TSA: Some on US-bound flights must turn on phones | Hacker News Reader

TSA: Some on US-bound flights must turn on phones

bigstory.ap.org

67 pointsjuliann51 comments

"TSA will not disclose which airports will be conducting the additional screening, although it will be at some airports with direct flights to the U.S. Industry data show that more than 250 foreign airports offer nonstop service to the U.S."

Prediction: after some time, they will just roll out this policy everywhere - including US domestic airports.

And this is why it pisses me off that the TSA (I'm only guessing someone official is controlling the account, even if not Mr. Feinstien)responded to my bitching by saying it's only international.

https://twitter.com/TSAmedia_RossF/status/485964450441072640

Prediction: they will not say anything further and use it in completely arbitrary ways whenever and wherever they want.

Would someone please start a religion that denies the authority of the TSA so we can opt out of this security theater on religious grounds?

If you are an Orthodox Jew, I don't think you can turn on a cellphone on the Sabbath.

This is actually a very good point...I wonder if there will be a religious exemption. Some Orthodox Jews can be exceptionally strict (I once was on a delayed flight where we had to offload some of the passengers, since due to the delays their connecting flight would have taken place on the Sabbath).

While an Orthodox Jew cannot directly ask you to take his cellphone and turn it on, he or she will be indifferent to you taking and power cycling it voluntarily. It's the intent and activity that's considered sinful, not state of the device per se.

Also it's perfectly normal to leave a phone powered on for a Sabbath, if you don't actively use it. Same applies to e.g. elevators, that just cruise in an endless loop and stop on every floor. You can ride in it, as long as you aren't the operator.

Source: living in Israel for many years.

Observant Jews don't fly on planes, drive in cars, or use money on the Sabbath, either. So it's fairly unlikely that someone who observes the Sabbath would be asked to turn on a cellphone by the TSA at that time.

In all likeliness an orthodox Jew will fly the national carrier (El-Al), which does not fly on Sabbath.

If you consider this insane from an economic perspective I think you're right.

It's unlikely that an Orthodox Jew will fly an El Al plane. Possible, but unlikely.

As for the fact that El Al doesn't fly on the Sabbath: It used to, and stopped doing so thanks to a combination of coalition politics (since it was a state-owned airline) and business reasons. True, El Al would make lots of money if it also flew on the Sabbath -- but it would lose the business of many observant Jews, who fly because of its adherence to these rules.

However, El Al has a subsidiary called Sandor that does fly on Saturdays. I'm not sure about its recently launched low-cost subsidiary, called Up.

I wouldn't mind it if El Al were to fly on the Sabbath, despite the fact that I observe Jewish law. However, I've taken El Al flights on several occasions because they were the only ones who gave me enough time to get from my house to the airport on Saturday night, after the Sabbath ended.

  It's unlikely that an Orthodox Jew will fly an El Al plane. Possible, but unlikely.

Why do you think so? I have to admit that I was just guessing, but it seemed logical (most notably the fact that only kosher food is available). What alternatives does an orthodox Jew really have? Since it's just a guess and I certainly don't have any hard data, I could be wrong, of course.

  True, El Al would make lots of money if it also flew on the Sabbath -- but it would lose the business of many observant Jews, who fly because of its adherence to these rules.

I was not even thinking about lost revenue, but about the fact that the planes just lie idle for a minimum of 24 hours every week. A plane, which is not in the air is a very, very expensive entity.

In any case: thanks for the insights.

> Why do you think so? I have to admit that I was just guessing, but it seemed logical > (most notably the fact that only kosher food is available). What alternatives does an orthodox Jew really have?

Orthodox Jews are about 20 percent of the Israeli population, and have a lot of different job options -- teachers, professors, shop owners, lawyers, bankers, programmers, managers, insurance salesmen, etc. The sandwich shop from which I bought lunch today is Orthodox, as is the receptionist at the first client I met with.

Virtually every public venue in Israel has kosher food. Every single one of my clients has a kosher cafeteria for their employees. Those that don't have cafeterias are located a short walk from kosher restaurants and supermarkets.

