Still catching up on the news of the attempted airline terrorist attack from Christmas and this story really caught my eye:

Some airlines were telling passengers on Saturday that new government security regulations prohibit them from leaving their seats beginning an hour before landing

The regulations are a response to a suspected terrorism incident on Christmas Day.

Air Canada said in a statement that new rules imposed by the Transportation Security Administration limit on-board activities by passengers and crew in U.S. airspace. The airline said that during the final hour of flight passengers must remain seated. They won’t be allowed access to carryon baggage or to have any items on their laps.

Flight attendants on some domestic flights are informing passengers of similar rules. Passengers on a flight from New York to Tampa Saturday morning were also told they must remain in their seats and couldn’t have items in their laps, including laptops and pillows.

The TSA issued a security directive for U.S.-bound flights from overseas, according to a transportation security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

And this doesn’t even sum it up right. On This Week they were talking with Robert Gibbs and the new rule being looked at is that those on international flights can have no personal items in their laps. In a global economy, think of someone doing an 8 hour flight from New York to London wanting to get some work done on their laptop. Well no more. I guess we really can’t get on troubled companies having corporate jets because now they have a great excuse.

These changes won’t stop terrorism, maybe just reduce the chances a very little. We have constantly added in more stringent rules, yet Abdul Mudallad found a way around those new systems. Add more systems and it will pose a challenge to potential terrorists, but they will figure a way around it. The only solution I can think of is putting people to sleep, stripping them naked and locking them in tubes on the airplane. That will really kill air travel.

So what will these new rules do? Well it didn’t achieve the ultimate goal of killing a couple hundred innocent people, but it will get the second goal – hurting the economy. People won’t travel as much, and when they do they will look for other forms of travel more extensively before deciding to fly.