TSA Limits Lithium Batteries on Airplanes 595
yali writes "The U.S. Transportation and Security Administration has issued new rules limiting travel with lithium batteries. As of January 1, no spare lithium batteries are allowed in checked luggage. Batteries carried in the cabin are subject to limitations on per-battery and total lithium content, and spare batteries must have the terminals covered. If you're returning home from the holidays with new toys, be sure to check out the new restrictions before you pack."
awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time I come back into my own country after spending time abroad, I am frustrated and depressed over how bad things are getting here. I talked about some of it including the marketing problem we are manufacturing for ourselves here [utah.edu] after my last trip to Japan.
It also makes one wonder how much all this is costing the US in terms of lost business, lost productivity, airline delays, increased cost burdens on airlines and passengers and more... And this is all being done in the name of safety and terrorism, but you know... it's funny because I remember flying back in the 70's and 80's where people routinely carried firearms on planes. The restriction was that they had to be long guns and unloaded. I even remember one Texan getting on a plane and commenting to his friend that he would never check his shotgun because it might get damaged by the baggage handlers. I also routinely used to carry a pocket knife with me wherever I went even up to a few years ago on planes before they were outlawed... which leads me to wonder if the per capita risk of hijacking is any different now versus what it was back then.
Nicely clear rules, easy to follow...NOT! (Score:5, Insightful)
Given how well current TSA rules are implemented by the agents, I expect that there will be considerable confusion at the security checkpoints.
Hell, I'm a geek, and I'm not sure how many grams of lithium metal are in my laptop's batteries. How should I expect a nontechnical person be able to size up a battery and tell which batteries should be allowed and which shouldn't?
And, are they even going to count batteries in cellphones and iPods?
I expect that many spare batteries will simply be seized and tossed in the trash.
Wait let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't tell from the link (Score:4, Insightful)
$1 Camcorder (Score:4, Insightful)
Gotta go, fill out my patent application...
Retarded (Score:4, Insightful)
I have LIon batteries in my laptop, my cell phone, my Bluetooth earpiece, my Nintendo DS, and probably my shoes for all I know. I already have to remove my screwdrivers from my carry-on bag and place them in checked baggage or leave them at home, because they are Official Threats To The Integrity Of The Republic ("Take this plane to Cuba or I'll unscrew the wings from the plane").
Someone needs to slap around the retards coming up with this stuff and force-feed them a clue.
Schwab
*sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
I imagine... (Score:3, Insightful)
There have been numerous comments on the inept handling of existing regulations by the TSA, including on here and including many by people currently or formerly employed by the TSA itself. Journalists and Government watchdog officials are forever getting banned items that are infinitely more dangerous than a battery past screeners. Mind you, other countries aren't any better. The French managed to lose a whole load of plastic explosives during a test run at a busy airport.
you can't put packages in roadside drop bins (Score:2, Insightful)
like anything, it's costs versus benefits. costs of having to go to the post office if you have a package, costs of not flying with my trusty shotgun: neglible
benefits: also neglible
it's a tempest in teapot, both in terms of more security restrictions, and less security restrictions
no big deal. and yet people get their panties in a twist. it impresses me more that some people just have a psychosomatic need to get upset about neglible things
there are guys who would hijack airplanes. it's rare. so people have to bend over backwards now every time they want to get on an airplane. oh well
but it seems to me the same sort who whine and moan about more security at airports are the same who would whine and moan about the government not doing more to protect us when a terrorist hijacking happens. people like to whine and moan. for the most part, the balance of their "concerns" are stupid. there are a lot of real concerns in the world. there are a lot of people with real problems in the world. but most of the concerns we hear about are the cosmetic paperweight issues of upper middle class busybodies. nonissues
feel free to whine and moan about my post because i see no need to whine and moan about more security at airports
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that a good laptop battery or a high-quality pocket knife can approach the price of a cheap off-season weekend ticket on a discount airline, just ditching your stuff looks pretty unappealing. It's a pain to leave the security screening, go back to the luggage check, check your stuff in your carry-on, and then get screened by security again. I'm not sure all airports will even let you do that.
It'd be nice if there was a way to combined baggage check and security so that knives, lighters, and other such things normally carried in pockets could be checked straight from your pockets into your checked luggage. Even a good reminder system to get fewer people forgetting to check those items in their checked bags would be nice.
The lithium battery limit in the checked bags makes this situation even more of a hassle. I guess soon people buying large quantities of laptop batteries will need to register with the government just like farmers with anhydrous ammonia and pseudoephidrine purchasers do in problem meth states,
How low... can you go?!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this sounds like a slippery slope argument, but this stuff is being made up as we go along. They got the idiot shoe guy trying to light a match, so they said we've got to take our shoes off and run them through the machines. I mean, this could go on ad infinitum.
