TSA explains MacBook Air grounding: just doing its job
By Thomas Ricker 
posted March 13th 2008 6:27AM
posted March 13th 2008 6:27AM
posted March 13th 2008 6:27AM
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I just traveled through LA's Ontario Airport and Colorado Springs with my MacBook Air without any issue. Of course I don't have the SSD model. I can report I now have a tiny idea of what celebrities go through because people felt no issue with asking me to look at and touch my Air. It was an icebreaker in my sales call with lots of oooohs and ahhhhhs.
This whole security thing will transform this country into a big broather. People worry about terrorist and forget that terrorist can NOT and will NOT EVER take away habies corpus, abolish the constitution, call anyone they choose" enemy combatant and having them taken to secret prison and even torturing them, like bush can. WAKE UP PEOPLE WAKE UP, the real terrorists dress up in 3 pieces suit. I mean, in NYC you buy a camera but can't use on the street. well, let me guess: "free Country" guve me a break.
You missed it brother. We are well on the path to police state. If you want to see where we are going, take a look at our cousins in the U.K. That's us in five years or less. Better yet, watch V for Vendetta, that's us in 20 or so.
Reply to Dodo
Sir, you are a jerk. The UK compared to the US is a bastion of freedom, sure we have a lot of CCTV but there are too many to be watched 24/7 so the footage is only used forensically to solve crimes already committed.
We don't have secret off-shore prisons and torture camps, the US does.
Our police can't monitor all of our communications on a whim, US agencies can.
When we vote the ballot is accountable, verifiable and actually counts. In the US voting is largely irrelevant as machines are easily rigged and the Electoral College decides the outcome anyway.
And on and on and on.
"Couldn't they, uh, turn on the laptop to make sure it was actually a laptop?"
What proof is that? I think back to early 1995 when I had a pager and "beta" Star Tac cell phone. At the airport, I put both in the tray, walked through the gate and then the guards stopped me to ask about the phone. They obviously knew it was supposed to be a cell, but they had never see one work.
The guards asked me to use my Star Tac to send a page to my pager. I said "Sure, no problem.". As I'm dialing, I notice that all of them step back about 15 feet. I almost started chuckling but figured that wouldn't look good. So I sent the page, my pager alerted, I showed both to the one guy who walked forward and then said what I likely shouldn't have but seriously thought they should have already had this in their mind. Amazing how many STILL don't realize this.
I said "Um, do you really think that anyone would be dumb enough to make an exploding pager/cell which goes off simply by receiving a msg and not to have it require a specific code?"
Yea, don't ever think about trying to educate airport guards, I spent the next FOUR hours talking with TSA and FBI.
Did I get all pissed off? NO. Why? Because they ARE JUST DOING THEIR JOB. I would have been pissed if they just laughed and brushed my comment off.
People. If you don't like airport/airline rules, don't fly. You don't have a right to fly anyways. It's a business, not government agency. If you don't want "the hassle", pay attention to what you take with you.
And let's not forget what Penn Jillette noted in his PC Computing column: "They just want to see it print something to the screen (We all know that a bomb with a laptop taped on top of it could print something on its screen but that's not important now)."
$15 Dollars U.S. Tax money used to bail out the airlines? Yes it most certainly is a public service, not some independent private service.
If it was in an envelope. Everyone would have realized it was a MBA.
I bet the guy wouldn't have been question about it, if he had a crappy Windows logo on the case.
I'm pretty sure Hitler wasn't voted in with the remit of pissing the world off & killing millions of innocent people etc...
Just goes to prove democracy doesn't work.
And what's the alternative?
alternative you say?
http://www.ingsoc.net/big_brother.jpg
"Just goes to prove democracy doesn't work."
Do you even know what Democracy is??? And don't go looking up the answer in Wikipedia.com
However you can start HERE --> http://www.usConstitution.net/OtherDocs.html
It *MIGHT* get you started on things!
Yes but... he was. Are people that ignorant of history? It's recent history, too. It's not like I'm asking you to recount events of 500 years ago!
> ...if you don't like airport/airline rules, don't fly...
At Dulles airport in Virginia there's a large electronic sign near the entrance to its access road noting the four different types of parking (valet; hourly; daily; economy)and whether or not that particular parking is full. Before 9/11 that sign pretty much always had "FULL; FULL; FULL; OPEN" displayed, meaning only the least expensive most distant parking area was available. Since 9/11 that sign pretty much always says "OPEN; OPEN; OPEN; OPEN".
I think a lot of people have decided not to fly.
