US homeland security secretary John Kelly has said he may ban laptop computers in the cabins of all international flights into and out of the US amid continuing terrorist threats to bring down aeroplanes, but that a final decision hadn’t been made.
“That’s really the thing that they’re obsessed with, the terrorists: the idea of knocking down an aeroplane in flight, particularly if it’s a US carrier, particularly if it’s full of mostly US folks,” Kelly said on Fox News Sunday.
A homeland security spokesman said as recently as 24 May that the agency was not actively considering a laptop ban for international flights leaving the US.
The agency, which has barred devices larger than mobile phones on flights from 10 Middle East and North African airports since March, has been in talks with European Commission officials about extending a prohibition to US-bound flights from the continent, despite concerns from the European Union.
“It is a real sophisticated threat, and I’ll reserve that decision until we see where it’s going,” he said of when a final ruling might come and what it might be. Kelly’s comments were similar to ones he made at a Senate appropriations hearing on 25 May on homeland security’s 2018 budget request.
Kelly said the department’s transportation security administration “might and likely will” intensify scrutiny of carry-on luggage as well, because travellers are packing more into them to avoid airlines’ bag-checking fees.
“The more you stuff in there, the less the TSA professionals that are looking at what’s in those bags through the monitors” are able to discern about bags’ contents, he said. “What we’re doing now is working out the tactics, techniques and procedures, if you will, in a few airports to find out exactly how to do that with the least amount of inconvenience to the traveller.”
At the same time, Kelly alluded to the possibility that improved bag-screening devices could soon alleviate the need for such strict procedures.
“There’s new technologies down the road, not too far down the road, that we’ll rely on,” he said.
At least four of the largest companies making such devices have said recently they are developing scanners so much better at detecting explosives than existing X-ray machines that passengers could leave laptops, other electronics and even liquids in their bags. — (c) 2017 Bloomberg LP
