Don’t shut down your electronics; TSA may soon be checking your phone for bombs

Airport security is tightening up, again.

Passengers at some overseas airports that offer U.S.-bound flights will be required to power on their electronic devices in order to board their flights, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

American intelligence officials have been concerned about new al-Qaida efforts to produce a bomb that would go undetected through airport security.

“The way the bomb makers have been able to enhance the way they take down an aircraft is by using these kinds of devices (in electronics,) either as triggering devices or actually as the bomb itself,” U.S. Transportation expert Mark Rosenker told Seattle’s Morning News on KIRO Radio.

There is no indication that such a bomb has been created or that there is a specific threat to the U.S.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson recently ordered the TSA to call for extra security measures at some international airports with direct flights to the United States. TSA does not conduct screening abroad, but has the ability to set screening criteria and processes for flights flying to the U.S. from abroad.

Currently, travelers on domestic flights won’t experience the extra security measures, but Rosenker says, “It would not surprise me as we begin to see more intelligence in Africa, and as that intelligence matures, we may end up having to suffer through this process here in the United States.”

Travelers beware: Electronics that arrive at a security checkpoint without a charge could be confiscated.

“You’re in trouble when that happens,” says Roesenker. “If the device you want to use, whether it’s a laptop, or tablet, or your cell phone itself – if it is not carrying a charge, if it will not power on, that device will be taken from you and you will not be able to carry it on the airplane.”

TSA will not disclose which airports will be conducting the additional screening, although it will be at some airports with direct flights to the U.S. Industry data show that more than 250 foreign airports offer nonstop service to the U.S.

Aviation remains an attractive target to global terrorists, who are consistently looking for ways to circumvent aviation security measures, a Department of Homeland Security official said. Some details on specific enhancements and locations are sensitive because U.S. officials do not want to give information “to those who would do us harm,” the official said.

American intelligence officials said earlier this week that they have picked up indications that bomb makers from Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula have traveled to Syria to link up with the al-Qaida affiliate there.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula long has been fixated on bringing down airplanes with hidden explosives. It was behind failed and thwarted plots involving suicide bombers with explosives designed to be hidden inside underwear and explosives secreted inside printer cartridges shipped on cargo planes.

Over the past year, Americans and others from the West have traveled to Syria to join the fight against the Syrian government. The fear is that fighters with a U.S. or other Western passport, who therefore are subject to less stringent security screening, could carry such a bomb onto an American plane.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.