Professor Irina D. Manta, director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law at Hofstra University (CIPL), published the op-ed “Why Banning Laptops From Airplane Cabins Doesn’t Make Sense” on The Conversation on May 16.
She co-wrote the piece with Professor Cassandra Burke Robertson of Case Western Reserve University.
The op-ed examines the merits of a ban on laptops and other large electronic devices in the passenger cabins of airplanes flying between Europe and the United States.
On May 17, the op-ed was republished on the websites of several other publications, among them:
• The Huffington Post, with the original headline
• International Business Times, with the headline “Is the Cost of an Expanded Laptop and Electronics Travel Ban Worth It?”
• Newsweek, with the headline “The U.S. Laptop Ban Doesn’t Make Sense”
• Scientific American, with the original headline
Excerpt:
Unfortunately, whether the benefits justify the costs is too often not the yardstick used by officials determining whether to pursue these types of policies. Instead, as law professors who have researched how the government’s travel policies affect civil liberties, we have found that it is more likely that political considerations motivate the adoption of restrictive policies, which in the end actually do little to protect citizens’ security.
Read the full op-ed on The Conversation’s website.