News - Larger toner cartridges banned from hand baggage on UK flights

[aidanjt]

Allowing rumours to spread about dangers that aren't present - that's subjugation through deception.

That's precisely what it is. The 'terrorists' have already won.

[Steve]

They have indeed, in so far as when they form a bomb plot, they don't do it solely to kill people, they do it so that we are... erm... terrorised into taking measures that encroach upon our own freedoms, until we are either so subjugated and insular they don't have to worry about us anymore, or we get fed up and dismantle our own government for them.

Of course in a country like Britain outright anarchy is most unlikely, but even recent history has shown we're not a afraid of a riot or two, and certainly the people are capable of taking action that would have a serious negative impact on our economy, international relations, etc. And that's not something I want to see.

[aidanjt]

When terrorists evangelise, and blow up a bus they kill, mame, and terrorise a few thousand people at best. When government evangelise, and kill, mame, and suppress in response, they terrorise entire nations, including their own.

[jim]

Should be interesting when someone twigs that you can pack a fair few explosives into a laptop chassis. Let's see if they ban laptops.

[Saracen]

While it seems daft banning toner cartridges, the authorities don't really have much choice. Can you imagine the furore if they didn't, and then at some point in the future, a plane was brought down by a cartridge bomb? I can hear the screaming headlines now .... "Even after the failed cartridge bomb plot, the stupid authorities didn't ban them and the terrorists did it again, successfully this time".

The authorities have to do two things :-

- try to think ahead of the bombers, anticipate and pre-empt
- react to any exposed weaknesses.

In this case, they've publicly done the latter and, hopefully, are always working on the former.

The last few days has, in my view, made airline and airport chiefs, like Willie Walsh, look monumentally stupid for saying the security checks are over-the-top. If anything, it seems like various flavours of Al-Qaeda are still capable of finding weaknesses, despite all the security, the checks and the intrusive technology ..... even if they seem (thankfully) to be better at getting bombs on planes than actually making ones that go off. Though that, I guess, assumes that they were actually trying to get them to go off. Perhaps they got their win, the publicity, by having them found and then having the authorities fumbling around trying to block this exploit, too. Makes you (or me, anyway) wonder if they actually need to bring planes down to make their point?

[chuckskull]

To my mind security theatre is a performance that creates the impression of better security (e.g. metal detectors, restricted fluid amounts, etc).

Allowing rumours to spread about dangers that aren't present - that's subjugation through deception.

Yes, that's how I meant it; "hey we're all safe now, no more evil printer cartridges".

I'm not sure how the 2nd part is relevant in this particular case, they were bombs and were a danger. The bomb squad said they were viable. Although in a wider sense it's certainly happened recently, '45 minutes' being every comedians favourite of course.

The last few days has, in my view, made airline and airport chiefs, like Willie Walsh, look monumentally stupid for saying the security checks are over-the-top. If anything, it seems like various flavours of Al-Qaeda are still capable of finding weaknesses, despite all the security, the checks and the intrusive technology ..... even if they seem (thankfully) to be better at getting bombs on planes than actually making ones that go off. Though that, I guess, assumes that they were actually trying to get them to go off. Perhaps they got their win, the publicity, by having them found and then having the authorities fumbling around trying to block this exploit, too. Makes you (or me, anyway) wonder if they actually need to bring planes down to make their point?

He was speaking about passenger flights. Which were in turn reactionary tactics from the lockerbie bombing, with extra restrictions after 9/11. The security on air freight is laughable to non-existent in most places. Especially in places like Yemen and Somalia. Even when following these countries guidelines it often only amounts to checking small samples or making sure what it says on the manifest is actually in the box. You don't need to be a terrorist mastermind to spot that hole in security.

Unless I've misread weren't these packages destined for/targeted at synagogues, rather than the planes themselves. Cargo plane seems an odd choice of target, but excellent delivery method(no pun intended). Although the fact these packages were only found when an AQ member turned himself in and pointed them out to the authorities adds some credence to that idea. I suppose a concerted campaign of this kind finding ever more holes in security and forcing more and more stringent restrictions, could be used as a kind of economic warfare by making the western worlds supply lines costlier and costlier. Though I find it hard to believe they could take it to a level where it would be anything more than an inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.