...Huh? Have you ever been to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson? Chicago O'Hare? JFK? Ronald Reagan? Norman Y Mineata? Bentonville, AR?
I keep a membership going with an airline lounge and just got a FlyClear pass so I can move at the speed I was BEFORE 9/11. It's more crowded up there than you think.
FYI, the last two:
Norman I Mineata is San Jose, CA. Silicon Valley
Bentonville, AR was built specifically for Wal Mart.
They don't have to be big cities to be busy.
The guy still should have gotten to the airport earlier.... this wouldn't even be a story because his delay wouldn't have caused him to miss the flight.
Again....turn the laptop on....if it turns on its a computer....now if there is a bomb IN the computer, that would be another matter.
Again it isn't the TSA's fault that some dipshit didn't get to the airport early enough to get through security with time to spare. This is probably some exec who has one of these things who has the common sense of a 9 year old. Again not the TSA's fault, for doing their job.
As for the shoes. That is what Birkenstock sandals are for. Off and on in 10 seconds.
Apple has to be really disappointed that this guy didn't know what a mba was with the amount they spend on marketing
Psst, the word you're looking for is 'anomalies', not 'anomolies'
Get a spell-checker, kids.
All this story has done is highlight how much of a police state the US has turned into.
First, the X-ray machines (fluoroscopes) that all airport security checkers use are garbage, they always have been and they always will be, they don't use enough X-ray energy to penetrate an item properly to actually see what something does. The only thing in a laptop that looks like it could be a bomb is the battery, that's why they ask you to remove it. Everything else is riddled with wires and circutry. Therefore, if you have an item that has a much smaller battery profile than normal, logic dictates that it's not a bomb.
Second, all the money that's been spent scaring people into not flying, so that they stay at home like good little brainwashed slaves, is not being spent on basic aircraft maintenance. This means that the chances of the plane falling out of the sky because of a malfunction is now twice as high as it was before 9/11.
The simple fact of the matter is, there's more chance of winning $50 million on lotto than there is of being involve in a terrorist incident on a plane. This was the same before 9/11, this is the same today.
This worries me even more.
Macbook Air has been shipping since 1/29/2008 (http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/29/macbook-air-shipments-beginning-for-the-earliest-adopters/) and the first reported incident of this occured on 3/6/2008. In those 5 weeks, hundreds of thousands of travelers must have gone through TSA checkpoints across the nation, and I don't think it's unreasonable to assume at least a couple hundred of those travelers must've brought a MBAir with them. If it's the TSA's job to inspect this new unknown laptop, then the couple hundred inspectors who let those MBAirs through must not have been doing their job well. If they had reasonable doubt that this might be dangerous, then they have essentially let hundreds of potential suspects through their checkpoints across the nation in just the past month.
Ah, Homeland Security at its best.
I'd just like to say first of all that the TSA has in fact stopped a multitude of hijack attempts and extremely dangerous materials about to be accidentally brought on planes that wouldn't be fun to have at high altitude pressure (although more of the later). It's just not an interesting story to put on the news, but it happens.
Anyway - the story I really wanted to share was my TSA run in with my old Alienware. Back quite a few years ago I had a 17" Alienware monster-sized laptop (the laptop part was always in question) that weighed about 12 pounds and seemed infinity thick. I also made the mistake of wearing an Israeli Army back pack that day which always makes the TSA guys nervous. They took my laptop off the line and started showing it to each other asking if they thought it was too big to just be a laptop. I was plenty early and was laughing my ass off so I just watched. About 30 minutes later of not knowing how to decide whether or not to let me have it, i just ended it by removing the keyboard and showing its guts. I tried to just turn it on to show them, but they said they didn't want me to. Even if I did they would have thought a bomb was going to go off just by the noise of the cooling fans lol.
>>I'd just like to say first of all that the TSA has in
>>fact stopped a multitude of hijack attempts and
>>extremely dangerous materials about to be
>>accidentally brought on planes
Really?! Because, you see, it's funny that there's never been mention of a single successful identification of a hijacker or terrorist by a TSA screener -- and that's the kind of thing that TSA/DHS would crow on and on about. Furthermore, there hasn't been a single arrest, indictment or prosecution of an individual for attempted armed hijacking or attempted terrorism in connection with a TSA screening since the agency was formed.
Damn airport Nazi's. Homeland Security is a joke. It's just welfare to give all the "wanna be" cops a job for life.
/rant
Maybe the passenger should have just pointed
to the HUGE Billboard behind the TSA agents
at the airport and said,
"Uh, guys, haven't you seen that ad on
this MacBook Air on a daily basis?"