Most Israelis aren't religiously observant, but most do (according to surveys I read years ago) want some degree of kosher food in their lives. Whether they approve of the current mix of religion and state is another question altogether. The haredim (sometimes known as "ultra-Orthodox") are a different population altogether; while they're religiously observant, the fact that many (or most) of their men don't work or serve in the army has been a major source of political tension for decades.

Given that about 20 percent of the population is religiously observant, that El Al pilots all come from the air force, and that religious Jews are a growing proportion of soldiers in elite units, I'm going to guess that we'll see more and more religiously observant El Al pilots in the future. But I've flown on El Al a lot, and I can't remember ever seeing a male flight attendant (which El Al has on every single flight) or pilot saying "goodbye" to us while wearing a kippa (i.e., head covering).

Thank you for taking out the time for a detailed answer.

See kids, religion has its uses ..

They do this at Ben Gurion Airport too - make you turn on all your electronics, the Israeli airports are praised for their security procedures - right?

eg: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/23/airport-security_n_...

Israel openly practices racial profiling of passengers[0], something which is not legal in the US (which must instead practice it in secret)[1][2].

I would not want to use Israel's security procedures as a model for the US for a number of reasons - the unabashed racial profiling is one, but a more basic reason is the fact that Israel faces a very real and direct threat, whereas the TSA itself admits that there is no threat of terrorism in the US[3].

[0] From a Jewish publication: "Arab passengers, or non-Jews, for example, are routinely subjected to greater questioning than are Israeli Jews. " http://www.cjp.org/page.aspx?id=218685

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/us/racial-profiling-at-bos...

[2]Officially, this was ended a few months ago in Israel (http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-03-26/israel-ends-bla...) - it remains to be seen whether or not this has truly been ended in practice

[3] http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/tsa-admits-...

They've also done a remarkably good job of pissing off a lot of their neighbors.

Historic background:

* they have done so since they were created by UN in 1948

* all neighbouring countries declared war on them then. As far as I know only one of them has since retracted their declaration of war.

Edit: Is it downvoted because of factual inaccuracies, tone, relevance or something else? Honest question, I have noe clue.

Probably factual inaccuracies, since Israel was not created by the UN (it was supposed to, but the Israelis declared Israel themselves because the UN was sitting on their hands, and took a larger area than UN had designated to Israel) and I don't recall Lebanon declaring war on Israel.

Israeli here, flying to Europe couple of times/year. They don't make you turn on all electronics in Ben Gurion, that's just not true; asked me to boot up my laptop once or twice (probably because it can be used as a case for explosives due to its size), but not cellphone or an iPod.

Maybe they do check Muslims more thoroughly, that would make sense. I never took any interest in it, so cannot confirm it. (In the Army, I would totally pay much more attention to Arabs than to other civilians, but that's so painfully obvious, right?)

Whenever that model is considered nice I try to paint a different picture. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3283768#up_3285789

I've lived there for a year and travelled to Ben Gurion before and after that time. It's never pleasant and often downright insane.

It's interesting the different experiences people have.

I've found LLBG to be downright pleasant. I get there at most 90 minutes prior to an international flight, breeze through security in about 15-30 minutes depending on queues and often have time to spare to get a coffee and browse through the duty free shops at my leisure.

Full disclosure: I am an Israeli citizen, but I've had this experience even prior to becoming a citizen, when I was only a US citizen.

Regarding your last sentence: May I ask whether you

a) speak Hebrew

b) are jewish?

Both seems to help a lot (got some friends from DE and the US that had less trouble than I did and .. well, that might make a difference).

I'd certainly even agree that I'd prefer the treatment in IL to any body scanner/groping experience "elsewhere", but I don't like the experience one bit and get singled out more or less every time.

I assume this is so they can log cell phone/tablet IMEI numbers and/or MAC addresses at the airport while the foreigners queue to be finger printed and photographed?

If they log the IMEI they can track most foreigners as they move around the country. Even if they are not bringing sim cards, the phones will still try to connect to a local network to allow emergency calls.

Or maybe so they can confiscate and download the contents of electronics devices quickly with as little delay as possible (it can take 5-10+ minutes before a completely dead smartphone has enough charge to complete a boot up).