I'm more inclined to believe that they saw an opening and went for it and certainly a big part of it is getting media attention, which happens successful or not. Terrorism is a business at the end of the day. A repugnant one, but it is. Have to show the investors that you're at least trying to maim and kill some innocents to keep the money coming.

[aidanjt]

Can you imagine the furore if they didn't, and then at some point in the future, a plane was brought down by a cartridge bomb?

That's the problem, there's *always* going to be some hole somewhere and someone will poke at it until the government closes it off by stripping away yet another civil liberty. It'll get to the point where almost 100% of the population is virtually on the 'terrorist watch list' and treated accordingly.

It's just not a viable solution, and they're creating more fear and anger than anything else. No party has been issued a mandate by the public to treat them like criminals, yet that's what they're doing.

[jim]

They may as well have been handed one by the media though.

I think a lot of things like this can be explained by the media. I'm fairly positive that on any given day you'll be able to find one article bemoaning the overly stringent H&S rules that are preventing something from happening, and another desperately trying to pass on blame for a tragedy that they consider "avoidable". Same thing here.

You'll have one camp saying it's ridiculous over-the-top safety measures, and another camp who would be practically gloating if no ban was put in place and a tragedy occurred as a result.

[aidanjt]

I think a lot of things like this can be explained by the media. I'm fairly positive that on any given day you'll be able to find one article bemoaning the overly stringent H&S rules that are preventing something from happening, and another desperately trying to pass on blame for a tragedy that they consider "avoidable". Same thing here.

I agree. The media are part of the problem. They whip up fear and moral panic. However, it is the job of the government to be responsible for the people and set national policy on the basis of sound thought and judgement, and not the knee-jerk commentary of day-time TV, or, of course, the moaning of foreign 'allies' who set the standard on reactionary nonsense.

[crossy]

"OMG, somebody put a bomb INSIDE something, well lets ban the thing that they put the bomb into, that'll solve the problem"

Let's just skip a few steps and arrive at the logical conclusion as determined by current security process - ban people and cargo from all flights - problem solved.

You beat me to it - I was just about to suggest that a bomb-up-the-butt will probably result in passengers being banned from flights.

That said, I'm sure Ryanair would prefer this arrangement...

[badass]

I agree. The media are part of the problem. They whip up fear and moral panic. However, it is the job of the government to be responsible for the people and set national policy on the basis of sound thought and judgement, and not the knee-jerk commentary of day-time TV, or, of course, the moaning of foreign 'allies' who set the standard on reactionary nonsense.

You forget - the government are voted in by the average moron in this country that only ever votes for what's in their own personal interests, and is easily whipped up into fear and panic.

[badass]

Agreed with others, this is just security theatre.

Not just this. Pretty much all airport security is exactily that. I suspect it's as much the air indistry as the government that are responsible for that. When an incident occurs, a large number of potential passengers will be too scared to fly, completely illogically when they happily drive all the way to the airport in the middle lane without checking their mirrors once. These people need security theatre to fel safe enough to get into the complete statistically proven* death trap that is the modern aeroplane.


*proven of course by the fact that an incident occurred in history some time on some plane.

[Saracen]

....

He was speaking about passenger flights. Which were in turn reactionary tactics from the lockerbie bombing, with extra restrictions after 9/11. The security on air freight is laughable to non-existent in most places. Especially in places like Yemen and Somalia. Even when following these countries guidelines it often only amounts to checking small samples or making sure what it says on the manifest is actually in the box. You don't need to be a terrorist mastermind to spot that hole in security. ....

Yes, I know hew was. But it's all part of the same problem. If terrorists could get bombs on planes easily, they wouldn't be mucking about going to such lengths to disguise a bomb as a printer cartridge. The issue is one and the same .... the battle between terrorists and authorities over getting bombs on planes, and the passenger measures (and intelligence operations) being what they are, and the fact that recent attempts with liquid bombs, shoes and explosive underwear, etc, are testament to the fact that they've tried and failed, so are resorting to a different route.

