In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," [U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John] Kelly said the United States planned to "raise the bar" on airline security, including tightening screening of carry-on items.
"That's the thing that they are obsessed with, the terrorists, the idea of knocking down an airplane in flight, particularly if it's a U.S. carrier, particularly if it's full of U.S. people."
In March, the government imposed restrictions on large electronic devices in aircraft cabins on flights from 10 airports, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey.
Kelly said the move would be part of a broader airline security effort to combat what he called "a real sophisticated threat." He said no decision had been made as to the timing of any ban.
"We are still following the intelligence," he said, "and are in the process of defining this, but we're going to raise the bar generally speaking for aviation much higher than it is now."
Airlines are concerned that a broad ban on laptops may erode customer demand. But none wants an incident aboard one of its airplanes.
Fox News has a transcript of the interview (archived copy).
Previous stories:
President Trump Revealed Classified Information to Russia; and Tweets it to the World [Updated]
"Sources" Fear Terrorists will get Past Airport Security with Laptop Bombs
US Bans Tablets and Laptops on Flights From Eight Muslim-Majority Countries
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday May 29 2017, @10:12PM (3 children)
Never mind the criminals out to make a few BTC or whatever; any number of hacker groups would probably try to pull it off just the lulz.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29 2017, @10:39PM (2 children)
I would like to award you some internet points, but they don't "run" anything on their laptop, they just image it and then inspect the image.
... but I was thinking along the same lines as you
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday May 30 2017, @12:15AM (1 child)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Tuesday May 30 2017, @04:12AM
Make the USB stick non writable ? Load the diag. program to touch each device in just the slightest manner and actually verify it exists and functions as it should. But I think one of the earlier responses was true. I opened up my brothers' 'new' very thin laptop, and they are correct, as thin and packed as it is there is still probably enough room to make a bomb big enough to depressurize a commercial plane.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge