stateside
Well, I'm back home, or at least on the Dulles toll road. We landed almost an hour late, but the flight was mostly pleasant and uneventful. I did sit behind a human being with what may be the worst sense of taste I've ever encountered — and if you've ever heard one of my own full-throated defenses of the movie Predator, you know that's saying something.
But picture, if you will, an individual watching a DVD set of the NBC series Las Vegas on her laptop. I mean, it's one thing if you're sitting at home on a Saturday night, desperate to have Nicki Cox distract you from the crushing weight of existence. But to see someone pay for the privilege of taking that experience with them anywhere... Well, it was troubling, at the least. Then, when I saw that the laptop was sitting next to a Lonely Planet guide to Florida, I knew that that pleasant-seeming lady was utterly doomed.
(I know that I've got friends, family and maybe readers in Florida. But c'mon — you know what I'm talking about.)
ALSO: can anyone explain to me why TSA insists on cell phones being turned off while you're in the line for customs or waiting for your bags afterward? I can believe there may be a good reason, but like most air travel regulations on cellphones, I have a feeling it's mostly just capricious, officious rulemaking. What could they be worried about, anyway? Someone cheating on their answers to the customs officials? "He's asking me whether I brought back any fruit... I need an answer, quick!"
Comments
I confess I've never seen the show in question, but I recall that during its first season when I lived in L.A., many of my TV-writer friends were telling me that it was surprisingly fantastic. For what's it's worth.
It's officious rulemaking and it's BS, but it's not done out of caprice. It's a calculated method of reinforcing control.
"Peep this.
I meant this.
Yeah, for in-flight I've always heard that the explanation is the one left in comment 10: that cell towers on the ground weren't designed for customers traveling at 500 miles per hour. And I'm willing to believe that radio interference from a malfunctioning cell phone could possibly irritate pilots trying to use the radio -- although it's VERY unlikely. The ban on in-flight bluetooth is really assinine, though, particularly given the presence of wifi service on some flights. Same goes for the ban on electronics during takeoff and landing generally. Alitalia wouldn't let me use my gamebody *at all*! Anyway, it's dumb.
But I'm more specifically curious about why they ban it once you're off the plane, standing in line at customs, and presumably not likely to accidentally suck anybody out the window by sending an SMS.
And Sommer, I've seen a couple episodes of Las Vegas — I tend to get it mixed up with the slightly-more-awful Fox show about the hotel in Hawaii, since they seemed nearly identical. But I've definitely seen at least one or two episodes of a show about a hotel with James Caan and gambling in it. And it was definitely really, really bad.
Not that this makes it any better, or be any sort of explanation, but it's not the TSA - it's the ICE part of DHS, formerly known as the INS or la migra, that's keeping you from using the phone.
The only possible rationale I could come up with is that part of the screening process involves asking questions while they stamp your passport, so the ICE wouldn't want you to have someone feeding you answers. And then you're not allowed to have an active cell phone in line just to make their lives easier by not having them ask everyone to turn off their phones as they get to the front of the line, I suppose.
Interesting. The signs definitely attribute the directive to TSA, but I can believe that that's just for simplicity's sake. And yeah, I suspect that your last explanation is the real one: they don't want the distraction. There's no benefit to receiving your coaching over the phone while in line versus before getting on the plane, and I wouldn't expect them to be willing to do the customs interview while you were actually on the phone -- it's just the "no phones while in line" bit that I find mystifying.
This still leaves open the question of why, after you've cleared customs, you're not allowed to talk on the phone by the baggage claim. I wasn't originally aware that the directive extended that far, but one time I had a cop come up to me and tell me to hang up (or stop typing) as I waited for my bag to appear. Pretty stupid. Makes me wonder if there isn't some weird radio interference rationale going on there, as well.
Given the whole point of customs is scanning luggage, they're probably dosing us with all sorts of rays in there. Maybe the phone interferes with it somehow? Probably making us sterile, too.
TSA may be running some of the show, but once you cross the yellow line in passport services, it's uniformed ICE officers.
The end of this Wired article has a half-assed Q&A about cell interference, albeit on the planes themelves.
Though I'm sure it's more about control, but I'm thankful that I don't have to listen to people in the customs line talking on the phone, particularly older ones like my mother who doesn't know that text messaging exists. Think of how many jackasses you'd want to pummel with your cell phone if they could actually use it. Maybe it's a blessing?