From now on, the TSA would like you to remove any XBOXs (or DVD players or Nintendos, etc…) from your carry-on during screening so they can be inspected. [USA Today]
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What’s new here? You’ve always had to take a laptop out of your bag for x-raying.
I accidentally forgot once and they asked me to confirm that my suitcase was mine, then asked if I had a laptop in it, I said oop! I forgot, they say “No problem, we’ll run it through separately” and did so.
I don’t fly at peak hours most of the time, though, so it wasn’t a big deal. I imagine that if more people forget at more crowded times of day, it might become a big deal.
But new rule? Not really.
@Buran: But for those that say, buy an X-box or DVD while traveling and want to carry it with them rather than risk under plane issues, it’s something they should know. Now they know that they need to ship it, rather than keep it safe and sound with them.
I thought an X-Box could only catch fire if plugged in?
@Buran: This is a new rule. Up until now, the only electronic device that had to be pulled out from your bag and x-rayed separately in its own bin were laptops.
@The Walking Eye: They don’t have to mail it, they don’t have to treat it as checked baggage. They just have to treat them like a laptop and send it through the xray separately.
Does anybody know if it’s technically legal to put consoles in your actual luggage? I’ve done this a couple times in the past, just want to make sure what I’m doing is kosher.
@jlink7:
why wouldn’t it be? seems like a strange question.
as for this “new” rule, it’s been kind-of enforced in several airports I’ve been through in the past 6 months.
i had a screener telling me that i should have “taken my dvd player out of my bag like I knew was required.” i wanted to explain to her that this was something far greater than a simple dvd player. show some reverence to the wii, lady.
@hoosier45678: exactly… they’re all computers. It’s common sense to send them through separately just like laptops.
@reeg2: Quite odd that I didn’t have to do that when flying back from Nashville (to Shanghai) last week. I don’t know- with the news of the Feds raiding people’s homes and confiscating modchipped consoles I’m afraid they’ll take mine (the Wii) too, I suppose, so I got kind of scared the first time when I was asked to do that (at Chicago while arriving from Shanghai).
It’s ridiculous, plain and simple. If you’re worried about a portable dvd player, then why not an iPod for neferious control?
TSA makes rules that have no basis in common sense with no consistancy in application. I was actually told by a TSA guard in Wichita that the lack of consistancy was how they keep terrorist on edge.
Best security I’ve been through was Kansas City…on of the few places its privately run still.
I’ve traveled both with a laptop and a portable DVD player, and I want to say I always had to take it out of the case anyway.
What really puzzles me is why they’re once again allowing lighters on-board the aircraft. Am I the only one that finds that bizarre?
Along those lines, I had one TSA agent give me a hard time over my car keys (one of those huge-em keyless entry/alarm/remotes with the laser-cut flip-out key), but I’ve never had anyone look twice at my phone. I’ve also taken my portable ham radio transciever through security and I don’t think anyone has ever looked twice at that either.
It’s very much like the TSA arcade game.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik:
I thought an X-Box could only catch fire if plugged in?
Also if you keep it in the oven with your laptop.
@jlink7:
As long as there’s no pork and you pack your meat and dairy separately.
This has got to be the dumbest rule going. Ok, hands up, anyone have a bag with a laptop compartment that’s impervious to x-rays? I even asked a TSA agent why we have to do this, and he said, “I have no idea, I think it’s dumb, I just do it because it’s the rule.”
Chalk it up to yet another arbitrary rule that does absolutely nothing to make us safer. Like the whole liquid thing. If I wanted to sneak some sort of illicit liquid past the screening area, I’d travel with a small child. As long as I can make the liquid look like apple juice, I can carry a half gallon jug of the stuff. That’s what the rules on liquid state – you can carry juice for your child, and you won’t ask for it to be tasted. I’m not kidding, go to the tsa website and read it yourself – they don’t list any limits on quantity.
The TSA is run by idiots who are only interested in giving us the appearance of security.
I’ve wondered about this for a long time, since the time some goofy college kid in front of me carted his laptop and XBox through security.
My wife got delayed in line for her lip balm (mine escaped detection!) while the gamer went merrily on his way with a couple thousand dollars worth of electronics.
My theory on this rule is that the TSA just caught wind of the tale of Saddam buying up PS2′s to launch scuds a few years ago and is acting in their typical knee-jerk reactionist way.
Place your bets: How long before some mother gets busted sneaking 4 oz. of water in a sippy cup through by hiding it in an XBox case?
Last time I flew out of Philly and Dallas, they made us take out our “small electronics” too. Cell phones, cameras. Things I had packed neatly so they’d be safe from jiggles…
@LionelEHutz: Never had problems with the line staff but then I used to work at an airport. Management, like all management, usually was where the fun started.
Security is better but a lot of it was window-dressing and feel-good stuff.
Kip Hawley, head of the TSA, has already admitted to this kind of stuff being “security theater”.
I traveled internationally from Dulles with a PS2 and a small DVD player in my carry on. There was no problem go through, the TSA didn’t ask me to take anything out of my bag.