(Paul J. Richards/AFP/Newscom)
TSA laptop policy change good news for convention-bound
By Jimmy Orr | 08.16.08
Going to the conventions later this month? Good news for fliers. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has modified one of their rules which should make those carrying laptops much happier.
Starting today, the requirement that fliers remove laptops from their bags before going through security has been modified. That is, travelers who own laptop cases which are deemed “checkpoint friendly” will not have to unpack their laptops. Usually. There is some fine print. More on that in a moment.
The styles which the TSA deems acceptable are: butterfly, tri-fold and sleeve. Accordion and backpack style laptop bags will still require fliers to separate their laptops from the cases.
Not sure what you have? Check out the TSA website.
The fine print? Even if you have the right type of bag, there is no assurance it still will not have to be screened separately. In a press release, the TSA states:
Purchasing one of these bags will not guarantee that you can leave your laptop in your bag for screening. If a TSO finds that the bag does not present a clear and distinct image of the laptop separate from the rest of the bag, the laptop will have to be screened separately.
Are checkpoint friendly shoes next?
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2. Keir | 08.16.08
Neil,
you took the words right out of my mouth. I would like to add what Bobby Kennedy said moments before his death. “fear not the Path Of Truth for the lack of people walking on it”.
Robert Francis Kennedy 06/06/1968
3. anonymous | 08.16.08
This is a solution is search of a problem. Most travelers were willing to have their computers x-rayed and were quite quick at sliding them in and out. The new bags are fine, but let’s talk about something that’s actually important.
What should concern travelers more is what happens when TSA decides to confiscate a laptop (which, according to TSA policy, they may do at any time without cause). TSA policy is that there is no limit to how long they can keep it and no limit on what they can search it for.
Do you have a song, photo, or game on your machine that doesn’t belong to you? Watch out — TSA can search you arbitrarily — to keep air travel safe, of course.
4. Andrew | 08.16.08
But the TSA can still “hold” and inspect laptops or any device - phone, mp3 or mp4 player, usb stick….., for what ever time frame they see fit are are under no obligation to tell you why or give any indication of what they will do with it. If the drive is password protected, as corporate ones should be, it seems to take longer for their return. Presumable the cracking of business computers is considered vital to national profits, oops I mean security!
5. Casey | 08.16.08
Why is it that most airports outside the US - including security-hypersensitive Heathrow - can manage to screen without laptop removal - in any kind of bag? TSA is a joke.
6. Ben | 08.16.08
They’ve already tried checkpoint-friendly shoes and the TSA grunts have disallowed them.
8. Steve | 08.16.08
Frogs in the pot of water, very slowly being boiled. That’s what we are. And the sleeping populace is letting it happen.
9. Shane Warne | 08.16.08
I love America, especially its entrepreneurs.
As an investor, I have been a frequent traveler to USA. However, as small irritations like these pile up, I feel its becoming more and more difficult to do business in America. Now, it is much better to set up business elsewhere (Europe, Australia, Israel, some developing economies) and hire talent globally (including the USA).
Till, the policies are made traveler/ investor friendly, people like me will be taking business elsewhere and more and more Americans will have to become immigrant labor!!!
11. Jay Arr | 08.16.08
I travel frequently using LAX, JFK, O’Hare, San Francisco, Heathrow, etc. I appreciate the security attention. My laptop and shoes are easy to remove. Only occasionally at JFK do I ever experience a slow line. If you have a problem, solve it yourselves before you get to the airport. Perhaps it means a simple change in attitude.
12. ebw | 08.16.08
i fly frequently (dublin two weeks ago, paris four weeks ago, geneva eight weeks ago, amsterdam twelve weeks ago, … san francisco four weeks from now, ottowa 5 weeks from now, cairo 10 weeks from now, …) and from the rolling audio to the tsa clown shows, its all just “vote republican”
13. IvanTheTerrible | 08.16.08
Does anyone else see a problem with any of this?
At the very least, a basic underlying problem with the TSA policy is that owners don’t actually really know what is on their computer. It is easy for hackers to embed information into a computer without the owner’s knowledge. Forget external hacking…less than one minute left alone with a jump drive will do it. Then, when and if TSA checks and flags the computer in question it becomes the owner’s responsibility to explain something that seems unexplainable.
To most people, the opposite of understanding how a trick works is belief. Establishing a policy of absolute accountability is much like believing in magic.
No one who actually does not want to eventually get caught takes contraband across security checks. They let someone else do it. That is why they ask if you have packed your own bags and if the bags have been in your possession at all times before boarding the aircraft.
But the thing is that laptops just don’t work the same way. They are vulnerable all of the time, not just before you leave to take a trip. For that matter, so are PDA’s and smart phones and so are jump drives.
TSA has moved into a murky technical policy area they are completely incompetent and unable to manage. They are unqualified and they never can be qualified because given the scope and nature of the problem becoming qualified will cost too much. There are too many ways to hide information. It is therefore too hard for any sane person to truly understand exactly what is actually being accomplished except the invasion of privacy of airline customers.
Our Canadian American border has no fence so one can simply handing jump drives to Canadians from someone’s back yard. For that matter, unless the Government is able to prevent Mexicans and Americans from tossing jump drives over the new anti terrorist fence, it will not be able to physically stop massive amounts of information from passing across our borders in that direction either.
Security policies and laws should not be written to support the pipe dreams of lawyers or else we shall all lose our right to free speech.