....

Unless I've misread weren't these packages destined for/targeted at synagogues, rather than the planes themselves. Cargo plane seems an odd choice of target, but excellent delivery method(no pun intended)....

Well, we really don't know, do we? We know the authorities have said they were addressed to synagogues in the US, but as far as we know, the authorities, and certainly not us, actually know if they were intended to get there or not. So far, only those sending the bombs appear to know what was intended to happen. And if they were intended to explode on planes, it seems a fair bet that most addressing info would have been lost had they worked.

From publicly released information, which may of course include some element of public disinformation, they're still trying to work out how the triggering mechanism was supposed to work, because that might inform us as to whether the target was the planes or not, and if so, when.

....

Unless I've misread weren't these packages destined for/targeted at synagogues, rather than the planes themselves. Cargo plane seems an odd choice of target, but excellent delivery method(no pun intended). Although the fact these packages were only found when an AQ member turned himself in and pointed them out to the authorities adds some credence to that idea. ....

Again, so were told. But do we take that at face value? First, it would be a good way to deflect Al Qaeda from knowing where the intel really came from if it was somewhere else, and it would also tend to make them re-evaluate their operations and change anything else this guy might have known, and told the authorities. So, he might have provided the intel, but it might also be a bluff. Or a double-bluff, because announcing it came from him seems an unusual thing to do, so maybe the idea is to make Al Qaeda think there's another source when there isn't, making them waste time and effort trying to find it, and perhaps sow some seeds of suspicion.

So that the info came from this guy in Saudi is certainly the current story, and it may be the straight unvarnished truth ... or it may not. It's certainly not above the intelligence community to play games with the public info, and we can only go by what we're told .... unless any of us are secretly CIA?

[OilSheikh]

Damn, I won't be able to take my HP 9050 toner cartrridges with me anymore

[Saracen]

That's the problem, there's *always* going to be some hole somewhere and someone will poke at it until the government closes it off by stripping away yet another civil liberty. It'll get to the point where almost 100% of the population is virtually on the 'terrorist watch list' and treated accordingly.

It's just not a viable solution, and they're creating more fear and anger than anything else. No party has been issued a mandate by the public to treat them like criminals, yet that's what they're doing.

To a point, I agree. But exactly that same argument applies to all forms of government interference, regulation and legislation, up to and including the power given to police to nick a burglar or murderer. In all these events, we the people surrender some aspects of our individual freedoms (or rather, the state takes them whether we surrender them or not and justifies doing so with the fiction of a choice at a General Election) and the return wee get is an element of security from protection by the state.

So it's a balance, a trade-off. Always has been. At the one end, a dictatorial 1984-style police state, mind police, making the maximum use of any and every technology to monitor and control populations, such as mandatory ID to be carried at all times, or implanted GPS tracker and/or RFID chips in all of us. At the other end, total anarchy, a free-for-all where individual strength rules and devil take the hindmost.

The existence of police powers , and exactly what those powers are, is a balance between security and civil rights and freedoms, and changes over time to adapt to new and evolving threats. So does airline security.

My point about Willie Walsh (etc) though, wasn't that what they are saying is right or wrong, but merely that the timing makes them look daft, advocating reducing security right exactly as a significant bomb plot is under way. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect an intelligence service conspiracy designed to raise fears and justify extra measures. In fact, had it occurred a few weeks ago before the CSR, I'd have been even more cynical about it .... if that's possible.

[aidanjt]

You forget - the government are voted in by the average moron in this country that only ever votes for what's in their own personal interests, and is easily whipped up into fear and panic.

Honestly, I haven't observed anyone being preoccupied by terrorism since the IRA agreed to peace. If anything, they're only moaning extensively about their shampoo/conditioner/water/etc being stolen by agents of the state, with the police being more obsessed with someone going 1 mile per hour over the limit than people breaking into houses, etc..