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
The TSA doesn't exist to stop terror (Score:5, Insightful)
1. convince the American sheeple think that the .gov is actually doing something about terrorism
2. instill fear in the sheeple so they continue making poor risk assessments re: terrorism, and thus support wingnuttery like the TSA.
The TSA hasn't done jack shit to prevent terrorism. Terrorism is defeated by police work and good intelligence, not invading far off countries. Terrorism is not defeated militarily. It is defeated politically and socially: politically through a practice of non-intervention and socially through a process of co-operative engagement. To put it in more common terms: respect others and trade with them. Don't invade and steal resources. Present yourself as something to emulate. Over time, people will leave you the hell alone, because you leave them the hell alone.
The TSA is a crime of an agency, and should be disbanded. Airport security is one thing. Tin horn fascist fear mongering is another.
RS
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:5, Insightful)
This sucks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Being limited to one spare battery for everything absolutely sucks and is unacceptable. I could see carrying one spare for a laptop, but this will really suck for photographers.
The goal of Bureaucracy is continued existence (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
actually, what you say sarcastically (Score:2, Insightful)
yes: to hell with the sleights and discomforts of the middle class in the west when considering the plight of the poor in the world. if you want to bring up that comparison, i am happy to call that shot. were you expecting some other deduction when you made that comparison?
yes, i agree 100%: who cares about the whining pidlling concerns of the middle class in the west. their "concerns", like airport security, are, indeed, a joke, in the larger order of things
anything else i can help you with today? now get back to your starbucks and your suburban mall. you have some complaining to do about the gas prices for your 10 mpg SUV
you know, real middle class problems that require decisive action in this world
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
All of which will be put through an X-Ray machine. You may get away with it but I doubt it.
Re:you can't put packages in roadside drop bins (Score:4, Insightful)
Mostly, I feel it's rather demeaning. I used to travel a lot in the late nineties, when security was much less invasive, and I feel that it's no safer today than it was back then. There have been many instances of prohibited materials being slipped past TSA security, and oftentimes the regulations are overly restrictive and do little to nothing to improve actual security. I'm not going to be hijacking an airplane with my Swiss Army keychain (1" blade). I don't feel that I should be hassled about taking off my shoes for the X-ray machine when I've just watched eight people go through the metal detector without doing so. If we're going to have substantial airport security (which I would suggest is not necessary), it should be evenly enforced by well-paid, well-trained individuals with policies that are shown to have an impact. What we have now does little more than inconvenience travelers and provide a false sense of security.
This may be middle class whining, but I feel that it's not unreasonable.
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you sure they're not speeding up to get AROUND you, and not attempting to hit you? I find allowing bikes onto roadways a stupid idea. I have to ask.. how is anyone in a position to hit you when walking though? I'd expect you would be on a side walk, and obeying the cross signals. Well... that's what I do expect, but pedestrians rarely seem to do so. I've never sped up to hit one though.
People who are frustrated and or angry are capable of doing almost anything.
So if someone frustrates / pisses you off, I can expect you would kill them?
And the US is becoming a country full of people who are frustrated and or angry.
Agreed.. I think that has to do with problems which are not being solved, because our government is focusing on issues like batteries, which have not yet caused an issue..
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:1, Insightful)
Not to mention the fact that most bicyclists refuse to obey basic traffic laws (such as stopping at lights or stopsigns), laws that will be definitely enforced should a motorist or a motorcycle driver follow suit.
The problem is that most US cities care little about urban planning long term, but how to get businesses who are proposing to move in the best incentives to come. Traffic planning and planning for bike routes is far secondary to this.
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:2, Insightful)
If you really believe motorists are just trying to get around bikes, you haven't seen what's really going on. Unless and until there's a separate bike trail infrastructure, any discussion of restricting bikes from the roads is unreasonable. But those points are both off the topic.
The question was about how people behave, and the current situation (bikes sharing the road with cars) is a perfect example of how people, out of anger whether specific or general, will put others' lives at risk when they have no right to do so. They may not be first-degree murderers, but they're perfectly willing to become manslaughterers.
The same will hold true for guns on planes.
