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Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

So lets get this straight:

1. Discovering a terrorist plot to hide bombs inside carry on laptop batteries - and then not taking any precautions at all and allowing laptops on planes as normal: A prudent and smart thing to do.

2. Discovering a terrorist plot to hide bombs inside carry on laptop batteries - and then taking purdent, minimal precuations by asking people to deal with the minor inconvenience of checking their laptops during flights: OH DEAR GOD THIS IS SOOO STUPID IT MAKES ME CRINGE AGGG

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While I agree that the prior comment was condescending and not very helpful, I think the key arguments (already put forward elsewhere in this discussion) against the "they have good intel" argument still stand and so far have not been plausibly refuted:

a) I would assume the U.S. would share such intelligence at least with their allies. So why has no other country except the U.K. implemented similar measures? Do they all willingly risk their citizens lives?

b) Why only flights from certain countries (until now Middle East, starting now apparently also Europe)? Don't you think a plane bomber from the Middle East would just put their bomb-infused laptop into the cargo hold, fly to the U.S. and then take it out there and into carry-on on a domestic flight?

The counterargument to b) is that the countries on the ban list have lower carry-on security measures in place than the countries not on the list. I personally would doubt this, especially given the variety of countries not affected by the ban, but I don't have hard data on that.

They have shared the intel with their allies and with the general public. If you guys want to get ahead to conspiracy theroies saying that is is fabricated then you need to explain why other stuff like the moon landing and vaccinations and global warming is not fabricated. You cant have it both ways where all the stuff you like is all true and all the stuff you dont is some kind of conspiracy

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-yemen-raid-idUSKBN15I2...

>Why only flights from certain countries (until now Middle East, starting now apparently also Europe)? Don't you think a plane bomber from the Middle East would just put their bomb-infused laptop into the cargo hold, fly to the U.S. and then take it out there and into carry-on on a domestic flight?

Because its not designed to be a perfect barrier against all conceivable terrorist attacks - such a system would be burdensome and crazy, that why we take precautions based on the risk posed by the targets.

Im sorry but the mere fact that you dont think the ban is implemented in a very effective way is not in itself evidence of conspiracy or fraud on the part of the government.

Just to set the record straight: I never once in my comment talked about "evidence of conspiracy or fraud on the part of the government". You are putting words into my mouth here.

All I am saying is that in my opinion the intel isn't that strong, because otherwise a) other countries would have acted on it as well and b) you would implement the ban in such a way that it isn't trivial to circumvent.

This has nothing to do with conspiracy or fraud. Faced with the same evidence, different people can come to different conclusions and cost/benefit trade-offs, and apparently the U.S. government (for whatever reasons) has come to a different conclusion than most of the rest of the world. Is this a sign of a conspiracy? No. Does this mean these new U.S. policies are per se reasonable and a good idea? Also no.

>This has nothing to do with conspiracy or fraud.

But thats exactly what you are saying when you say that they made up a terror threat and lied about the contents of information in the raid to justify policies. That is the definition of fraud and conspiracy

I also never said that "they made up a terror threat and lied about the contents of information in the raid".

There are thousands of pieces of intelligence being gathered every day from various sources about potential new terror plots. They aren't black or white and most of the time very hard to interpret. In the end, it will always come down to interpretation of the actual factual evidence at hand. What is "strong" evidence for one person can be "pretty weak" for someone else. Even if everyone agrees about the actual pieces of evidence you can arrive at very different conclusions about what is actually going on. And even if you were to arrive at the same conclusion on what is going on, you can still have very different opinions on what the best course of action in this situation is.

Nothing of this is "making up a terror threat", "lying", "fraud" or "conspiracy".

We had this before with the "binary bombs" and the "shoe bombs", each of which turns into a permanent ban. We already have explosives sensors at airport security queues.

Every time the subject is discussed every thread suggests a whole new bunch of obvious ways to smuggle things onto planes, or otherwise commit acts of sabotage. Not to mention that the terrorists seem to have adapted to the simple, hard to stop plan of driving trucks into crowds.

> minor inconvenience

Asking everyone in a plane to have nothing to do during a 8h flight (at best) is not a "minor inconvenience".

People who have nothing to do when their laptops are taken away are in needed of a therapist

We are talking about things to do on a plane seat.

The last (and only) time I did a long distance flight, I did 3 things: I watched movies (using plane hardware), I slept (badly), and I used my laptop (I played and worked a bit).

Without my laptop, I could only watch movies or sleep. With a paper notebook, I could do some work, but not much. I could also talk with my neighbours if they feel like it.

Also, I have reserved a flight this summer to see the eclipse. There's no way I'll let my laptop in the cargo hold, for 2 obvious reasons (theft and accidental destruction). So, no laptop for the entire trip. I'll guess I'll have to make do with my palmtop. Not great.

And this is a leisure trip. For a business trip, I would need a computer with my personal settings, that I'm used to: custom keyboard layout, unusual window manager, a GNU/Linux OS… Borrowing a computer can easily be a major hassle.

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