Then include your device, powered on in airplane mode, in an easy to reach pocket.

Easy to prove it's on, just don't take it out of airplane mode until you arrive at your destination. In flight you could power it off & back on before touchdown to preserve battery.

Actually, in the line that I usually wait for to be finger printed and photographed, there are signs everywhere telling you to NOT use a cellphone.

Seeing as it can take up to an hour, most people would probably love to do so.

Wow, that's a blast from the past. I recall having to do the same with my Game Boy and cell phone when traveling through ATL in the 90's, well before the TSA was created.

Except last time I checked, possession of a mobile device is not required by law? So, what the fuck.

  Not to mention: [
       
      "the battery's dead and the proprietary charger
      is stuck in checked baggage", "whoops i lost the 
      battery", "whoops i dropped the phone and now it 
      is broken", "whoops cannot power on without 
      password for encryption", "aw shucks my phone is 
      keister stashed so come get it big boy", "hello 
      look at this childrens toy which very closely 
      resembles a cellular phone ha ha", "gee why does 
      this powered on mobile device emit far more radio 
      spectrum energy than expected even though i am 
      usually a law abiding citizen?"
      
  ]

    var terroristWarningFlags = // sarcasm...?

Either way, with the TSA you don't win with reason or truth.

Well, the non-cutesy response is to cull local IMEI's (with false base station attacks) and spoof random IMEI's that spam local base stations with control channel traffic, and swamp normal signal data with noise. (not quite "jamming", per se, but maybe something close to it)

Someone could likely accomplish this, and enable others to participate in the protest of security theater, by developing and distributing an open-source application that interfaces with a number of readily available software defined radio antennas (preferably those costing less than one hundred dollars).

Although, to do so might be terr'ism.

TFA states passengers will have to turn on their phones if they have them. I assume the fear is that you'll have a phone-like bomb with a chemical battery-like component.

Toothpaste remains completely banned.

Airports that are operated competently will provide μUSB and Lightning power tables at security. Mercenary airports will provide for-pay stations.

Lots of international airports are competently run. Most US airports, unfortunately, are neither competent nor even competently mercenary so there will be trouble when the TSA imports this plan to the USA.

This has to be one of the silliest moves yet.

What a monstrous waste the TSA is. A waste in resources better utilized elsewhere.

TSA is not a waste. It's a business model (for some).

Is just a start-up that went big; the security business was just begging for disruption.

Can't the TSA just do what the Canadians do and swab electronics and use the ion scanner?

If explosives were what they were really searching for you would be absolutely correct.

http://xkcd.com/651/

and by turning it on you just proved you have the materials for a bomb. touche.

You also have to press all the possible combination of numbers on your device, just to make sure there isn't one to activate a bomb. You also have to open all the apps in your smartphone, just in case one of them is "open to blow the bomb".

So you've got 17 apps on your phone. And all you need to do to see Allah is to open 5 of them in sequence. 17x16x15x14x13 = 742560.

Or maybe all you have to do is get your unlock password wrong a certain way.

Fact is, the fact your phone boots makes it more of a threat, not less. LOL!

Fact is, this is not about security. It is an exercise in security theater.

Because it's impossible to build a cell phone bomb that also functions?

To be extra cautious, they should profile people with older blockier phones. Oh no, now I said it, the TSA will likely do it. xD

I wonder what will be done in the case of laptops with dead/no batteries.

> It says devices that won't power up won't be allowed on planes, and those travelers may have to undergo additional screening.

Better bring your charger.

But what’s the probability they’ll let you use it?

Another on the long list of reasons I don't every fly to, from or through the USA even though it sometimes makes my routes longer and more expensive.

Bravo, go ahead and pat yourself on the back again as you add nothing to the conversation.

Right, because only USA airports (or flying to US) has stupid rules? I've gone through the same inane things in other countries. In fact the only time I've ever had to turn on my computer was outside of US flying to another country outside the US.

Duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7996380

So, is this effectively saying that the scanners and such have been seriously flawed this whole time?

This is step one. Then in a few months they will introduce new requirements to hand over the login password so the TSA agent can confirm the laptop indeed works.

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