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Make sure your electronic devices are charged-up before flying to the U.S. – TSA requirement

 

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If you’re flying (back) to the U.S. from overseas, make sure that all your electronic devices have enough juice left to power-up when you reach airport security, otherwise you won’t be allowed to take them on board due to a new TSA requirement.

The Transportation Security Administration said yesterday that it was requiring certain overseas airports flying directly to U.S. airports to increase security checks on electronic items in response to concerns about new al-Qaida attempts to use them as disguise for bombs.

While the focus appears to be on smartphones, it’s also possible that passengers will be required to power-up tablets and laptops also. Devices that won’t power-up will not be allowed on board, and passengers carrying these devices may be subject to additional screening.

The TSA has not revealed which airports are subject to the new requirements, but London’s Heathrow is known to be one of them.

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Comments

  1. standardpull - 10 years ago

    What happened to the good old days, when we could smoke cigars, carry loaded weapons, and stewardesses were hot women in their early twenties? Gone!

    • Johann (@JoFromPe) - 10 years ago

      We have to go back.

      • Snow Lepp (@snowlep) - 10 years ago

        For Sure .. get rid of these goons. $5 TSA surcharge on Tickets to follow. What is this Keynsian economics ? They don’t need jobs digging holes – build roads and bridges, its all better than this

    • Noy Moshe Kedem-Hadar - 10 years ago

      Well, sadly too many health freaks today so no smoking, as for the weapons I guess too many people got shot, and as for the stewardesses, those girls never left, they just grew up and that’s who’s serving you today :P

  2. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    Absurd. Sickening. New level of psychosis.
    Bow down to your TSA overlords. Capitulate to fraudulent security threats. That’s America.

    • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

      Oh relax! Typical American paranoia in your words for sure.
      Listen, its about safety, and that means cutting out at “terrorists” creativity.
      I’d never like to be the one to “told you so”, when you’re falling out the sky from 10km altitude due to a bomb in the cabin going off.
      Better to be inconvenienced and be alive.

      I don’t understand how people can be so against security. Completely stupid!

  3. Mike Knopp (@mknopp) - 10 years ago

    Yet another pointless waste of time from the TSA. As if a person smart enough to turn a cellphone into a bomb that could fool an x-ray machine isn’t also smart enough to still have it power on. Then again, we are dealing with the morons who thought the perv scanners were a good idea despite their blatantly obvious deficiencies in detecting explosives. However, I am sure they were great when young women traveled.

  4. iphonenick (@iphonenick) - 10 years ago

    Note to whiners here – various airports have had policies regarding electronics that don’t power on for years. My powerbook 520c could only hold a trickle charge in 1999 and security officials at Frankfurt took me to a room that sniffed for bomb residue. Battery cells in electronics look a lot like plastic explosives when put through xray machines, hence the request to power them on or face additional scrutiny. This makes sense compared to taking off shoes!

    • Mike Knopp (@mknopp) - 10 years ago

      Which is exactly why this is so pointless, and exactly why they stopped making people turn on their electronics decades ago. Here is a thought exercise that will likely get me listed on some NSA database, remove 90-95% of the battery and replace it with explosives. There is enough battery left to power on for the miniscule seconds needed for this pointless check, but it still holds plenty of explosives to be nearly as dangerous as one with the entire battery replaced by explosives.

      As for this making sense compared to taking off shoes. Well duh! But that isn’t saying much. The vast majority of TSA procedures are practically worthless at stopping terrorist, and only serve to annoy the 99.999% of people who travel every year that have no ill will at all. Unless you actually believe someone could take over an airplane with a nail file found on a set of fingernail clippers.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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