Screw air travel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
Around 2000, I used to carry a small penknife all the time. One day, I was catching a plane from the UK to Spain, and going through the checks. I studied the sign in front of me, which listed the things not allowed in the cabin. It mentioned drugs, volatile substances and suchlike, but said nothing about sharp objects. I continued, secure in the knowledge that everything I was carrying was OK. When it came to putting my metal objects in a box while I walked through the detector, the guy went weird about the penknife. I pointed out that it was permitted, and that if he really didn't want it in my possession during the trip, I was quite willing to let a crew member hang on to it until we got to the other end. He just told me that that wasn't possible, and that it would stay in the airport and later be sent on to me. I just wanted to catch the plane, so I said that I supposed that would have to do.
He also told me (almost trembling with officious vexation) that had I not been a UK citizen, he would have arrested me. I didn't bother arguing, but that seemed like a bizarre thing to say. You arrest someone if they commit a crime, and don't arrest them if they don't commit a crime. There ought not to be any discretion of the sort he wanted to exercise. I don't know what the charge would have been for this hypothetical arrest. Penknives are legal unless they have a flick-release, measure over four inches (11cm in Spain), or are wielded as a weapon (in the same way that a cricket bat becomes illegal if I swing it around threateningly). None of that applied. A few weeks later, I wrote to the e-mail address provided, in order to have my property returned to me, and I got a reply back saying that I'd have to send them £10 first. Since that was almost enough to buy the penknife new, I told them to keep it. It's quite a little extortion racket, especially as he only got my consent to leave my property in the airport because he failed to admit that money would be demanded for its return.
Unsafe at any speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Flying in this country is going to get to the point where EVERYTHING will be packed according to a 1000+ point policy and checked. Carry-ons will be banned entirely. Ohhh, and you will have ditch all of your clothes, submit yourself to the "high colonic" security scanner, and travel in a one size does not fit all jumpsuit. I just hope when safety and terrorism inevitably bring us there that I can at least choose the color of my jumpsuit.
The sad fact is that with the corruption of the airlines and FAA still allowing critical design flaws to exist, that the military itself corrected over 20 years ago, you will be flying very safely in a progressively unsafe plane. Makes perfect sense.
I got an idea... Why not just go back to the way it was before? Where we accepted a certain level of risk to travel. People do stupid stuff all the time like drinking too much and smoking. I don't see how far fetched it is to get a little excitement riding in a plane that may explode due to a design flaw from the airplane manufacturers, Sony, or some fucked in the head terrorist
P.S - We had a close family friend die on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. My position has always been that the airlines themselves do not do enough to protect us. There was technology back then, and still exists today, that could have stopped that. It would cost a couple hundred thousand dollars but would essentially retrofit the cargo compartments with blast proof material. The containers themselves would also be fitted with it. Had that existed on Flight 103, they would probably not even have noticed that blast till they landed. So without trying to sound like a troll, I do believe these TSA policies are just window dressing and that they don't ever intend to focus on real security solutions that could be effective.
Re:Kill two birds with one stone (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
The very way you have to pack it necessarily looks suspicious.
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
And more people would see it as a great way to commit suicide without having to bother to turn your own gun on yourself.
Really, then how come this happens so rarely in police stations, shooting ranges and military bases? I love how most anti-gun arguments are based on people's imagination-based theories rather than statistical or anecdotal evidence.
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
Generally it is best to avoid any kind of pellet/shot loads, also you absolutely must avoid hollow points. Plain old lead round nose or semi-jacketed soft points are less controversial in a court, from my understand (IANAL).
Technically speaking a good semi-jacket hollow point or those hydrashok JHP will be the best for actually stopping a baddie without going through walls. Personally I would go with a 357magnum over a 44mag for home defense, because the recoil is too severe for most of us to make a follow up shot worthwhile. if it's not going to hit the target, then no point in pulling the trigger. Now I can't do a double-tap with a 357 revolver, but I can hit the mark with a follow up shot in well under a second. (and I have very little practice)
And with a 9mm one can easily do a double-tap, although I wouldn't trust my life to a 9mm because all autopistols are jam-o-matics in my opinion. But I cannot deny that 9mm are effective and popular.
S&W sells a 5-shot revolver w/ 2" barrel that fires
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a claustrophobia-promoting tin tube with no contact with the outside world, horrid recycled air, plastic food, and a whole bunch of people anaesthetising themselves against the horror of being there with a drug noted for promoting violent behaviour. What do you think would happen if weaponry were added to that equation? Sorry, but the risk of a hijacking conspiracy is one of those things you'll have to put up with on planes... unless you think that they should also not be permitted to fly more than 20 feet up to counter the risk of falling out of the sky (which, let's face it, is a much larger risk and a much more common occurrence).
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
Rawlpindi is a garisson city. No shortage of arms there. Yet the suicide bomber still managed to kill rather more than any US spree shooter.
