"Oh noes! Electronics might cause plane crashes!" Someone somewhere thought this, and now you have to turn off electronics during and after take-off and landing. Yes, it's annoying. And it's not even clear that electronics are bad.
"Well, maybe electronics don't mess it up after all. But as long as there's a risk, shouldn't we be prudent? You can't live without your iPhone game for 20 minutes?" This is a common sense attitude. And it's wrong. Let's take a look at why.
If this attitude worked, the FAA would just say "you can bring bombs on planes, but just don't use them." Of course, terrorists wouldn't listen to this.
So why don't they bring cell phones onto planes, leave them on during takeoff/landing, and crash them? Why has 24 never featured someone jumping up on a plane and saying "I have an electronic device, and I'm not afraid to leave it on!" There are three possibilities:
- Electronics aren't a threat to planes.
- The DHS is wildly incompetent.
- Cell phones know when they're being held by terrorists, and emit less harmful electromagnetic radiation.
This is a lesson in thinking about security: if you won't plan for the worst case (terrorist with a souple-up radio transmitter), there's no point planning for the average case (tourist with an iPod). So why don't Amazon and Apple lobby for people to be allowed to continue to use their Kindles and iPods?