14. Matt | 08.16.08
People get a clue. As long as people want to hijack planes, use them as weapons and attack civilians (I am not just talking about Americans but civilians everywhere) we need to continue to find a way to make airline travel safe for the people in the air and on the ground. I have seen a bunch of whiners so far leaving comments but I haven’t seen anyone give a real solution. If you think TSA is a joke, do you have a better solution? Do you want to be strip searched each time you go on a plane, perhaps then you can be closer to 100% confident that you are safer, but then what about preventing corruption from a ground crew member. We can’t prevent all the problems but I say let’s support the people who are at least doing something about your and my safety. No I am not a Republican and no I am not a democrat either. Just a guy trying to live in peace in America and in the “friendly” skies.
15. I. N. Quiry | 08.16.08
Is there any substantive information that defines the actual number of terrorists that the TSA (totally stupid anencephalics) have apprehended since the initiation of this dysfunctional cadre of louts?
16. Prath | 08.16.08
this is another scam by US government to create economy which is not sustainable…now some compnay will start making carrying case for laptop just like BBB started selling personal kit for 20 bucks (made in china for less than 2 bucks) …now we should start seeing laptop caryring case….just another way to make money for someone….
17. bobeaux | 08.16.08
The problems with Bush,Cheney,Rove & their TSA will all be corrected starting 20 Jan 2009, The End Of An Error.
18. Lorens | 08.16.08
Unfortunately, nothing will change on 20 Jan 2009. Whoever wins, doesn’t matter. USA policies and political tendencies will still be exactly the same. USA remands me of a Titanic who spotted an iceberg but it can’t steer away from it in time to avoid it, because it’s too big and heavy.
19. Dan S | 08.16.08
I guess lots of people who posted on this article would rather take the risk of letting a hijacker onto a plane (no matter where the plane is located, in US or worldwide) than to come to the airport an hour earlier and spend about 10-15 minutes waiting in line and checking all of their bags through security.
Like what Matt(14) posted, either think of a better idea or take another transportation like the bus or train.
20. Rick | 08.16.08
What is the purpose of screening carry on luggage and passengers?
:: to prevent weapons (mostly guns) from getting on board.
:: to prevent explosives from getting on board.
screening for knives is just silly, after 9/11, no one will EVER be able to successfully hijack an airplane with a knife. The attempt would be, at best, a clumsy and messy suicide method.
Sadly, given the density of laptops, x-raying them to check that they are not concealing explosive devices is non-trivial. Hard disks power supplies and memory are dense, and the circuits in laptops resemble the circuits in bombs a great deal.
And even sadder, turning the laptop on proves nothing, since you could replace 90% of the battery with explosives, and still run long enough for a gate check.
SO…. we get the TSA and security theater. It would be nice if they simply admitted the issue, and cleanly and decently screened for guns and bombs and let the rest just go.
Oh well. They’ve missed my pocket knife the last six trips.
21. Bobierto | 08.16.08
I have long been of the opinion that TSA is just a front for the Bush administration, making us just a wee bit miserable in the name of safety, thereby reminding us of those heroes in the Bush administration who are keeping us safe. Your tax dollars at work, keeping Repuglicans in power.
22. Will | 08.17.08
Information on your corporate laptop is the least on their concern. With the intricate circuits and variety of materials contained in a single laptop it is easy to see that they are the most likely vehicle for a bomb. The TSA could really care less about what is on joe schmoe account manager’s laptop.
23. veryhairydog | 08.17.08
TSA are a bunch of baboons. I was traveling from St Louis airport with my 1 year old daughter who likes carries a simple hand towel. The morons forced the towel out of her hand so it can be security checked in the great big machines. My daughter even after few months gets freightens when see sees the security line. TSA along with homeland security are unnecessary and waste of taxpayer money. I hope the ticket taxes don’t get raised again to hire more of these monkeys.
24. kb richard | 08.17.08
The “Blackshirts” manning our border crossings have way bigger sticks (up where the sun doesn’t shine) then airport TSA employees.
Even the immigration employees (who at least had to pass a civil service exam) think these “Homeland Security” folks are way “beyond the call of duty”.
These “security methods” constantly failing testing is the real story.
25. phil | 08.17.08
In this era of technological advances, it seems to me that there would be more understanding of technology (how long it takes to determine that a laptop is safe), as well as a more intelligent method to deal with it. Why not get someone at the gates (if it must be checked at a gate) to check the laptops and let the travelers go on instead of appropriating their equipment in the name of safety.
26. Erik Impudicus | 08.17.08
Most of what TSA does is ridiculous, like forcing people to take off their shoes, take out their laptops, plans to install new machines to peer through your clothing so that even your genitals are viewable, impounding laptops of American citizens returning from overseas international travel. There seems to be an Anglo-Americxan (USSA-UKKKA-Australia et al.) disease where these Orwellian governments feel that they must monitor all of our emails, our phone calls, our faxes, our letters to the editor, our campaign and charitable contributions, etc. Now the Department of Injustice is proposing new rules to enable the 18,000 state and local (city and county) police to spy on us and turn it ofer to the feds. I’m close to retirement age and I am now planning to leave the USSA if McCain is elected. McCain = 4 more years of failed Bush policies, and he is proposing more tax cuts for the rich and 100 years of war. God help us all!
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Jimmy Orr has worked in politics for the majority of his professional career working for two U.S. Senators, two Governors and one President. Most recently, Orr served as White House Spokesman and Internet Director for President George W. Bush and Special Advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger for Internet Communications.
David Cook is Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor and host of the Monitor's newsmaker breakfasts. He was the Monitor's editor from 1994 to 2001. Cook is a graduate of Principia College, served in the U.S. Army, was a Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and is a member of the Gridiron Club, Washington's oldest journalistic organization.
1. Neil | 08.16.08
The TSA is there to make people people feel safer. There is no objective proof that it actually is making anyone safer, but it does make government bigger. Americans have been frightened by the Bush/Cheney/Rove monarchy into giving up personal freedom for the illusion of safety. Benjamin Franklin said that people willing to do s deserved neither.