The United States has enacted another travel ban — this time for electronics.

A ban on electronic devices larger than smartphones on airplanes flying from 10 airports in eight countries into the U.S. officially went into effect on March 25. The devices, which include an exception for necessary medical equipment, must be placed in checked baggage so that they cannot be accessed during a flight, according to The New York Times.

U.S. officials said the ban was a counterterrorism measure based on intelligence that ISIS is developing the capability to hide bombs in laptop batteries, per The Times.

The policy will only affect flights that leave directly from eight countries: Egypt, UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Morocco.

The electronic devices must be checked in at the “point of origin” which means that if a passenger starts off traveling from New Delhi, India, but stops at one of the affected airports in Saudi Arabia and then flies to the U.S., they will have to check in their electronic devices in New Delhi, per Business Insider.

The ban specifically targets nine airlines: Egyptair, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Emirates Airline, Royal Air Maroc, Etihad Airways, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Kuwait Airways and Saudia.

The British government also instilled a similar ban right after the American one, but it targets different airlines from similar regions. The United Kingdom did not include specific threats in their reasoning for imposing a ban, per BBC News.

David Crane, professor of practice at Syracuse University’s College of Law, added it has been assessed that through these particular airlines coming from these particular countries, there is a possibility that a terrorist from a group like ISIS could hide a bomb within an electronic device and blow up a plane that’s headed into the U.S.

Crane said he doesn’t expect to see much backlash from the affected airlines. Even though they won’t be happy, they will comply because their market in the U.S. is too large and lucrative to risk losing, he said.

Similarly, relations with the affected countries probably won’t be hurt over the long term, Crane added, saying that at the end of the day, it’s difficult to argue against counterterrorism measures. He also said the ban will not likely be permanent, and that once the threat is no longer there, the ban will be lifted.

Crane doesn’t see the ban having a significant impact on U.S. air travel. He said that the ban won’t cause the airlines to incur any additional costs, and even if there were, the costs would be passed on to the passengers.

While he believes that President Trump has taken several countermeasures, Crane said he doesn’t think the large electronic devices ban should be linked to other bans, such as the executive order banning travel from several Muslim majority countries. The devices ban, he said, is a “smart, prudent” counterterrorism measure that other presidents would have been likely to put in place as well.

“Countermeasures move and are altered based on the threat. (The ban) could be effective,” he said.

Published on March 27, 2017 at 10:45 pm

Contact Sandhya: ssiyer@syr.edu