People carrying guns help solve the problem of criminality, doesn't help preventing suicide bombings and doesn't help curing cancer.
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
e.g. lead, atomic weight 207, is much better at blocking x-rays than sodium, atomic weight 23. And sodium is harder to distinguish from organic material (C, H, N, O: all
And having a toothpaste tube with a chunk of higher density material inside it is certainly going to raise suspicion, don't you think?
Finally, sodium, and the hydrogen generated when it contacts water, is not going give much of a bang. You'd make a mess, maybe burn somebody, but you wouldn't bring a plane down with it.
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:3, Insightful)
This a result of the pussy-ification of the American Legal System. Actually, it's the pussy-ification of America.
When I was young, I climbed metal monkey-bars in a sand-covered park. I climbed 6', even 8' high slides made of steel and sheet metal, and slid down them. Today, all the fixtures are low to the ground, plactic, and the ground itself is padded. All because our society (thru the Legal System) won't stand up and say "Too Bad." "It's too bad your kid got hurt when he attempted to run up the slide while you were not supervising him. You should have 1)taught himthe right way to use a slide, and 2) been watching him."
Now we just award the mommy a few million dollars, and the kid learns he can run wild with no consequences.
More on topic- If someone is trying to hijack a plane, quite possibly to kill everyone on board and cause Billions in damage (not to mention the whole 'terror' angle), then it's quite justified in causing them a little pain. This Society has Rules. A criminal, by breaking those Rules, has clearly shown their preference to not have those rules apply to them. But, the Rules go both ways- they regulate how an individual is supposed to act toward everyone else, AND how everyone else is supposed to act toward a given individual. By wanting the Rules to not apply to them, criminals have given up their protection By the Rules. (You want to cheat? Fine- but you can't complain if others cheat back.)
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:awww jeez, (Score:4, Insightful)
This is completely untrue. Completely and thoroughly. Police departments, almost to a man, issue hollowpointed ammunition. Why? Because it has the highest chance of stopping the threat in the event lethal force is necessary. If you end up on the stand, yes, the prosecutor's going to ask why you were using hollowpointed ammunition. Then, since you've been prepared by your own defense, you're going to be able to say that you use them for the same reason 99% of police, including the police from the largest departments in the country such as the NYPD and LAPD, walk around with hollowpoints loaded: because they have the highest chance of stopping the threat and the lowest chance of penetrating to where they're not supposed to and hit an innocent person inadvertently. The cops aren't out there trying to be cruel, and neither are you.
What you want to avoid are hand-loads. You want to use factory ammunition.
Personally I would go with a 357magnum over a 44mag for home defense
ObJeffCooper:
The difference between any two handguns is this much: (holds fingers up about a half-inch apart)
The difference between a handgun and a longarm is this much: (stretches arms apart)
Handguns are marginal against human targets. If you're going to use one for self-defense, then arguing over things like "stopping power" and so forth is just so much intellectual masturbation. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't use a
a. reliable
b. reliable
c. isn't so expensive or unpleasant to shoot that you won't practice with it.
d. isn't so inaccurate that you'll get discouraged and stop practicing with it.
If you're defending your *home*, the only reason you should be carrying a handgun is to let you fight your way to your long arm. A shotgun or something like an 1892 chambered in something ridiculously potent like
S&W sells a 5-shot revolver w/ 2" barrel that fires
This is nonsense. What that will generate is an enormous muzzle flash as the majority of unburned powder rapidly combusts upon leaving the barrel and a mind-boggling amount of felt recoil. The internal ballistics of the
is a pretty serious cartridge, might even stop a rhino. (nobody has tried)
Nobody has tried, because it'd be just as much suicide as putting the thing to your head and pulling the trigger. In the full-length barrel, it develops just a hair over 3000 ft-lbs at the muzzle. That is indeed an enormous quantity of energy for a handgun, and compares to a
Re:awww jeez, not this $#!^ again (Score:4, Insightful)
Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Want me to minimize my spare battery load? Then get the airlines to fix the friggin seat power outlets!!!I'd be more than happy to leave the spares if I could use my power supply, but on over half the flights I've taken that have them (and the airlines are more than happy to advertise their presence when I'm buying a ticket) the damned things are busted and/or shut off.
Re:Kill two birds with one stone (Score:3, Insightful)
There's also the question of where does Hollywood get it's science from..
1 atmosphere ~= 14.7 psi. A
The maximum pressure differential with an aircraft is something around 8 psi. N.B. A spacecraft is more likely to be around 11 rather than nearly 15 psi.