visiting the USA
So I won't travel to North Korea, Turkmenistan or the USA.
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So does this one; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28223150
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"The move follows a request from the US that "certain overseas airports" implement enhanced security measures."
"But the Department for Transport (DfT) has now issued updated guidelines, saying: "In line with the US advice..."
"American officials ordered some overseas airports with direct flights to the US to intensify screening of electronic devices last week."
What do you think they say?
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Must I leave my underwear behind(pun intended) if it has skid mark or evidence of explosive discharges? My shoes might be excessively worn too are they next? Where does it stop???
Follow El Al airlines security. They don't have hijackings, are less invasive of children and their security really works. But they pay their security people a very good salary, live depend on the quality of their work!
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Re: Bureacratic self contradictory admisnstrative law
Amendment 6 - Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses. Ratified 12/15/1791.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
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Re: Re: Bureacratic self contradictory admisnstrative law
And isn't that just what you get at US airports nowadays, trial by groping in full view of the public?
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Unfortunately not. The DHS, TSA, and other intrusive three-letter agencies are the result of governments bringing George Orwell's 1984 to life.
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What's the betting...
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Re: Now even less interest in visiting the USA
Or the United States of Asshattery.
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That's just what the TSA wants to do, in your bodily 'cavities'!
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