Hey! They are just doing their jobs ... looking out for terrorists that have a sense for designing gorgeous bombshells...
never heard of the fundamentalist Case-Modding scene?
anyway ... I´d rather take the NRA approach to security than all this checking bullshit - hand out a gun to everyone, guaranteed no hijacking ;)
Next: Some one whips out their gigantic feature packed cell phone
TSA "Sir, is that cell phone?! It can't be that big! It's got to be a bomb!"
I have a friend that would rather have 4 more years of Bush than possibly having Obama as a Prez, srsly how can anyone rationalize that, I'd rather take a chance with "Hope" and "Change" than the same ole lets cripple the US while lining our pockets strategy, cuz you know they are still banking off of oil prices
This isn't a political blog. This is very little to do with the current US election.
Airport security panic has EVERYTHING to do with our current fearmonger-in-Chief.
If you think otherwise, then you've clearly not been in this country for the last eight years.
just "doing its job"? shouldn't part of their job be to know about the devices a common person would reasonably have with them when traveling? this would be different if it were something the guy whipped up in his shop, but this is a factory configured commercially available laptop, there should have been no major questions at all. at most a visual inspection "oh, this is that new thin one"
The TSA's excuse for this is pure bollocks. They're saying they learn about new technology by being exposed to it by passengers trying to board the plane? That's how they do their research? Bollocks. When new technology comes out it should be the TSA's responsibility to educate themselves about it *before* they get confused by somebody carrying a new laptop through security.
The fact that they're getting confused by it at all indicates that they're obviously not doing their job. They're the ones that are supposed to be on top of this stuff so they can prevent air disasters, right?
Just think....
This could have been you one day, Palm Foleo.
I just highly doubt that was the very first SSD laptop to go through inspection. They're narrowly covering for themselves.
George Carlin says it all: Airport security is bullshit. They aren't protecting anybody. They aren't saving anything. They're just putting on a show to keep the fear ramped up high and make it look like the talking heads are "doing something" to protect us from the big bad wolf.
SOVIET_VEXXER I HOPE YOU ARE SO BANNED. A BIG F U for linking that spam!
soviet_vexxer: I hope you die puking, you rotten fuck.
Coming from Europe and having visited the US on a number of occasions I must say the from people TSA are really big morons. Plus that they do give you the feeling that one is totally not welcome in the US. Don't these idiots know we go to the US to spend our oh so valuable Euros? Really what an idiots and this example only confirms this.
I think they need to limit their searches to age and ethnic profiles, for now middle aged muslim men. My little sister was manhandled by a TSA moron man. Taking our shoes off is idiotic. What if some doofus sticks a bomb in his boxer shorts?
Until a white teenager or senior citizen commits the first ever act of terrorism in our country for their demographic, it's simply nuts to take away their skin lotion or bottled water. Moreover, I'm a white man, and I've never been frisked, but I've seen other little kids and grandparents getting frisked. Absolutely absurd.
If it offends Muslim folks who are American born, then you need to speak out more against terrorism and those who commit it so you don't feel alienated. If you're a Muslim immigrant, just be thankful this country allows you much much much more freedom than say, Saudi Arabia, AND you need to speak out against it. Get a blog, whatever, do something. I never hear word one. And on top of that, some nutjobs in middle east countries actually celebrated in the streets in response to 9-11. That's just a complete lack of humanity there.
American airport "security" today, courtesy of the federal government, is the biggest display of a complete lack of common sense and overreaction I've ever seen in my life. And half of this country wants them to run our health care system? Are you out of your minds!?
Do this:
Turn the MBA on. Go to Apple.com/macbookair (often free wireless at airports). Show the idiot TSA employee the webpage.
Make your flight.
This just goes to show you that TSA isn't hiring tech-savvy employees... or employees that watch the news for that matter.
Shouldn't the TSA be expected to continually learn about what may be coming through their scanners. They work in an area w/ high buisness trafic. Buisness men = money and money = fancy devices. They should know what sort of devices they might come across.
Good afternoon. We got our hands on a MacBook Air. Follow the URL to read an update and watch a video. http://www.tsa.gov/blog
Thanks,
Bob
TSA EoS Blog Team
The great equalizer. :)
That's the price you pay for being rich enough to afford the latest gear right when it comes out, and having a job that lets you travel by plane frequently. You get stopped, interrogated like a spy, and miss your flight once in awhile.
I, with my antique Rio, my stack of CF cards for it, and my Greyhound bus ticket shall point at you and laugh.